Women still a minority at Davos economic talks

Sheryl Sandberg lingered on stage last week in Davos, Switzerland, after leading a panel on "Women as the Way Forward" and found herself surrounded by a dozen fans - all save one of them female.

Sandberg, the 42-year-old chief operating officer of Facebook Inc., accepted business cards and chatted with those seeking her attention. The cochair of the World Economic Forum and her devotees that day constituted what was probably the most female-heavy gathering at Davos.

At a five-day meeting that was more than 80 percent populated by men, women often were a minority of one on panels or not represented at all. Sandberg was one of six cochairs of the forum; the rest were men. Panels on the future of banking, energy supplies, international finance, and global risks were among those with no women except moderators, even with a forum theme of "The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models."

"I'm disappointed," said Manju George, 29, one of three female cofounders of Intellecap, a consulting firm based in Hyderabad, India. "You would expect the conversation to move forward. What I like is that the debate is engaging. What I don't like is that there appear to be no commitments being made."

Private meetings

Females also were hard to find at many of the private gatherings aimed at shaping the future of the world's leading industries. One example was a brainstorming session among 25 chief executive officers in the health-care industry held Thursday at the Hotel Seehof's Stuebli restaurant. There, Mary Tolan was reminded how much of a minority women in business still are.

Tolan, the founder and chief executive of Accretive Health Inc., a Chicago-based health-care-services provider, was the only woman around the table. There were others in the room - sitting on the sidelines, listening in, because they were not the companies' top executives.

"I expected to see some women because health care is more diverse" than other industries, such as financial services, Tolan said. "It made me make a mental note.

"The forum is about the diversity of ideas and backgrounds, so women in CEO positions should be encouraged to participate," she said in an interview. "Everyone is talking about human capital, with companies at 50-50 hiring of women/men in entry-level jobs, but years later you wonder, where have all the women gone?"

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