Women on Georgia Public Company Boards
Aaron's, Inc. (NYSE:AAN) elected Cynthia N. Day, Senior Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, Citizens Bancshares Corporation, to its board of directors.

Women Make Headway on Georgia Boards
BDN held the Annual Study and Awards Dinner October 20th. More than half of Georgia's public companies have at least one woman on the board, but there is still work to be done because only 9.6% of the board seats in Georgia are women. If you did not see this year's study results, you can download the PDF here.

Also at the dinner, Debra Kuper, Robin Sangston and Ann Stallard were inducted into the Executive Leadership Honor Roll and Veronica Biggins was presented the 9th Annual Lettie Pate Whitehead Evans Award as an outstanding woman board member. See womenetics article for more.

BDN Board Development Group Taking Applications for 2012 Program
Do you have the credentials to be on a board and want to make your candidacy visible? BDN has a program that can help you increase clarity about the value you would bring to a board, articulate that value concisely, create a plan to raise your visibility and give you insights from "inside the boardroom." Applications are being taken through February 20, 2012 for the program beginning in March. More about the program and the application on the BDN website.

Opportunities to Correct Gender Imbalance in the Boardroom
Released this week, the InterOrganization Network's (ION) eighth annual status report on women directors and executive officers of public companies in 14 U.S. regions found that there is still significant gender imbalance in the boardroom. For example, in 12 regions reporting this data, out of the 542 new independent directors added to boards in 2011, only 16.1% (87) were women. As ION believes the process of filling board vacancies, as well as the decision to increase board size, present the greatest opportunities to add women directors to corporate boards, the report included specific suggestions for board chairs, nominating committees, sitting directors and executive recruiters. Full report.

Save the Date: February 16, 2012

The first BDN event of the new year will be a networking reception on February 16, 2012, 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm, at the Pryor Fine Art gallery. Registration information to come in January. Reception hosted by Baker Donelson.

We invite you to join BDN to advocate for more women in executive leadership and on corporate boards.
To join please visit our website: www.boarddirectorsnetwork.org