It 's starting to feel like Groundhog Day for women in corporate America . Another year , another story of zero growth for women when it comes to holding corporate board seats and executive office positions , according to a new report by Catalyst , a nonprofit focused on women and business . For the eighth year in a row , the group found no significant change in the number of female members of corporate boards , with women holding 16.9 % of board seats in 2013 versus 16.6 % last year . And while there was big news earlier this week when Mary Barra was named GM 's new chief executive officer -- the first woman to head a major U.S. automaker -- there has been no uptick in the total number of female executive leaders for the fourth year in a row , according to Catalyst . Last year , women had 14.3 % of executive officer positions , and this year the percentage is nearly the same , 14.6 % . `` I would look at the numbers and say , for those companies who are not making the advancement of women to leadership a priority , they should really be embarrassed , '' said Deborah Gillis , Catalyst 's chief operating officer , who will take over as president and chief executive officer in January . `` There is absolutely no excuse in 2013 to continue to have women underrepresented to this degree in the leadership of Fortune 500 companies . '' Consider Twitter , where women were n't just underrepresented on the company 's board -- they did n't exist . That is , until earlier this month when the company , after criticism of its all-male board , named its first female board member : Marjorie Scardino , the former chief executive officer of a London-based education and media conglomerate . Why no change for women at the top ? The big question is : Why so little movement for women ? Why -- at a time when women make up half the labor force , when there has been plenty of research on how a diverse board and leadership team of men and women improves a company 's bottom line and when women have been thinking more about `` leaning in '' through marriage and motherhood -- are we finding absolutely no change for women at the top ? Tom Falk is chairman and chief executive officer of Kimberly-Clark Corp. , one of the 20 % of companies where women hold one-quarter or more of executive officer positions . In fact , at Kimberly-Clark , four out of 10 executive officers are women and 25 % of the board 's seats are held by women . In his view , the issue is n't about equity or fairness , but attracting the best talent , which benefits a company 's bottom line . `` Malcolm Gladwell tells a very simple analogy , '' said Falk , a Catalyst board member , during a phone interview . `` If you and I were going to pick an all-star team and we had a room with a hundred people in it and you got to pick your share of the team from the whole hundred people and I only got to pick from 50 people on the right side of the room , who would have a better team ? You would , '' he said . `` For some reason , I think lots of management teams are n't seeing it that way . They 're picking the best athlete for a role , but they are not really insisting on a diverse slate and looking broadly to make sure they 've got talent from all the best pools that are available to them , '' said Falk , a 30-year company veteran . What stands in the way of women . Charlotte Laurent-Ottomane is executive director of The Thirty Percent Coalition , a national advocacy organization focused on getting 30 % of board seats in the United States to be held by women by the end of 2015 . One big stumbling block for women , she said , is the length of term limits on boards , which , on average , are about 10 years . `` If you are not renewing your board , regardless of who your candidates are , except for every 10 to 20 years , then you are obviously not going to bring any new candidates in . '' Laurent-Ottomane also said the composition of many boards is a problem : `` If you take a board ( where ) the leadership is only considering sitting or former CEOs of their industry , which I think most corporate governance experts would agree ... is not a healthy approach ... obviously , you are not going to get women because it goes all the way down the food chain . '' Part of the challenge , too , is convincing male leaders there 's not a limited supply of strong female candidates . Men and women see different reasons for why there are n't more women on corporate boards , according to a survey of more than 1,000 board members from around the world in 2010 , 2011 and 2012 by Harvard Business School professor Boris Groysberg and researcher Deborah Bell . `` When it came to trying to understand ... why we are not making as much progress having more women on boards , you had male board directors who basically said , 'You know what , there 's not enough supply , ' '' said Groysberg , who created a class at Harvard Business School focusing on ways to get more women on corporate boards . `` Then you have another side -- you have female boards of directors who are basically saying it has nothing to do with supply . What 's happening is that it 's impossible to get on boards . So you have two very different explanations , '' he said . Falk , the CEO , shared a story from an executive many years ago who wanted to hire a female sales rep on his team . `` His group that was doing the hiring came back and said , 'You know what , we 've looked and looked and we just ca n't find good female sales reps. Can we just hire from our usual sources ? ' '' `` He said , 'Well , I 'll tell you what : I want to first interview all the females that you 've rejected . ' So guess what ? They went out and found some female sales reps. '' What works to add female leaders . While the story for women in corporate America has n't changed much over the last several years , there 's a completely different narrative for women in many other countries . `` The bottom line is countries around the world are paying attention , '' said Gillis of Catalyst . `` The key is , they 're saying this is a priority and we need to act now . '' In Australia , the country launched a `` Male Champion of Change Initiative , '' which , among other measures , includes having companies publicly disclose their gender diversity targets . Since then , women 's share of executive officer positions jumped from 8.3 % in 2009 to 16.6 % in 2013 , Gillis said . In England , after a call for companies to voluntarily increase targets for the number of women in leadership , women 's representation in the FTSE 100 Index or the `` footsie '' -- the 100 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange -- jumped to almost 19 % from 12.5 % in 2011 , according to Catalyst . Some European countries , like Norway , have gone further , mandating controversial quotas , requiring a certain number of seats of every company 's board be filled by women . Laurent-Ottomane of The Thirty Percent Coalition likes much of what other countries are doing , but said she believes quotas would n't be effective in the United States . `` Quotas basically force companies to bring in candidates just to achieve ( a ) goal , and I 'm not sure that 's necessarily the most healthy way to put a board together , '' she said . The key , Laurent-Ottomane said , is getting the commitment and engagement of corporate leaders themselves . `` If corporate leaders engage and work together and try to determine tactically how we do this , I think that we will be successful , '' she said . Putting diversity on the agenda . Falk , who has been leading Kimberly-Clark for 10 years , said he probably did n't put enough emphasis on the issue of advancement for women early in his tenure as CEO . `` I had women on my team . I was supporting the diversity , but it was n't enough on my leadership agenda . I was n't pushing hard enough on it so my board pushed me to say , 'Hey , you 've been going sideways for a couple of years on this . What are you going to do to get it on your agenda ? ' '' Groysberg 's new class at Harvard focuses on what women can do to build their careers , what organizations can do to create more inclusive cultures and what governments can do to help . For many reasons , he sees a personal stake in the future . `` I have four children , two are girls and they 're pretty young , '' he said . `` I am going to do everything in my power to make sure that I helped to build companies in 10 years that will be much , much more receptive to my daughters than the companies that I know exist in 2013 . '' Follow Kelly Wallace on Twitter and like CNN Living on Facebook .
Eighth consecutive year of no growth in female corporate board seats , new report says . No change in number of women executive officers , nonprofit Catalyst report finds . Comment: Harvard survey : Some male board directors think there are n't enough female candidates .