Read the HBR In Brief -by Herminia Ibarra, Nancy M. Carter, and Christine Silva

Are women as likely as men to get mentoring? Yes.
As companies continue to see their pipelines leak at mid-to-senior levels even though they’ve invested considerable time and resources in mentors and developmental opportunities, they are actively searching for ways to retain their best female talent. In a 2010 World Economic Forum report on corporate practices for gender diversity in 20 countries, 59% of the companies surveyed say they offer internally led mentoring and networking programs, and 28% say they have women-specific programs. But does all this effort translate into actual promotions and appointments for both sexes?

Does mentoring provide the same career benefits to men and women? No. The numbers suggest not. A 2008 Catalyst survey of more than 4,000 full-time-employed men and women—high potentials who graduated from top MBA programs worldwide from 1996 to 2007—shows that the women are paid $4,600 less in their first post-MBA jobs, occupy lower-level management positions, and have significantly less career satisfaction than their male counterparts with the same education. If the women are being mentored so thoroughly, why aren’t they moving into higher management positions?

Do men and women have the same kinds of mentors? No. (All mentoring is not created equal, we discovered. There is a special kind of relationship—called sponsorship—in which the mentor goes beyond giving feedback and advice and uses his or her influence with senior executives to advocate for the mentee. Our interviews and surveys alike suggest that high-potential women are overmentored and undersponsored relative to their male peers—and that they are not advancing in their organizations. Furthermore, without sponsorship, women not only are less likely than men to be appointed to top roles but may also be more reluctant to go for them.

Why Mentoring Fails Women
Although more women than men in the 2008 Catalyst survey report having mentors, the women’s mentors have less organizational clout. We find this to be true even after controlling for the fact that women start in lower-level positions post-MBA. That’s a real disadvantage, the study shows, because the more senior the mentor, the faster the mentee’s career advancement. Despite all the effort that has gone into developing the women since 2008, the follow-up survey in 2010 reveals that the men have received 15% more promotions.

Does having formal versus informal mentoring make any difference in terms of promotions? Yes.

Does mentoring provide the same career benefits to men and women? NoAmong survey participants who had active mentoring relationships in 2008, fully 72% of the men had received one or more promotions by 2010, compared with 65% of the women.

Does having formal versus informal mentoring make any difference in terms of promotions? Yes
Women who had found mentors through formal programs had received more promotions by 2010 than women who had found mentors on their own (by a ratio of almost three to two).

ASOCIA Group is a top-tier information technology consulting and staffing firm recognized as one of the top ten diversity businesses in the U.S. in 2010. ASOCIA Group is a woman-owned enterprise (WBE) certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC). www.asociagroup.com/WBENC

WITI (Women In Technology International), the world’s leading professional organization for executive women in technology, will truly inspire “Collaboration, Strategy and Growth” through hands on speaking engagements and panel discussions at the Annual WITI Women and Technology Summit in San Jose, CA September 12-14, 2010.

Top technology leaders from Clean Tech, Mobile, Search, Cloud, Social Media, and Business teach WITI Summit attendees how to capture and target more customers, build stronger relationships with existing customers and take advantage of the applications and tools to build a stronger web presence, increase revenue and streamline costs for their companies.

WITI represents the ideal market for business Networking - CIO’s, executive women and men as well as leaders in technology from around the world converge at WITI’s Annual Women and Technology Summit to discuss and collaborate on innovative solutions to common business challenges, and explore new business opportunities.

Speakers and Panelists will Include

Sandy Carter, Vice President, Software Business Partners, IBM
Nilofer Merchant,Entrepreneur,CEO & Chief Strategist, Rubicon Consulting
Kathy Chou, VP, PSG Americas Sales Strategy & Operations, Hewlett Packard
Bernadette Nixon, Senior Vice President, Global Field Marketing, CA
Bernard Golden, CEO, HyperStratus
Sally Jenkins, Vice President, Worldwide Marketing, Symantec
Vanessa Alvarez, Industry Analyst, Frost & Sullivan
Ghennipher Weeks, Co-Founder, Applied Connectioneering, Inc

Click Here for a Complete Schedule of Events!

ASOCIA Group is a top-tier provider of information technology consulting, staffing and executive search services to clients nationwide. ASOCIA is a woman-owned enterprise(WBE) certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC). www.asociagroup.com/WBENC

Denise Coyne is a 28-year veteran of oil giant Chevron and has been one of its CIOs for the past two years. She’s also one of the few female CIOs at big companies. Forbes caught up with Coyne to discuss her career and challenges facing women in IT.

