I think the "7" promotions probably is referring to jobs that came available that were at a higher level then the one she was at during that period of time ... and that's totally possible in a large "company". And it says 7 promotions since 1999 .... and was told in 2001 that she wasn't given the job because ... so I suspect the period of time was a bit longer than 1 year for her.

I don't know whether her claim of not being promoted because of that was legit or not, but I used to work with a woman who absolutely found herself in this situation, nice, friendly, could have done the job easily, but was very attractive and always dressed a bit too sexy for the business, but then her body was such that even in a classically tailored business suit, she still was going to look sexy ... Of course that was back in the 80's and the times weren't quite as PC as they are today ....