Alliant Energy Recognized for Achieving Target Female Board Representation

Alliant Energy recognized for achieving target female board representation

A report in HuffPost in early 2015 claimed that 37 of the companies on the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 stock index, including Tesla Motors, Priceline and Comcast, have just one woman on the board. Eight other companies have no women at all, their analysis said, and not a single company with at least 50 percent women on their board.

These numbers have been a cause for concern in the past year with Fortune analysis which found that most of the largest, most celebrated and powerful startups had no women on their boards. That list included Uber, Snapchat, Airbnb among other startups approaching household-name status.

Interestingly, Harvard Business Review suggest that at least three women must be a part of a board without their contributions being seen as gender biased. Only 76 companies had achieved that number in 2005.

However discouraging these reports may seem, at April Now we are happy to share stories of companies such as Alliant Energy,  which has a representation of 50 percent women on its board. Alliant Energy and Alliant Energy Chairman, President and CEO Patricia Kampling were recognized by the Women's Forum of New York at the third biennial Breakfast of Corporate Champions for their achievement.

And with Latest Catalyst Companies Bottom Line Report stating that companies with the highest representation of women board directors attain significantly higher financial performance, we look forward to more female representation boards across nations.