Forbes: What are some of the challenges that you’ve faced as one of the few female CIOs of a major corporation?

Denise Coyne: Actually, I think that it’s the same kind of challenges that any woman in business faces, especially starting when I did. But I think, in some ways, it was a little easier for me. I grew up in a military family. And the military is a very male-dominated, hierarchical kind of organization, just like Chevron was when I started. So I would say, when I started, I was usually the only woman in any meeting. Now, probably half the meeting is women.

Being focused on what you want and determined–not letting things overwhelm you, but just keep going–is one of the major ways you stay focused and get ahead.

Why aren’t there more women in CIO roles at companies?
I think the CIO role is a very demanding role. And trying to balance all of the different family, children, extracurricular activities in your life with work is a tough juggle. So I think that’s one of the reasons that people come to points in their life when they have to make a decision, “Is it going to be work or is it going to be something else?”

What made you aspire to be a CIO?
I always like to say that I took the circuitous route through life. My undergraduate degree is in criminology, but I wrote a paper on police use of data banks and information. I went back to school and got my master’s in business administration and got a marketing job with IBM. And they trained me in information technology.

From there, I went into Chevron. And an early mentor of mine basically said, “Denise, if you want to be a top executive, keep that focus and determination on that, and then plot your career, but be willing to be really flexible. If you come to a roadblock, know that you can take a sidestep; know that you can take a lateral. Maybe you need to take a lateral to get more breadth to prepare yourself to have that broad perspective for a top job.” And I think that I’ve done that.

What advice would you give to women who are interested in becoming a CIO and advancing their careers in IT?

I actually mentor quite a few young women that we hire into Chevron. And I tell them the same thing: Ask for what you want. If you think, “I’m working really hard; why isn’t anyone noticing me,” that’s the wrong thing. But if you’re putting it out there, “I want the next promotion. I want more responsibility. I want more challenge,” I think it’s amazing the kind of things that come to you.

Are there any things that you wish you had known more about the CIO job before stepping into it? And how would you have prepared differently?

Making sure that you have a core of self confidence walking into meetings is critical. So, being very clear on your personal values, on your personal beliefs, on your beliefs about the company and the direction of the company is a way to prepare yourself to act confidently in those meetings.

www.forbes.com Full article courtesy of Forbes.

Asocia Group is a woman-owned(WBE) enterprise certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council(WBENC). www.asociagroup.com/WBENC.

Asocia Group provides information technololgy consulting, staffing and executive search services to clients nationwide and was ranked as one of top ten diversity businesses in the US in 2009. In 2010, Asocia Group launched S.W.I.T., an organization to help create more executive-level career opportunities for women in technology.

Asocia Executive Search is a division that specializes in retained executive search for CIO positions.

ASOCIA Healthcare’s Executive Search Division, based in Atlanta, Georgia, is a nationally recognized leader among retained Healthcare executive recruiting firms. Our firm has developed a successful national Healthcare executive recruiting practice with direct access and strong businesses relationships with corporate board members, senior executives and top performing senior managers throughout these Healthcare segments:

• Financial Services
• Hospital Vendors and Outsourced Solution Providers
• Insurance & Managed Care
• Medical Technology & Device
• Providers - Hospitals, Health Systems & IDNs
• Specialized Healthcare Services
• Turnaround & Corporate Restructuring Organizations
• Venture Capital, Private Equity & Leverage Buyout Investment Firms

Our Healthcare executive recruiting clients include Fortune 500, Fortune 100 and Fortune 25 businesses, mid-cap growth companies, Private Equity and Leverage Buyout firms and related portfolio companies, turnaround and restructuring firms and entrepreneurial Venture-Capital start-ups.

About Asocia Healthcare
Asocia Healthcare, a subsidiary of Asocia Group, LLC, is a full-service healthcare consulting, staffing and medical products provider to hospitals and medical facilities nationwide. Asocia Healthcare’s services and products include: healthcare information technology and medical consulting and staffing services; medical products and devices. www.asociahealthcare.com.

Asocia Group is a top-tier information technology consulting, staffing and executive search services provider focused in the commercial, government and healthcare sectors. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Asocia provides services to clients nationwide. Asocia was ranked as one of the nation’s top 500 diversity businesses in 2009 by Diversitybusiness.com. www.asociagroup.com.

Asocia Group is a minority- and woman-owned organization certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC).

