Region Has Highest Concentration of Female Execs

WASHINGTON - Nancy Pelosi and Condoleezza Rice have plenty of company.

When it comes to high-powered women, the Washington region leads the country's major metropolitan areas by at least one measure: The region boasts the highest concentration of female executives, according to a report to be released Wednesday by the Greater Washington Initiative, a marketing organization affiliated with the Greater Washington Board of Trade.

The region has 14,000 women in "C-level" positions, a category that includes chief executives, chief financial officers, executive directors at nonprofits and top government jobs. That comes out to 274 per 100,000 residents. The runner-up, with 246, was San Francisco-San Jose.

The statistic comes as no surprise to Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity University, a women's college in the District of Columbia. She said she first came to Washington because of an interest in politics.

"Many women still seek out education in Washington because they want to get involved in politics," she said. "The skills women are good at - negotiation, facilitation, mediation - that's politics."

But like McGuire, who ended up becoming a law professor, many women end up shifting to other kinds of jobs once they are here.

McGuire said Washington tends to be a hospitable place for people changing careers later in life, as many women do. The presence of the federal government - "an early adopter of women's leadership," has also influenced the region's culture, she said.

Board of Trade officials stressed that the trend of women in leadership roles goes beyond the federal government, which today accounts for about 10 percent of the region's work force.

Wednesday's report predicts that the area's private-sector work force will increase 11 percent to 2.9 million in 2012, accounting for 92 percent of new jobs. Meanwhile, the federal work force will increase by just 2,300 jobs to 351,620 workers.

Alan Smith, a spokesman for the board, said the prevalence of high-powered women fits in with the area's concentration of "knowledge workers." A study released in March by the Greater Washington Initiative found that Washington had the highest concentration of such workers.

Diane J. Hoskins, an executive director at the international architecture firm Gensler, agreed.

"Generally, in knowledge economies, you find it's very gender-blind," said Hoskins, who works out of the company's Washington office. "So it doesn't surprise me that there's a very strong showing of women in the work force as leaders."

Hoskins said she and her husband moved to the area 12 years ago from Los Angeles, drawn both by job opportunities and lifestyle factors. She said the area's wide variety of housing types and communities, strong schools and many cultural assets were draws. Those traits, which make it easier to raise a family while pursuing a career, are probably especially appealing to women, she said.

The report uses the Board of Trade's definition of the Washington area, which differs slightly from the one used by the government and extends as far as Spotsylvania County in Virginia and St. Mary's and Frederick counties in Maryland. It does not include West Virginia's Jefferson County, which the U.S. Census Bureau considers part of the metropolitan area.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)