Dive Brief:

• Gender diversity in the San Francisco Bay Area has improved slightly over the last five years, but not when it comes to tech, according to a new study from the University of California, Davis.
• Of the 223 largest publicly traded companies headquartered in the Bay Area, more than one third had either zero or just one top position held by a woman, the study found.
• Most gender-diverse businesses in the region are in the retail, biopharmaceuticals and financial services sector.

Dive Insight:

In the technology sector, the companies with the most women leaders were Zendesk and Yahoo. Those with no women in a top position included Palo Alto Networks, Hortonworks and Cypress Semiconductor. Overall, software companies had one of the highest percentages of women directors.

There has been a national debate about the lack of diversity at Silicon Valley's tech companies. Many Bay Area tech companies began releasing diversity statistics last year, with many reporting around one quarter of their top employees were women.

In the UC Davis study, Apple ranked No. 25, social network Facebook No. 30 and Google No. 68.

Earlier this year, Intel said it would spend $300 million over five years to improve diversity. The company currently ranks No. 48.