"There is clearly a strong glass ceiling," said Sarah Anderson, an executive pay analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. Out of the 507 executive positions reviewed in the 2014 Colorado compensation survey, women held 35 of them, according to proxy data provided by S&P Capital IQ. Lauren Brlas, chief financial officer at Newmont Mining Corp., was Colorado's highest-paid female executive at the end of last year.