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This article originally appeared in the March '06 issue of DiversityInc magazine.  

Women of color remain nearly invisible among the managerial ranks of most of corporate America, reinforcing a long history of neglect that threatens companies' abilities to compete. There are exceptions, industries and companies where women of color have begun to be valued. But they remain the exceptions.

Although many companies point to increasing gender diversity in their leadership ranks, white women by far have been the largest beneficiaries of the women's-equality movement of the 1960s. That movement traveled a parallel path with the civil-rights struggle, but the two rarely intersected, often leaving black, Latina and Asian women on the sidelines of progress.

Their representation in corporate management is significantly below their increasing share of the U.S. population. This dire situation is worse for Native American women, whose low numbers often don't allow them to be measured against other groups.

As with diversity management overall, a few industries have begun to recognize the need to significantly improve representation of women of color in their leadership. To see where the beginnings of real parity for women of color exist, we compared the companies on The 2005 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity list by industry for representation of women of color in management. We also looked at retention, promotion and compensation rates.

We examined 11 industries that had the highest participation rates in the Top 50: hospitality, financial services, telecommunications, health, technology, retail, professional services, insurance, media, consumer products and auto. The results showed significant differences. Remember, these are the best of the best, so they are the ones leading others in their industries and in corporate America.

We found that, overall, the top industry for all women of color in management these days—and Latinas in particular—is hospitality, while for black women in management, telecoms are best. For Asian-American women, professional services, such as accounting and law firms, had the best numbers.

Interestingly, the financial-services industry, known for its innovative efforts to recruit and retain women managers, is not strong for women of color, which we will explore shortly. First let's look at the strongest industries for women of color.

Hospitality Industry

Hospitality represented the rare industry in which black, Latina and Asian women's numbers all are rising. This industry scored highest for Latinas, who comprise 8.7 percent of all managers and 7.4 percent of the top 10 percent highest-paid employees.

The most impressive number for hospitality, however, was for black women in the highest ranks—CEOs and direct reports—at 24.8 percent. This makes the ratio of black women in the Top 50 hospitality-industry work force versus this top level of management 1-to-1, the same ratio white women have. It demonstrates a rapid and remarkable change in an industry where people of color couldn't even get a room a generation ago.

Priscilla Hollman, vice president, diversity relations, Marriott International, No. 12 on the 2005 Top 50 list, started in the industry 21 years ago as a housekeeping manager. She impressed her supervisors with her ability to work with different people. Her confidence, talent and hard work drew managerial opportunities, which sometimes required her to travel 80 percent of the time.

Since 1995, she's held her current position, where she is responsible for developing and promoting relationships with minority groups key to Marriott's business goals.

"It is not a sprint," Hollman says of the advance of women managers of color. "It is clearly a marathon."

Despite the industry's success, Hollman says the hospitality companies should commit to a specified industrywide goal of advancing women of color to high management positions.

"I clearly believe our industry has more work to do," Hollman says. "[The industry] should have a goal and believe in our goal that everybody is represented at all levels, and that is not the case in our industry at the very top level."

The numbers support her contention. The ratio of Latinas in the hospitality-industry work force versus top-level management was 7.8-1. For Asian-American women, it was 3-1.

Telecommunications Industry

Government mandates early on created opportunities for women of color in telecoms, when the industry largely was a monopoly known as AT&T. The baby bells that spawned from AT&T after deregulation, as well as new telecom companies, created an arena where companies strived for a competitive edge that resulted in proactive efforts to recruit and retain women of color with an understanding that they reflected a growing market.

Telecoms ranked as the top industry overall for black women in management, who represented 18.1 percent of all managers.

Brenda Lowe credits a two- to three-decade-old pipeline that has given black women time to advance to management positions and serve as mentors for others in the industry. Lowe, public-policy chair of the National Association of Black Telecom Professionals, spent 21 years in the industry, with her last position with Sprint, No. 37 in the 2005 Top 50.

She credits affirmative action for creating opportunities, and the industry and competition for establishing training programs and encouraging black women to advance. Lowe also notes that black women have honed good communication skills, understanding this as a key tenet to excel in corporate America. The telecom industry, with its strong reliance on communication, was a natural draw for black women.

"As the competition has accelerated, so has the need to market in different ways and provide services in different ways," Lowe says.

Lowe remains concerned about the industry's commitment to women of color. Her 15-year-old organization counted 10,000 members when it first started, but layoffs have cut that to fewer than 1,500. She also worries how an industry that has faced economic turmoil in the last several years will react in a political climate that is not as favorable to affirmative action.

"As affirmative action is no longer the popular thing to do, and with all the competition and convergence going on in the industry, we're concerned those people who benefited early on would hit retirement age," Lowe says. "Would the pipeline still be open for people of color coming into the industry?"

Professional Services

About the only position left for Hae Young Kim to aspire to at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is CEO. The native South Korean has been with the company, one of DiversityInc's 25 Noteworthy Companies, since 1994 and made partner last year. Before that, she had served as a senior manager since 2000 and has a total of 15 years in the industry.

Despite suggestions by some that she was at times "too quiet," she always found supporters who valued her talents first and foremost. Women mentors were not available as Kim rose through the ranks, but the white men who served as her mentors were key in helping her. She sees herself as a role model for other Asian women.

"I've always had someone who has supported my ability to get the things done," Kim says.

PwC is indicative of companies in an industry where in Top 50 companies, Asian women make up 15.4 percent of all managers. Yet even with Kim's success, she believes many Asian women leave corporate America because they lose hope of advancing.

