During the second presidential debate, Mitt Romney touted his efforts to hire women as governor of Massachusetts.

“We took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet.

“I went to a number of women’s groups and said, ‘Can you help us find folks,’ and they brought us whole binders full of women.’’

Romney, however, did not have a history of appointing women to high-level positions in the private sector. Romney did not have any women partners as CEO of Bain Capital during the 1980s and 1990s.


The venture capital and private equity fields were male-dominated, to be sure, especially during Romney’s time. Women started to break into the upper echelons of the firm after it started a hedge fund, called Brookside in 1996.

Today, 4 of out of 49 of the firm’s managing directors in the buyout area are women.