Where are the women? Still running small credit unions, according to a recent report produced by Filene and the Global Women's Leadership Network. There are plenty of female CEOs running credit unions with fewer than $50 million in assets (65.85%), but that hardly represents the future of the community. Yes, there are some robust small credit unions, but more are struggling, lacking the economy of scale required to provide a new generation of members with the products and services they want and need. As those credit unions merge out of existence, they will take female CEOs with them.

Filene's Women in Leadership report said at credit unions that have between $100 million and $500 million in assets, 22% of CEOs are women. That percentage decreases to 12.5% for credit unions with $500 million to $1 billion in assets, and improves slightly to 14% for the $1 billion to $10 billion shops.

There are no women running credit unions with more than $10 billion in assets.

Will SECU's new CEO be a woman? Maybe, but I'm not holding my breath.

A lack of gender progress isn't limited to the credit union community. Last year, according to an article published by business news outlet Quartz, nearly 17% of the world's largest public companies had CEO turnover. That's the highest rate in 16 years, since PricewaterhouseCoopers began tracking it.

How many of those new CEOs were women? Just 3%, down from 5% in 2014.

While it might be tempting to blame those numbers on less progressive countries, the opposite is true. Of the 87 incoming CEOs at large companies in the U.S. and Canada, only one was a woman. North America actually dragged the global average down.

Many in the community have observed the same pattern in the credit union community over the past couple of years: More men are replacing retiring female credit union CEOs than women, and very, very few female CEOs are replacing retiring men.

Why is that? Surely there isn't more discrimination in the community than there was 20 years ago.

Research appears to support that. According to the Filene report, only one in 10 credit union CEO applicants are women.

Why? Women said they won't apply for the top job if they don't feel they have what they perceive to be a complete skill set. Men, on the other hand, will bravely take that plunge, assuming they can figure it out along the way.

Additionally, employers still sort similarly qualified men and women into different occupational positions due to a perceived lack of fit between the stereotypical attributes of women and the supposed requirements of some jobs. The idea is women are good at creative and general management positions, but bad at math. It's staggering to think that stereotype still exists, given well-publicized advances elsewhere in fields like space exploration and the military, but it does.

Women are increasingly household breadwinners, control more than 50% of private wealth and head one-third of households. Yet, they still hesitate to uproot their families to take a job in another state. Certainly, that limits their opportunities. It's not just children keeping women close to home, many of them are also responsible for aging parents.

The Filene report promised even more research on why women aren't aspiring to CEO positions in a follow up report.

I've always aspired to run the show, and wasn't fully qualified to take on the role of executive editor at CU Times when I applied for the position. I assumed I could figure it out with time, not realizing that's apparently a male trait.

That's too bad. Research shows companies with female leaders produce better financial results. As credit unions increasingly compete against both bank and non-bank competitors, the community will need all the help it can get.

Consumers expect gender equality, too. At THiNK, I participated in a session that featured millennial consumers sharing their wants and needs. When asked how he identifies himself philosophically, the first word out of the young man's mouth at our table was feminist.

Sisters, we need to start living up to those expectations.