Bonnie Wong, president of Asian Women in Business, says Asian-American women might find it difficult to accept corporate values different from their cultural values.

"Parents teach you not to be confrontational and aggressive, and those are skills corporate America likes to see," Wong says.

Technology Industry

Jacqueline Denny describes her 30 years with Xerox, No. 7 on the Top 50 list, as a positive experience where a technology company valued diversity before it became fashionable. But even progressive companies can stray in ensuring opportunities for people of color, especially through financial turmoil when management is focused on survival.

Denny, an account general manager who reports to a vice president, recounts the CEO meeting with black employees in Los Angeles 30 years ago when they expressed a lack of promotion opportunities. The CEO agreed and created a black caucus group. About 17 years ago, black-women employees asked to meet with another CEO out of concern that they were not getting the same opportunities as men and white women, and out of that was formed the Black Women's Leadership Council (BWLC).

Although Denny noted "tremendous progress," in the early 1990s, the BWLC grew concerned when senior black women started leaving the company in the past five to seven years as it faced financial problems. This had a negative effect on black women who stayed, something Denny was not sure the company fully appreciated.

Denny, who is president of BWLC, joined with two of her senior advisers in the group and met with current CEO Anne Mulcahy last year. They praised her for putting the focus back on diversity. "I think it says a lot when a group of employees have a concern and are able to bring it to their senior management," Denny says.

Even with these positive results for black women in technology companies on the Top 50 list, where they represent 12.3 percent of all women managers and 17.6 percent of CEOs and direct reports, Denny points out that most technology companies are not as progressive when it comes to diversity. She has seen very few black women at these technology conferences, meetings and seminars. The few high-level black women she does meet often comment that they are the only black women at their level and express surprise that there are black women in leadership positions at Xerox.

"What I have seen or heard from other black women, in a lot of cases, is they are the only ones in the organization," Denny says, noting Ursula Burns, a black-woman engineer who is president of Xerox Business Group Operations, the company's largest division. "When you look up and see people like Ursula Burns, you say, 'Wow.' She came in as an engineer and was able to move up in the company."

Denny also points out the importance of active mentoring. As president of the BWLC, she has called senior-level officers on behalf of black women interested in new opportunities. The group's efforts are necessary because women, even today, deal with the "double outsider" status where they are both black and female.

IBM, No. 29 on the 2004 Top 50 list, has been a nurturing place for women of color to advance. Sandra K. Johnson, a black senior technical staff member and chief technology officer, Global Small & Medium Business, and Maria Hernandez, IBM's director of business resiliency and security solutions, both of IBM's Systems & Technology Group, On Demand Business, epitomize how IBM values these leaders as imperative to reaching their global market.

The long-term solution for increasing women-of-color leaders in technology is to address the very low numbers of girls in school who study math and science. Digest of Education statistics show that in college, only 35 percent of women take math/science classes, compared with 65 percent of men. Johnson and Hernandez symbolize the potential for girls who are persistent and are encouraged to study math and science throughout high school and college.

"I think as we move forward in technology, the industry recognizes the pool of customers is very diverse," Johnson says. "There is a movement in this industry to look at and encourage people from diverse backgrounds. When you have a group of people with very different backgrounds, you will end up with better solutions."

Hernandez—who started a mentoring network for Latino men and women inside IBM and an Internet network for Latinas all across corporate America called Madrinas—doesn't see any one industry that "stands out" in being better for women of color. But she says the technology industry's need to always adapt presents a great opportunity to move up.

"You need those people who have different perspectives to come to the table and really make our products and innovations come together," Hernandez says. "Diversity of thought is what we need."

Financial Services: What Went Wrong

The financial-services industry, long touted for providing women with management opportunities, is great for white women but falls way short for women of color. Alma Morales Riojas interacts with corporate America as chairwoman of the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility and president and CEO of MANA, a national Latina organization. She offers a dim picture of an industry where women of color, and specifically Latinas, have few opportunities in middle- and higher-management positions.

Riojas points out that many qualified Latinas battle stereotypes that they are too "nice" to deal with in the intense environment. Some must battle antiquated notions that Latinas are not proficient in math and finance. This lack of opportunities has motivated Latinas to start their own businesses where they can focus their creative energy and not worry about fighting stereotypes.

When corporate America thinks diversity, it envisions men of color many times. Women of color in the financial-services industry, and especially Latinas, are further relegated to the bottom rung of the corporate ladder, left to stare up at white women advancing as managers, Riojas says.

"It means going outside the lines you have drawn in the past," she says, in urging industries to reward women of color.

The ratio of women in the work force when compared to top women managers (CEO and direct reports) from the 2005 DiversityInc Top 50 companies shows the disparities in the financial-services industry. For every 4.4 black women in the work force, there was one black top woman manager. For Latinas, the ratios were 6.2-to-1, and for Asian Americans, 5-to-1. The ratio of white women in the work force versus top management was 1-to-1.

Andrea Matos, a vice president of JPMorgan FCS, a Dallas subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase, No. 25 on the 2005 Top 50 list, has spent 10 years in the industry and wonders why more women of color aren't advancing to higher management positions.

"When you look below and see lots of women of color, that gets you to asking a few questions," Matos says. "Is it because there aren't opportunities or that they are not willing to make the trade-off?"

But making trade-offs also applies to white women who don't seem to have as much difficulty rising to higher-management positions. One difference might be the exclusion from some "unofficial networks that keeps them moving forward," Matos says.

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