Jane M. Klausman Women in Business Scholarship

Women have made great strides in the pursuit of education, careers and leadership roles they were once denied. However, they still comprise a minority of leaders in the business world. According to a December 2019 list from Catalyst, 21.2 percent of S&P 500 companies’ board seats are occupied by women, and just 5.2 percent of the companies' CEOs are women. Because Zonta International believes in gender equality, the Jane M. Klausman (JMK) Women in Business Scholarship program helps women pursue undergraduate and master's degrees in business management and overcome gender barriers from the classroom to the boardroom. The Jane M. Klausman Women in Business Scholarship was established in 1998 from a generous bequest by Jane M. Klausman, a member of the Zonta Club of Syracuse, New York, USA, and the 1990-1995 Zonta International Parliamentarian. The program operates at the Zonta club, district/region and international levels. Zonta annually awards up to 32 scholarships of US$2,000 each at the district/region level and six international scholarships in the amount of US$8,000 each. Since the program's inception, Zonta has awarded 602 Scholarships, totaling more than US$1.4 million, to 460 women representing 57 countries.