For additional information, please contact:

Media Contact
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Fast Company’s List of the Most Influential Women In Technology 2010 is impressive to say the least. Here is a list of the top women arranged by categories.

The Executives: Susan Lyne, CEO Gilt Group; Julie Lee, SVP Vevo; Sheryl Sanbert ,COO Facebook; Ursula Burns, CEO Xerox, Rebecca Parson, CTO Thoughtworks, Virginia Rometty, SVP IBM; Ann Livermore, VP HP; Carol Bartz, CEO Yahoo, Teresa Carlson, VP of Microsofts US Federal Business, Genevieve Bell, Director User Experience Intel, Marissa Mayer, VP Google, Judy McGrath, CEO MTV.

The Activists: Shela Krumholz, Executive Director Center for Responsive Politics; Ellen Miller, Cofounder Sunlight Foundation; Leslie Harris, CEO Center for Democracy; Lelia Chirayath Janah, Founder Samasource; Jessica Jackley, Founder Kiva; Cheryl Contee, Founder Fission Strategy, Sarah Durham, Founder Big Duck; Gwen Bell, Social Media Guru.

The Media: Allison Lewis, Creative Innovator Switch Craft; Darlene Liebman, Cofounder and Vice President of Production Howcast Studios, Laura Brunow Miner, Founder Pictory, Elizabeth Spiers, Media Consultant The Cut; Pim Techamuanvivit, Food Blogger; Lisa Stone, Cofounder BlogHer, Liza Sabater, Publisher Daily Gotham and Culture Kitchen; Meredith Artley, Managing Editor CNN.com.

The Entrepreneurs: Jen Bekman, Founder 20×200; Clara Shih, Founder Hearsay Labs, Tina Sharkey, President and CEO BabyCenter, Claire Boonstra, Cofounder Layar, Danae Ringelmann, Cofounder IndieGoGo, Sam Reich-Dagnen, Cofounder Braincandy; Tan Le, Founder and President Emotiv; Caterina Fake, Cofounder Hunch

The Evangelists: Shireen Mitchell, Founder Digital Sisters; Shaherose Charania and Angie Chang, Founders Women 2.0; Allyson Kapin, Founder Women Who Tech; Molly Holzschlag, Web Standards Advocate; Debbie Weil, Corporate Blogging Expert; Cindy Padnos, Founder Illuminate Ventures, Addison Berry, Document Team Lead Drupal; Susan Scrupski, Founder and CEO 2.0 Adoption Council; Pamela Jones, Founder Groklaw, Laura Fitton, Founder OneForty; Gina Trapani, Project Director Expert Labs.

The Gamers: Susan Wu, Cofounder and CEO Ohai; Jane McGonigal, Director of Games Research & Development Institute for the Future; Lucy Bradshaw, Electronic Arts, Nicole Lazzaro, Founder XEO Design; Shinyoung Park, Founder Funji, Kate Connally, VP Addicting Games; Annie Chang, Cofounder and Head of Products LoLapps, Trina Schwimmer, Founder GamingAngels, Sara de Freitas, Director of Research Serious Games.

The Braniacs: Elizabeth Stark, Cofounder Open Video Alliance, Sheila Campbell, Head of the General Service Administration’s Web Best Practices Team, GSA’s USA.gov, Melissa Hathway, Cybersecurity Expert; Jayne Poynter, Cofounder Paragon Space Dev Corp; Amber Case, Cyborg Anthropologist; Fernanda Viegas, Cofounder Flowing Media; Robin Murphy, Professor of Computer Science and Engineering Texas A&M University; Jill Tarter, Director SETI; Maria Alovert, Biodiesel Advocate; Alexis Ringwald, Cofounder Valence Energy Corp

ASOCIA Group would like to congratulate these amazing women for their great contributions and leadership in technology.

ASOCIA Group is a woman-owned enterprise(WBE) certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC).www.asociagroup.com/WBENC.

ASOCIA Group is top-tier information technology consulting, staffing and executive search firm.

Full article at Fast Company

America’s leading economic advocate for women begins aggressive Georgia activities to support women’s businesses and fuel revenue growth.

In light of troubling new data which shows Georgia women-owned businesses revenues-based market share dropped over the last decade, the U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce announced strong new activities in Georgia to significantly increase women’s business revenues. The kick-off of these activities will begin in Atlanta on Tuesday, August 17th 2010.

The U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce™ report titled; “Women’s Businesses Struggle for Market Share,” finds, during a decade of strong growth in the number of women-owned firms, U.S. women’s revenue-based market share shrank ten percent.

