Your choice of recommenders deserves a lot of consideration. You must decide who is in a position to provide compelling, specific insight about your readiness for business school and progression into senior management. It may or may not be someone of the same gender or ethnicity.
The first thing you should do prior to selecting recommenders is to examine the recommendation forms for each of your target schools. What criteria will you be judged on? Your job is to match up each recommendation with the person who can paint the most vivid picture of your promise as a business school candidate.
It's not enough for someone to write that you are a "outstanding person" who deserves to get into business school. You'd be surprised as to how many recommendations are positive, yet read like generic, bland overviews. Admissions officers eyes glaze over when they aren't given specific reasons to value your past experiences. Ideally, your recommender is someone who has worked with you for two years or more, takes time to type the recommendation, and understands what business schools need to know. If your recommender has an MBA, that's a bonus though not necessary. You are in a pool with some of the nation's most accomplished people; don't underestimate the impact of the recommendations you submit.
Consciously seek your potential recommenders out for guidance and feedback. Get a concrete sense from them that they see you as an asset in your particular organization/environment. Be sure that they've seen you at your best, and can speak to your unique talents. Good recommendations don't happen by accident; they take time to develop.
Don't short-change your recommenders by giving them inadequate lead time. A recommender's haste will come across in the recommendation.
Qualitatively, you'll need to find work-related recommenders who can provide convincing examples of your work. Generally, this means that bosses are preferable to former professors. Finally, admissions officers look for trends. If they see a weak rating on the recommendation for analytical/problem solving skills and your GMAT score was soft, then that solidifies a concern about your quantitative readiness.