Jane Pederson, director of human resources planning at Canadian Pacific Ltd., says part of the problem is that those recruiting for boards don't know where to look for qualified directors who are women. So Canadian Pacific, which has two women on its 13-member board of directors, is part of an admirable project that is compiling a database of women executives with the specific skills that corporate boards are seeking. It's a way for the two solitudes to find each other, albeit in a petri dish rather than organically. It doesn't say much for male executives that they really need an executive dating service to find a woman they can live with on their board. It's a generation thing.
Men are welcome everywhere, women go where they are welcome.
She recently heard from a woman who was headhunted for a lucrative job in an engineering consulting firm. She would have been the only senior woman there. Her final interview was with the CEO, who dismissed her questions about all-male managers. He had three young daughters himself, he pointed out. Not a problem.