USWCC | Two Reports from USWCC | 360 on Vimeo.

Newly released data from the Preliminary Estimates of Business Ownership by Gender, Ethnicity, Race and Veteran Status: 2007, from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2007 Survey of Business Owners alarmingly finds, even though the number of U.S. women’s business grew 44% between 1997 and 2007, our already small revenues-based market share declined over 10% – dropping from 4.41% in 1997 to 3.95% in 2007. And, even though the number of Georgia women-owned firms nearly doubled between 1997 and 2007, and even though women owned over 30% of all firms in Georgia, the revenues-based market share for Georgia women-owned firms declined from 4.35% to 4.28%.

“Georgia women own over two hundred seventy-eight thousand firms (30.86% of all Georgia firms), but secure only 4.38% of all revenues. Across the United States, women own over 7.8M firms, (28.75% of all firms in the U.S.) but secure only 3.95% of all revenues. The opportunity loss and unrewarded risk, loss of job creation, market demand, tax revenues, and potential retirement assets greatly impacts America’s financial future,” says U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce CEO, Margot Dorfman.

“The media hype about the growth of women’s businesses continues to emphasize the number of women-owned firms, rather than our grossly stunted financial success,” continues Dorfman. “This report highlights the growth challenges women business owners face and the opportunity loss our country experiences as we fail to support women as entrepreneurs and business leaders. One third of all businesses – a huge segment of our total business base – are declining instead of growing. We cannot afford to not help women business owners.”

The U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce | Georgia Economic Council is beginning aggressive activities to bring improvement to the revenue growth of Georgia women-owned firms. “We’re taking Georgia women to the heart of economic development, to the sources of business funding, and to the mainstream business marketplace to turn the tide and bring new revenue and market share growth,” says Dorfman.
The U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce finds failure to access affordable capital, failure to access markets, and segregation from mainstream business development and leadership have contributed to the failure of women’s businesses to achieve acceptable market share growth and has contributed to America’s economic decline.

The USWCC has provided a full report to Congress with a detailed list of recommendations and is initiating aggressive regional activities to support women’s businesses and fuel revenue growth.

MEETINGS: Atlanta - August 17, 2010 from 1:30 pm to 4:00 pm at Centergy Building 75 – 5th St., NW, 3rd floor Hodges Room Atlanta, GA 30308. Virtual Meeting/Webinar (for those unable to attend in person) – August 18th 2010 from 1 - 2:30 pm. Registration is complimentary; details available at http://www.uswcc.org or by calling 888-418-7922.

Georgia women and community leaders interested in supporting women’s business revenue growth are encouraged to contact the chamber through the USWCC web portal (http://www.uswcc.org) or by calling 888-418-7922.

Asocia Group, a leading information technology and staffing services provider, is a woman-owned enterprise(WBE) certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council(WBENC) since 2007. www.asociagroup.com/WBENC. Asocia Group’s headquarters are in Atlanta, GA.
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The InterOrganization Network (ION) recently released its annual Report on the Status of U.S. Women Directors and Executive Officers and, as has been the case for the past six years the study has been conducted, the results aren’t much to be excited about. Or, as ION more optimistically states, the findings illustrate a “bleak landscape ripe for change.”

The Numbers

ION has 14 regions that are represented by their member organizations, these include: California, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Florida, Georgia, Kansas City, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Philadelphia, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. In these regions, women were found to hold between 7.6 and 17.8 percent of board seats in the nearly 2,000 companies included in the study.

In Fortune 500 companies located in the 14 regions, women hold between 12 and 19.5 percent of all board seats, while in Fortune 501 to 1000 companies, women hold between 6.3 and 18 percent of all seats.

Often with the results, the bad outweighs the good. For example, companies with boards on which women comprise 25 percent or more range between 1.4 and 21 percent. However, the percentages of companies that have no women directors range between 11 and 55 percent. And women of color have even less representation. ION’s 14 member organizations report that women of color hold between 0.8 and 3.6 percent of the board seats of companies in their respective research pools. It was also found that between 32 and 70 percent of the companies surveyed have no women in their executive suites and between 60 and 78.1 percent of companies surveyed don’t have a single woman among their highest paid executives.

