Not until 1997 did a female become chief executive officer of a Fortune 500 corporation (Jill Barad, at Mattel Toy Co. Women’s progress since that time has been in fits and starts, exceedingly slow. The number of women CEOs reached 4 in 1999 only to slide back to 2 in 2001. Meanwhile, while not reaching anything approaching parity, women made significant strides in politics (as senators, cabinet secretaries and governors), in not-for-profit spheres (as CEOs of health care and hospital organizations or of United Way chapters, with budgets of billions of dollars), and at colleges and universities (23 % have female presidents or chancellors). Currently, 3%, or 15, of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. After examining in detail the educations, career progressions, pronouncements and observations, as well as family lives, of the 19 women who have risen to the top (sitting and former CEOs), this book asks, and attempts to answer, two questions: Why haven’t more women reached the CEO suite?How might women in business better position themselves to ascend to the pinnacle?
Author(s): Douglas M. Branson
Edition: 1
Year: 2009
Language: English
Pages: 282
Book Cover......Page 0
Title......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Contents......Page 8
Preface......Page 10
Acknowledgments......Page 18
Part I Portraits of Women CEOs......Page 20
1 The Fall of Jill Barad at Mattel Toy......Page 22
2 Carleton Fiorina at Hewlett-Packard......Page 32
3 A CEO Success—Andrea Jung at Avon Products......Page 52
4 Plowhorse—Marion Sandler at Golden West Financial......Page 60
5 Anne Mulcahy at Xerox and Patricia Russo at Alcatel-Lucent—Fix It CEOs......Page 70
6 Go Where They Aren’t......Page 84
7 Two Additional CEO Portraits......Page 97
8 Five Who Leave Few Footprints......Page 109
9 CEO Additions of 2008–09......Page 124
Part II Why There Aren’t More......Page 138
10 Why Women?......Page 140
11 How We Choose CEOs......Page 147
12 Glass Ceilings, Floors, Walls, and Cliffs......Page 153
13 Work–Life Issues and the Price of Motherhood......Page 159
14 In a Different Register......Page 174
15 Legacies of Tokenism: Retreats into Stereotypes......Page 182
Part III How to Get There......Page 190
16 Narcissists, Malignant Narcissists, and Productive Narcissists......Page 192
17 Good-to-Great Companies and Plowhorse CEOs......Page 200
18 The Plowhorse Versus the Showhorse......Page 207
19 Education, Mentoring, and Networking......Page 213
20 Lessons Learned......Page 225
21 Conclusion: Evolving a New Paradigm for a New Century......Page 233
Notes......Page 238
Index......Page 273
