Sheila W. Wellington is the president of Catalyst with a window on work for women executives. Ranked by the American Institute of Philanthropy as the highest rated nonprofit in the nation that focuses on women's issues, the organization has consistently broken new ground with its studies of gender in the workplace.

        Ms. Wellington is the keynote speaker Sept. 12 at the Fourth National Diversity Forum luncheon for the conference 21st Century Women at Work: Realities, Relationships, Results. For information, call 531-1932, or register by fax at 531-2166 or the Web site: www.bcw.org

        She spoke with Enquirer business reporter John Eckberg about issues facing women in the corporate world.

        Question: I know that Catalyst has done some new work on minority women executives - what is the level-set on that effort and where do we go from here?

        Answer: We did a very, very large study three years ago. We had 1,700 respondents. We had 59 focus groups run across the country. As a research-based organization, the first thing we do is get information about what is really going on. Real information is so frequently lacking - not anecdotes or impressions.

        Our sense was that when you study women in corporate America or women in law we were unable to get sufficient numbers of women of color so that we can in a reliable and statistically valid way learn or teach anything specific about them.

        We decided to do a study just of women of color in corporate management. It was a very tough study: three years to complete and it cost $300,000. The major findings of that study were essentially that women of color spoke of a concrete ceiling, a phrase that I had never heard before. It was a very, very commonly used phrase. They spoke about what for them were the main barriers:

        The first one was not having an influential mentor or sponsor.

        The next was lack of informal networking, then the lack of a company role model. These are the top three, but each are about isolation, exclusion.

        Just think about it. No mentors, no informal networking with influential colleagues. No role models. It's about not having anybody to learn from. Not having a buddy. Not being included. They're walking alone.

        This for us was very powerful. Women frequently cite absence of a mentor, and we've done similar studies across Europe, Canada and the United States for industry after industry but never have we had all these factors of isolation and exclusion be the main barriers.

        This survey was done in the United States and about half were African-American, a quarter were Asian and a quarter were Hispanic. So we could compare within the groups.

        Q: How do women compensate - human beings tend to compensate when there's a particular challenge? What are the success factors?

        A: High visibility assignments and performing above expectations. We have one quote from a woman who said it wasn't very hard to perform above expectations because expectations for women like me are so low anyway.

        Communicating well is another success factor.

        The latest study we did: we went back to a large sample of these very same women. We asked them three years ago, can we continue to contact you, and 900 said yes.

        Now there is some good news in the re-contact study. The first study got a great deal of coverage, lots of media, lots of corporate response. Essentially, that study pointed out that here is something that can be talked about.

        Q: So corporate America reacted and you came back three years later with another study?

        A: Yes. There is some good news and it's very interesting. The good news is that promotion rates and rates of salary increases are roughly the same as for white women and there have been a large number of promotions. There were networks formed of women of color and women of color actively sought mentors.

        This is really an interesting finding - of the women of color who were promoted, 50 percent had no mentor.

        We asked the women who were promoted if they had mentors - 50 percent of the women with no mentors were promoted, 60 percent of the women with one mentor were promoted and 71 percent of the women who had more than one mentor were promoted.

        The connection between having a mentor, somebody to give you a helping hand, and getting ahead was simply born out statistically.

        This is really a significant finding.

        What women of color are doing if they want to get ahead is they are looking for a coach, looking for an advocate; they are looking to play the game.

        I want this work on my tombstone, I feel so proud of it.

        Q: One of the problems with good research is that it always leads to more questions - what are the questions that have emerged at this point?

        A: For one thing, women are less optimistic than they were in the original study. That's the bad news. Either they're getting tired but let's face it - and we don't know the answer to it - everybody is less optimistic these days than they were three years ago.

        And there's a pyramid. You get a promotion. You look up. There are fewer seats up there. The research questions we ask now center on what women of color perceive as their issues and success factors. The questions corporate America has to ask is what do we do about it now.

        The women are learning what they have to do. The question now is what works inside companies. What programs and policies can good companies undertake to make progress because if it's woman by woman, it's going to be really slow.

        And there are an awful lot of companies out there that want to tap into all the talent, whatever the race, whatever the gender. That's the next set of questions.

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