Gender diversity in the San Francisco Bay Area technology sector has improved over the last ten years according to a University of California , Davis study . Representatives of other companies said restricting the pool to only those executives with SEC-reported compensation was too narrow. However , the area 's most gender - diverse businesses are in the retail , biopharmaceuticals and financial services sectors . Over a third of the area ’s 223 largest publicly traded companies had either zero or just one top position held by a woman . Retailer Williams - Penn , biopharmaceutical company Medivation and bank Wells Fargo ranked as the companies with the most high - ranking positions held by women . In the technology sector , the most diverse company was software company Zendesk in fourth place . Microsoft was in eighth place . Network security company Palo Alto Networks , data company Hortonworks and Cypress Semiconductor had no women in top positions .
Gender diversity in the San Francisco Bay Area technology sector has improved over the last ten years according to a University of California , Davis study . However , the area 's most gender - diverse businesses are in the retail , biopharmaceuticals and financial services sectors . Over a third of the area ’s 223 largest publicly traded companies had either zero or just one top position held by a woman . Retailer Williams - Penn , biopharmaceutical company Medivation and bank Wells Fargo ranked as the companies with the most high - ranking positions held by women . In the technology sector , the most diverse company was software company Zendesk in fourth place . Microsoft was in eighth place . Network security company Palo Alto Networks , data company Hortonworks and Cypress Semiconductor had no women in top positions .