A new addition to this year’s study is a “Guys Who Get It” segment, which features 11 male business leaders who, according to ION, “understand the value of diversity at the top.” Some of the men include Douglas Conant, President and CEO, Campbell Soup Company, Eric Foss, CEO, Pepsi Beverages Company, and John W. Rogers, Jr., Chairman, CEO and Chief Investment Officer, Ariel Investments, among others. All of the companies represented by these men demonstrate a clear understanding of the business case for diverse leadership by aiming for increased diversity in the C?suite and on boards of directors.

The Business Case for Diversity

According to Rona Wells, ION’s outgoing president, who has been with the organization in some capacity since its inception in 2004, the men included in this year’s report understand that the business case for diversity is key. “Some of the most important information to come out of this study is not stated, but implied,” Wells said. “When you read over the information and think about the findings, you’ll reach the conclusion that diversity is a business issue, not a social one. The interviews with the male CEO’s illustrate that; they’re using diversity to impact business results. I do believe that many feel diversity is a social issue; they simply get caught up in the urgency of the day-to-day politics of business.”

A five-year study conducted by the non-profit group Business Opportunities for Leadership Diversity (BOLD) states that during the 1990’s diversity rhetoric began shifting in order to emphasize the business case for supporting workforce diversity. Many studies seem not just to suggest, but to prove that diversity – from the bottom up – has a wide range of business benefits, including higher staff retention, reduced recruitment costs, a more satisfied customer base, access to a wider customer base, better supply chain management, increased revenue, and access to new ideas for development, process, and product development.

So, why is it that women continue to be represented in low numbers for director, executive officer, and other managerial positions despite these promising findings?

Because studies, such as the one entitled “Harnessing Workforce Diversity to Raise the Bottom Line” conducted by CREATE, an independent research center, also found that diversity management is a long-term process with no quick fixes and oftentimes companies who put forth diversity efforts encounter major obstacles along the way. The most telling of which, is that diversity also creates a culture of long working hours, which makes it difficult for women to aspire to these senior management positions. It leads one to wonder whether or not diversity efforts geared toward the upper ranks of companies will simply lead to the inclusion of more men, though from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, as opposed to including more women.

According to Amin Rajan, chief executive of CREATE and co-author of the study, companies are beginning to see that diversity in the workplace pays and that “instead of thinking about diversity in terms of equality – that is, in terms of the law or compliance – companies are now seeing it as an issue of merit and merit alone.”

Parlaying the Numbers into Action

So what can women do? How can women improve their chances of obtaining director and executive officer positions despite all of the cards seemingly stacked against them? According to Wells, there is no “silver bullet,” no one thing that women can do to fix the problem.

“Obviously, it’s not an easy question to answer,” Wells said. “Though there are things that women can do to help their cause. Networking, of course, is at the top of the list. Too many women think that if they do a good job they’ll get noticed, but that’s usually not the case. It’s also important to stick together; help the women beside us and by us, reach out a hand and pull them forward. Sometimes it’s also really just a matter of being in the right place at the right time with the right qualifications. If it’s like that in life, why wouldn’t it be that way in business?”

Another problem Wells is quick to point out is the lack of available, qualified women. “The pipeline’s not as full of women as it is of men,” she said. “We need to engage men and make sure they understand the importance of having women in the pipeline who are being considered.”
Another option, one that many companies overseas are pioneering, is the use of gender quotas to drastically improve the number of women in managerial positions. Due to the success of these quotas, many in the United States are left wondering if we should jump on the bandwagon.

As illustrated by ION’s latest study, the number of women directors and executive officers in the United States varies little – if at all – with each passing year. Though laws such as those passed in Norway in 2003 were controversial at first, they have proven to be a great success. As Wells commented, it may be worth looking into. “Although it would be best to get progress without mandates, I am beginning to hear more and more women say they are in favor since the pace of women increasing in leadership positions seem to be so slow.”

ASOCIA Group, a leading information technology consulting and staffing provider, is a woman-owned enterprise (WBE) certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council(WBENC). www.asociagroup.com/WBENC.

Asocia is committed to helping women advance in the workforce. For more information on programs we are sponsoring, please visit www.asociagroup.com.

Since our inception, the ASOCIA Executive Services Search division has been recognized has a national leader in mid- to senior-level executive placement. Our areas of expertise range from Fortune 500 to start-up organizations spanning all industries including information technology, finance and accounting, human resources, sales and marketing, and healthcare(biomedical, medical devices, pharmaceuticals).

We have further established ourselves as a industry leader in C-level placements, with a specialization in CIO placement due to our strong expertise in the information technology sector. Asocia Group’s core competency is providing information technology services to clients nationwide. Our strong background in information technology, coupled with executive recruitment expertise, has enabled us to become a market leader, as we have a thorough understanding our clients’ industry and needs.

