By Amy Norris, Amber Walsh and Penny Zacharias ( February 4, 2019, 5:49 PM EST) -- Over the past several years, there has been a renewed discussion about the dearth of women in private equity firms and a new energy for making change. Private equity firms recognize that in the shifting landscape of new limited partner players, evolving target company leadership and focus and a shifting role of women generally in the U.S. economy, long-term success hinges on the recruitment, advancement and retention of women in private equity. Although the portion of executive-level women in private equity has grown steadily in recent years — with Preqin reporting that women populate 9.4 percent of the upper echelon positions as of 2017[1] — the progress has not been fast enough for many stakeholders and further improvement seems to be nearly universally desired....