Boosting the number of women in its upper ranks is clearly important to this biopharmaceutical company: An impressive 40% of its corporate executive hires and 39% of its senior manager hires last year were female. Its Executive Women’s Forum, directed by the top 20 female leaders, strives to ensure that even more women are drawn to working here; with the backing of senior management, it seeks not only to improve the recruitment and development of high-potential women but also to innovate new mentoring and sponsorship initiatives that will support them. At present, women make up 50% of the participants in the company’s formal mentoring programs and 47% of the employees who receive management and leadership training.

CEO: Lamberto Andreotti

% of senior managers who are women: 38%

% of corporate executives who are women: 31%

% of the top 10% of the company’s earners who are women: 50%

% of corporate executives with profit-and-loss responsibility who are women: 26%

% of the executives running divisions with revenues of more than a billion dollars who are women: 30%

% of executives who report directly to the CEO who are women: 30%

% of the members of the board of directors who are women: 17%