Why Women Aren’t C.E.O.s, According to Women Who Almost Were<br />“I said, ‘70 percent of the seats go to white men.’ ”<br />Yet many women work in companies with public commitments to diversity<br />and clear policies against discrimination, with many men who sincerely believe they want women to advance.<br />In a Korn Ferry survey in April of 786 male and female senior executives, 43 percent said they thought<br />that continued bias against women as chief executives was the primary reason more women did not make it to the top in their own companies — and 33 percent thought women in their firms were not given sufficient opportunities to become leaders.<br />Early in her career, she said, “My biggest Achilles’ heel was my own confidence in myself<br />and my ability to accomplish a task that seemed giant and daunting and scary.”<br />Dina Dublon, who retired in 2004 as chief financial officer of JPMorgan Chase, said male colleagues sometimes told her they were reluctant to have<br />dinner or drinks with female subordinates — important bonding activities in the corporate world — because it might be seen as flirtatious.<br />You whip the ball, and if it happens to knock somebody on the head, so what?’<br />And my husband said, ‘Why the hell did you help him get his job two years ago?’ ”<br />Her turning point came when she was outmaneuvered by male colleagues during a corporate reorganization.
