Benco Dental, the nation’s largest privately owned dental distributor,  has been named one of the 2017 NAFE Top Companies for Executive Women by the National Association for Female Executives, to recognize American corporations where women have significant clout to make the decisions that affect their company’s future and its bottom line. The NAFE Top 60 Companies, released March 9, is featured in the February/March issue of Working Mother. The full list of this year’s winners are listed on workingmother.com/nafe.

 

33294112971_38d0a804d1_q“The NAFE Top 60 Companies for Executive Women are the leaders in the U.S. that have moved women into top executive positions and created a culture where talented women are nurtured, promoted and thrive,” says Betty Spence, president of NAFE. “We are very proud to honor their contributions to the advancement of women in the workplace.”

Named after the nation’s first female dentist, the Lucy Hobbs Project, founded by Benco Dental, provides a wide range of development activities to its female professionals and aspiring executives, from formal mentoring sessions and networking events to seminars with inspiring speakers, career coaches and business consultants. Women represent 33% of the execs with profit-and-loss responsibility here. In January 2016, Karen Kuklewicz-Friar was named CFO; Julie Radzyminski became VP of business innovation; and Kari Taylor was hired as VP of sales—all of them the first women in these positions. Moms can access up to eight partially paid weeks of maternity leave.

“NAFE emphasizes women with bottom-line and top-line responsibility—the positions that lead to the corner office—and we’re pleased to report an eight percent increase in women running billion-dollar divisions at the NAFE Top Companies this year,” says Subha V. Barry, vice president and general manager of Working Mother Media (WMM). “In addition, now nearly a third of these companies have five or more women on the board, with many simply increasing the number of board seats to add a woman.”  NAFE is a division of WMM.

 

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At the March 9 event hosted in NYC to celebrate the 2017 NAFE Top Companies for Executive Women, Benco Dental Board Member Marcy Syms (at left) accepts the dental distribution company’s NAFE award.

The 2017 NAFE Top Companies application includes some 200 questions on female representation at all levels, especially the corporate officer and profit-and-loss ranks. The vetting process includes tracking access and usage of programs and policies that promote the advancement of women as well as the training and accountability of managers in relation to the number of women who advance. In order to be eligible for the NAFE Top Companies survey, entrants must have a minimum of 1,000 employees, two women on the Board of Directors and be a public or private company. NAFE also separately names the Top 10 companies in the nonprofit sector.

The National Association for Female Executives (NAFE), founded in 1972, serves 20,000 members nationwide with networking, tools and solutions to strengthen and grow their careers and businesses. Working Mother magazine publishes the annual NAFE Top Companies list. NAFE.com provides up-to-date information, a community for women in business, and access to member benefits. NAFE is a division of Working Mother Media, owned by the Bonnier Corporation.