"The first step to any change is a conscious acknowledgement that there is a problem and something has to be done," says Carolyn Leighton, chairwoman and founder of Women in Technology International (WITI) in Sherman Oaks, Calif.

She and other advocates say executives need to consciously look for female and minority candidates, and to do so successfully, they have to change the way they recruit candidates and groom future leaders.

Kay J. Palmer, CIO and executive vice president at J.B. Hunt Transport Services, notes, "One of the underlying goals of [our] mentoring program is to give all high-potential employees the opportunity to work with executive mentors across the company." If a program doesn't exist to facilitate these relationships based on ability, she says, such relationships often instead develop based on shared personal interests, which sometimes excludes females or minorities.

Other leaders say CIOs need to do more to cultivate relationships with women and minorities and the organizations that represent them, such as WITI, to get a better handle on attracting them to certain jobs or companies.

"You have to be intentional about it," says Bill Regehr, senior vice president of IT and CIO at Boys & Girls Clubs of America. "I've challenged our HR people to go out and find me high-quality minorities and women to come into our technology slots."