Our seasoned technology executives have a reputation for producing in-depth, accurate assessments of our clients’ strengths and solving complex challenges. Whether you need restructuring leadership, program implementation or turnaround support.

We provide full-time and interim executive placement services. Our services are available on a retainer or contingency basis.

- ASOCIA Executive Services- CIO, CTO, VP of IT - CIO Executive Search

As a premier provider of human capital solutions, the Asocia Executive Services division is dedicated to helping our clients secure the most talented people in the market.

ASOCIA Group is a woman-owned organization (WBE), certified by the Women’s Business Enteprise National Council (WBENC) since 2007. www.asociagroup.com/WBENC

For more information on our executive placement services, please contact us:
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A new research report released by the Anita Borg Institute for Women in Technology (ABI) outlines the attributes of success for Senior Technical Women who, at only four percent of the 1,795 technical men and women surveyed for the report, represent a rarity in the technology industry.

The report, titled Senior Technical Women: A Profile of Success, examines the characteristics of high-ranking women in technology, how they perceive themselves and their top attributes for success, and what organizational practices they most care about. The ABI report is publicly available at www.anitaborg.org.

Senior Technical Women: A Profile of Success explores the demographics and attributes shared among women who defy the odds and achieve senior level positions on the technical track. It also makes recommendations for companies looking to retain senior technical women and for women seeking to advance to senior level positions.

A growing body of research has documented the underrepresentation of women in technical
positions in US companies. Women hold 24 percent of technology jobs, yet represent half the total workforce. This underrepresentation persists even though the demand for technical talent remains high: computer occupations are expected to grow by 32 percent between 2008 and 2018.

Companies are increasingly aware of the benefits of diversity for innovation, and are looking for solutions to recruit, retain,and advance women.

A combination of factors helps to explain the dearth of women in technical positions:

• A shortage of women graduating with degrees in technical fields. Women earned 18.6 percent of Computer Science bachelor’s degrees in the US in 2007, and 18.5 percent of engineering degrees. For computer science, this represents a sharp decline from the 37 percent of women graduating with a bachelor’sdegree in 1985.
• For women who do enter technical careers in industry, persistent barriers to retention and advancement have been documented, including: isolation and lack of access to influential social networks and mentors;unwelcoming cultures; work-family conflict and family configurations that differ from male colleagues;organizational cultures that do not reward mentoring and employee development; and hidden bias andstereotyping that become embedded in organizational processes.
• The mid-career level has been identified by researchers as an especially difficult juncture when 56 percentof technical women leave their companies, representing twice the turnover rate of their male colleagues.Furthermore, half of those women leaving their companies end up leaving technical fields entirely.

What about the women who persist and advance past the mid level? Little is known about the women who defy these trends and achieve senior level positions on the technical track.

ASOCIA Group is a leading information technology consulting and staffing firm and is 100% woman-owned and certified(WBE) by the Women’s Business Enteprise National Council(WBENC).
www.asociagroup.com/WBENC

Atlanta, Georgia - Asocia Group, a leading provider of information technology consulting, staffing and executive services focused in the commercial, government and healthcare sectors, announced the launch of a new organization S.W.I.T. – Supporting Women in Technology. S.W.I.T. is solely focused on supporting women in technology careers.

There is a vast underrepresentation of women in technical positions in US companies. Women hold only twenty four percent of technology jobs, yet represent half of the total workforce. This underrepresentation persists even though the demand for technical talent remains high: computer occupations are expected to grow by thirty two percent between 2008 and 2018. Companies are increasingly aware of the benefits of diversity for innovation, and are looking for solutions to recruit, retain, and advance women.

S.W.I.T. will be partnering with other women-focused technology organizations and leading corporations to help offer and increase opportunities for women in technology.

Asocia Group is a top-tier information technology consulting, staffing and executive search services provider focused in the commercial, government and healthcare sectors. Asocia was ranked as one of the nation’s top 500 diversity businesses in 2009 by Diversitybusiness.com. www.asociagroup.com.

Asocia Group was named one of the Top 500 Diversity Businesses in the US in 2009 by Diversitybusiness.com. Asocia Group is a minority, woman-owned business (WBE), certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC). www.asociagroup.com/WBENC

For additional information about S.W.I.T or Asocia Group, please contact:
www.asociagroup.com/SWIT

ljohnson@asociagroup.com
1.800.481.0352