The output of this study will contribute to the argument in favor of removing these barriers for women. In that sense, it is important to understand what those barriers are; they are part of the discussion.
4) This information is often published. Not all companies publish bios of their executives, but many do, so at the very least the educational background and recent work history would be available. Take a look at Pepsi's website to see an example of the bios you often find on corporate websites: http://www.pepsico.com/Company/Leadership.html
5) the key to this question is that it is exploratory. The process for answering this question is to gather information and see if there are patterns. I think the objective of this question is to build the groundwork for later studies...
At this point, we simply need to identify if there are any common key success factors among the female marketing leaders we have identified. It will be harder to identify factors like personality traits, but work history would be something that could be determined.
6) I don't think this would be difficult at all. Revenue is the key result here, for all companies. That is the role of marketing -- to sell more. For some companies, marketing also seeks to improve bargaining power of the seller, so gross margins could be included in the study as well. Market share, if the data is available, is another good measure. Sometimes market share data is easy to come by online, sometimes it is not. Revenue is always available, though.
