Women CEOs and the Husbands Who Work for Them

Last week’s New York Times article in a series on female entrepreneurs focused primarily on women running cottage craft businesses out of their homes (and overdid it, in this blogger’s opinion). In contrast, this week’s article on female entrepreneurs profiles women who are running large-scale successful companies, and employing their husbands too. The article by Geraldine Fabrikant, entitled “Would You Hire Your Husband?” profiled women like Laura Udall, former AT&T executive and currently CEO of Zuca Inc., a company that manufactures ergonomically correct luggage. She hired her husband to work as Vice President of design and manufacturing.

Carol Kotewicz-Dencker hired her future husband as a manager at her $7 million staffing services company based on Oakland, California. They married five years later, and today he is COO and she is CEO. The combination works because he focuses on growth and bugeting, and she focuses on sales and promotion. Ms. Kotewicz-Dencker credits her success with being an only child who was raised to believe there were no restrictions on what she could achieve based on her gender.

The article noted that powerful women on Wall Street have suffered setbacks in the last year, a phenomenon well documented at The Glass Hammer. However, it notes that women were the majority owners of 7.7 million privately held firms at the end of 2006, up 42.3 percent from ten years earlier, according to the Center for Women’s Business Research.

However, the article offered some advice to women entrepreneurs considering bringing their spouses on board. First, make sure to clearly designate roles. If “the buck stops with you,” as Ms. Udall was quoted as saying, that’s fine, just make sure that this is well understood. By the same token, a spouse who has a designated sphere of responsibility may feel more validated in that role, even if it is not the top job.

This article caused quite a stir in the blogosphere, with many readers weighing in on whether or not they would like to have the men in their lives working under them (quite literally), and offering advice to women who find themselves in that position.

One poster on Technocrati, who noted that he had worked for his wife for 16 of their 17 years of marriage, offered the following advice: “For me the bottom line is, if you are going to work with your mate then you must be a true team player.”

The Wall Street Journal Independent Street blog also picked up this thread and ran with it in the article “Love and Entrepreneurs: Six Guideposts for Keeping the Peace at Home.” They offered the following tips for maintaining a healthy relationship for spouses who work together:

• Set timelines. The entrepreneurial spouse should let her other half know what her business plan is, when she expects to realistically turn a profit, and when she will pull the plug if things don’t pan out.

• Set financial limitations. On a related note, set limits on how much of your shared personal finances will be invested in the new venture. Ditto for shared debt.
• Take a vacation with your spouse. If you work and live together, you need a break from it all more than most.
• Check your ego. Set defined roles for you and your spouse, be conscious of salary disparities.
• Don’t bring your spouse in at the first sign of growth. Think about the impact of encouraging your spouse to quit his day job before your company is really up and running. Does that mean you now have to pay for health insurance or child care?
• Starting a business isn’t the only dream that counts. Take time out to validate your spouses dreams, especially if he has put them on hold to help you pursue yours.

Have you hired your spouse at your start-up? Did you start out working for your spouse at a big company and then surpass him in the race up the corporate ladder? We know that working with your spouse can be stressful, even in the best of times. The Glass Hammer would like to hear stories from women who employ their significant others about their experiences “keeping it all in the family.”