Events Lineup: Vault Reports from Internet Week, New York

This week promises to be high on event coverage as well as new products (Apple announced their new iPhone) and collaborations (Vault will host featured blog posts from the 2010 Class of Climate Corps, EDF’s sustainability-focused internship program). Below is a quick lineup of all the event coverage you can look forward to.

Today: Conference Board’s webcast on the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and the Future of Integrated Reporting

The panel includes Mike Wallace, the director of the sustainability reporting framework with GRI; Intel’s Director of CSR Strategy and Communications, Suzanne Fallender; Doug Kangos, a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers National Professional Services unit; and Rina Levy, a ESG analyst with Bloomberg. The topic: the future of integrated reporting, and how much data is too much? Coming up: Is integrated reporting, i.e., meshing the traditional annual report, which focuses on financial metrics, with the other annual report that discusses CSR initiatives, the future?

Tuesday and Wednesday: World Innovation Forum

Already underway, the forum will host top thinkers and strategists from the corporate world as well as academia. Some of them include Harvard Business School professor and head of the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, Michael Porter; Xerox CEO Ursula Burns; Seventh Generation cofounder and CSR advocate, Jeffrey Hollender [See his exclusive interview with Vault: “Take the ‘S’ out of CSR”]; and Executive Editor of GreenBiz.com Joel Makower. Vault’s News and Commentary team will be at the Bloggers’ Hub to bring you live coverage from the forums. Also, stay tuned for their tweets @VaultCareers or follow the hastag #wif10.

Thursday: The PepsiCo and ThinkSocial #Promise Conference

Part of the lineup for Internet Week in New York, this is a unique conference that promises to pair an unpopular pair: sustainability and social media. Featuring marketing executives from PepsiCo, Timberland, GE, Nokia and MTV, and moderators from Fast Company, TED and GOOD, the full day event will cover a wide variety of topics including Pepsi’s Dream Machine, “Promise” presentations by companies like GE, Timberland and Pepsi, all of which will discuss their observations and lessons of pursuing socially responsible commitments using social media.

To round off the mash of corporate perspective, media outlets, individuals who cover CSR, social media and public interest organizations will weigh in. Vault’s CSR Editor Aman Singh will be at the conference to bring you live coverage In Good Company, as well as on Twitter @VaultCSR.

Friday: Hot and Bothered Breakfast: Why It’s Time to Change The Gender Ratio in New Media & Tech

To regular readers of this space, this will sound familiar. In Good Company recently discussed a NPR report that blamed the lack of women experts on their lack of aggressiveness and narcissistic personality. This panel will discuss “why women are present and accounted for across the new media and tech space— just not at the top, or on panels, or at conferences, or in magazine articles…or, crucially, in VC money.” Culminating Internet Week in New York City, the panel promises to be controversial, if not revelatory. We will be at the panel to bring you live coverage In Good Company, besides tweeting @VaultCSR.

NAFE’s Top Companies for Executive Women: Hits & Misses for 2010

The National Association for Female Executives (NAFE) has come out with their 2010 winners’ list with some glaring exclusions that speak volumes for the year 2009 was in terms of layoffs and leaner payrolls. For example, medical insurer Aetna, which was in the Top 10 list last year is out. Hugely surprising because their submission for Vault’s Annual Corporate Diversity Survey, which we product jointly with nonprofit INROADS, last year spoke of a different reality in 2008. Take a look below, in 2008, 31% of their board comprised women executives and their retention rate for female employees remained almost constant between 2007 and 2008:

Another glaring absentee: Hewlett-Packard. While not in the top 10 last year, they made the Top 50 list in 2009. The numbers they submitted to our Annual Survey were bare, but they were recognized for making the choice of discussing their diversity initiatives and internships. While they didn’t choose to provide us with more specific data on leadership demographics, 30.5% of their employees were female in 2007 and 2008.* When this percentage doesn’t change, it can be telling for shifting numbers among senior leadership.

There are several other exclusions as well that should worry female executives who are in leadership roles and available for mentoring and promoting other women to management positions. These inclusions are also telling of a year where mergers and bankruptcies kept most women-friendly companies out of rankings and maintaining lean staff numbers. These include Ford Motor Company (Although, they reported a 43% increase in February sales today, surpassing GM for the first time in 50 years.), Sallie Mae (no surprises there with the turmoil they faced in 2009), Schering-Plough and pharmaceutical company Wyeth, which was acquired by Pfizer, that did make the list again.

Another company known for its initiatives and efforts in increasing their female leadership ranks in the past but missing from NAFE’s 2010 list was Texas Instruments. Take a look at their submission in our diversity survey. Addressing one of the questions regarding what they are doing to address attrition rates among women and female employees, they said, “[We are working on] strengthening [our] mentoring program for all employees, including minorities and women: TI participates in both internal and external mentoring programs. Formal, internal programs are offered by TI business groups and some of the diversity initiatives. In addition, TI’s Women’s Initiative has developed training offered on a regular basis for self-managed mentoring. We also offer professional skills development programs, including minority and women employees, where each year, TI invests in creating, facilitating and sponsoring a wide variety of development opportunities for employees.”

The list isn’t all about the absentees though. There were many that debuted this year that deserve praise for their continued work in mentoring women executives. Some of these included American Electric Power, AT&T and Grant Thornton. However, there were a few that highlighted the diversity of the represented companies. Like public relations firm Fleishman-Hillard, that has lately been making inroads into the hot sector of sustainability consulting; consulting firms Hewitt Associates (they received top accolades in our survey as well) and McKinsey & Company, who continue to remain quiet on the diversity front; and PepsiCo, no surprises there, with CEO Indra Nooyi (Read her views on the recession and sustainability) leading the team.

For NAFE’s complete list and survey methodology, visit their Top Companies page.

*Note: These numbers are before their acquisition of EDS last year.

–Posted by Aman Singh, In Good Company