Another Crack in the Glass Ceiling

Wall Street may have problems keeping its top women executives, as illustrated by the reported departure of Sallie Krawcheck from Citigroup. But the rest of corporate America appears to be doing a better job.

DuPont has named Ellen Kullman chief executive effective on January 1, replacing Charles Holliday, who has been C.E.O. since 1998.

She is the 19th executive to lead the chemical giant in its 206-year history. Kullman, 52, has been executive vice president, with responsibility for four of DuPont's five business segments.

As head of one of the country's biggest corporations, Kullman joins a club of women C.E.O.'s that includes:

Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo

Anne Mulcahy, Xerox

Patricia Woertz, Archer-Daniels-Midland

Irene Rosenfeld, Kraft Foods

Angela Braly, Wellpoint

Andrea Jung, Avon Products.

Still, more needs to be done. Women hold only 16 percent of the top jobs in the C-suites of the largest companies in the United States, a 2007 survey by the New York-based research group Catalyst found.

And as Harriet Rubin detailed in the April issue of Conde´ Nast Portfolio there have been signs of backsliding. " Key indicators such as pay, board seats, and corporate-officer posts all reflect a leveling off or drop in recent years," she says.

by Jeffrey Cane

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