"At HP, having an empowered, diverse team of employees is essential to serving our customers around the world"
Emily Duncan, Vice President and Head of HP's Global Inclusion and Diversity organization

The Professional BusinessWomen of California (PBWC) announce the winners of the second annual Pacesetter Award, which honors Bay Area companies that support the advancement of women in the workplace. The awards will be presented at the 15th Annual PBWC Conference on Tuesday, May 4, 2004, at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.

"As the leading organization in California supporting the advancement of women, PBWC feels it is necessary to continue to honor those Bay Area companies that recognize the value of their female employees and that embody the mission and values of our organization," said Jackie McNab, PBWC President.

The PBWC Pacesetter Award includes 23 of the largest public companies from the nine Bay Area counties that promote women into the highest ranks of their organizations encourage women to take leadership roles on an ongoing basis.

The PBWC Pacesetter Award ranks firms according to the following criteria:

-- Percentage of women executives defined as vice president and above
-- Percentage of women corporate officers
-- Percentage of women board members
-- Percentage of women employees at each company
-- Development and continuing support of programs that benefit women in
the workplace

The top ranking companies receiving the PBWC's Pacesetter Award for 2004 in ranked order are: HP (See HP's Diversity Policy), SBC Communications, Bank of America, State Farm Insurance, Guidant, Charles Schwab, Gap Inc., Genentech, Providian Financial, AT&T, Adobe Systems, ChevronTexaco, Cisco Systems, IBM, McKesson, Knight Ridder, PG&E, PeopleSoft, Calpine, Sun Microsystems, Sybase, Silicon Graphics and Seagate Technology.

"At HP, having an empowered, diverse team of employees is essential to serving our customers around the world," said Emily Duncan, Vice President and Head of HP's Global Inclusion and Diversity organization. "We're very honored to receive the Pacesetter Award for the second year in a row recognizing HP's continued progress and the commitment we share with PBWC to support the advancement of women in the workplace."

State Senator Jackie Speier, founder of the PBWC organization in 1989, will present the PBWC Pacesetter Award to the winning companies during the keynote luncheon of the PBWC Conference on Tuesday, May 4, 2004.

The Professional BusinessWomen of California is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing the professional and personal development of Bay Area women by providing tools, resources, training and inspiration. The PBWC Conference is the largest gathering of businesswomen held in Northern California each year.

The theme of the 15th Annual PBWC conference, "Take Charge! Unleash Your Potential" includes a stellar lineup of keynote speakers including, Jenny Ming, President, Old Navy; Myrtle Potter, President of Commercial Operations, Genentech; Sallie Krawcheck, CEO, Smith Barney; plus Academy award-nominated actress and entertainer Rosie Perez.