A global organization for women corporate directors is forming a Tennessee chapter with the goal of strengthening members’ governance skills and growing the ranks of women corporate directors in the Volunteer State.

WomenCorporateDirectors, or WCD, is a global membership organization for women corporate directors of public companies and large privately held businesses. The organization — which has more than 1,000 members in 32 chapters around the world — provides educational and networking opportunities to improve governance and help secure board and advisory positions for women around the world.

A pair of local women recently formed a Tennessee chapter, based in Nashville. It’s one of only 15 chapters in the U.S.

Jan Babiak (pictured, far left) is responsible for bringing the organization to Tennessee. Babiak, a former Ernst & Young managing partner, moved to Nashville last year from London, where she was a WCD member. She recruited Consensus Point CEO Linda Rebrovick, who sits on the board of directors of HealthStream, to serve as co-chair of the chapter.

Accounting firm KPMG is a founding partner and sponsor for the Tennessee chapter; the firm is also a global sponsor of WCD.

Babiak said she wanted to launch WCD in Nashville because, though there were “aspirational groups that are doing some really good things to raise awareness about the benefits of having a more diverse board,” there were no peer groups for current women directors. The benefits of WCD, she said, include educational meetings and on topics like executive compensation and access to a directory of all members around the globe.

In addition, Babiak hopes the group will set a positive example for other Tennessee women in order to grow the ranks of women corporate board members.

According to a study by InterOrganization Network, Tennessee is at the bottom of the list when ranking states based on gender diversity in public company governance roles. Only 8.3 percent of the board seats at Tennessee public companies are held by women, the lowest percentage in the country. About 12.7 percent of board seats at Fortune 500 companies in Tennessee are held by women, putting Tennessee second-to-last for that metric.

“I’m just so impressed with this whole community and this entire group, but what’s terribly sad to me is it’s not leveraging its talent pool,” Babiak said. “And I want to do what I can to help it.”

Rebrovick, who is an adviser to Nashville CABLE, an IOM affiliate, echoed that sentiment.

“There’s no reason for Tennessee to be at the bottom of that list,” Rebrovick said. “The way you fix that is by demonstrating the caliber and quality of women who can serve on large company boards, and so this is why (WCD) is so critical and important.”

The Tennessee WCD chapter is currently recruiting members from across the state who

are members of independent boards of a public companies, or privately held companies with more than $200 million in revenue or assets. Rebrovick said the chapter already has 13 women committed to joining the chapter, but they’re still searching for others who fit the criteria. (Qualified women can contact the chapter via WCD’s website, here.)

The chapter will hold an official launch with its first members on June 29.

“It’s exciting for Nashville,” Rebrovick said. “ION put us in a national view and this puts us in a global view.”