Internet companies CMGI, DoubleClick, E*Trade, Yahoo, RealNetworks and WebMD are among the companies that have no women on their boards, and women account for only one in twenty board members of leading internet companies, according to research.
AMC Entertainment, Ameritrade, Clear Channel, CNET Networks, Freemarkets and Knight Trading Group also lack women board members.
The exception is eBay, which has a female president and chief executive, Margaret Whitman.
Whitman was the only female CEO among the 757 executives in the study, which was conducted by the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center.
Only 16% of the executives in the largest internet companies were women and Alltel, Fox Entertainment Group, Knight Trading Group, USA Networks and WorldCom have no women executives.
Among top executives, only 10% of the media and telecommunication leaders are women, although the number is higher for internet companies, where 20% of the top executives are female.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center and Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication, said even the newest media conglomerates and high tech companies reflect old attitudes in their executive suites.
‘Women are rarely represented among top executives and boards of directors of media, telecommunications and e-companies, even as these same companies compete fiercely for female viewers and users at home and at work,’ Jamieson said.
The study, which examined the 2001 annual reports of communications companies from the entertainment, publishing and telecommunications markets, was compiled using data from company websites, annual reports, the Directory of Corporate Affiliations and Hoover’s Profiles of Companies.