The Illinois Fortune 1000 companies with the most and least gender diverse corporate boards

In 2011, women held 14.6 percent of corporate board seats across all Fortune 1000 companies. To improve that figure, two women founders launched 2020 Women on Boards, a national campaign to increase the percentage of board seats held by women to 20% or greater by 2020.

Today, the non-profit released its annual Gender Diversity Index, revealing how far corporations have come to hitting the goal and how much further they have to go. According to the index, women now sit on 18.8 percent of board seats, up from 17.7 percent the previous year.

The rankings categorize every company by four designations - (W)inning, companies that have 20 percent or greater women on their board, (V)ery Close, companies with 11-19 percent, (T)oken, companies with one woman, and (Z)ero, companies with no women on their board. Read the rest of the story on ChicagoInno.

See the complete list of all "Winning" companies.

Four Supreme Court Justices Featured in Grand-Scale Painting at the National Portrait Gallery

The Four Justices by Nelson Shanks;  2012;
Ian and Annette Cumming Collection, on loan
to the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery will display a loaned portrait of the first female Supreme Court Justices, Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, beginning Oct. 28. The 9-foot-6-inch by 7-foot-9-inch oil painting by the artist Nelson Shanks features the four women in an interior based on the Supreme Court Building; it will be displayed in the museum for three years.

This portrait recognizes the achievements of these four women—the first to serve on the nation’s highest court.

“The scale of this painting speaks to the grand accomplishments made by these four women and the example they set for future generations,” said Kim Sajet, director of the museum. “I imagine this portrait will spark a conversation among young people, particularly young women, about breaking barriers.” Read more from the news desk of Smithsonian.