NAFE Names Top Companies for Executive Women

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by Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

 

The National Association for Female Executives has once again released their list of the top corporations for executive women-or as the site puts it, their “annual scrutiny of America’s corporations.” The 2009 list, which takes into account succession plans, metrics for managers, and commitment to bringing women into P&L posts, was expanded to include 50 companies instead of its usual ten. According to the organization, the pool of applicants increased so drastically over the past year that the expansion was necessary.

 

NAFE’s top ten list features some familiar faces, as well as a number of newcomers who made their presence and dedication to hiring and retaining female talent known this year. Here are the top ten companies for women, according to NAFE:

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Managing the Business of Asset Management

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stone_house_-_holly_h_miller_-_photo11Contributed by Holly H. Miller, Partner, Stone House Consulting LLC

In the wake of plummeting revenue streams, particularly with client concerns over operational risk and managers’ needs to control costs, the lines between traditional investment managers and hedge funds have blurred and will continue to do so.  Traditional investment managers and hedge funds alike need to focus on the business of managing money as well as the management of the assets.  Though the industry’s historically high margins have allowed managers to pay scant attention to the decidedly unglamorous and hugely complex expense side of the business, they must do so now.  The winners will be those who manage their firms as well as they manage their clients’ portfolios.

While buy-side revenues are driven by assets under management, costs and, ultimately, profit are driven primarily by the number of accounts and secondarily by the number of products or strategies the firm offers.  Even with automation, more accounts or products equate to more people and salaries, typically the single biggest expense item.  This disconnect between revenue and expense drivers frequently went unnoticed by many senior managers because of the industry’s incredible profitability.  That clearly is no longer the case.
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WOMEN Unlimited: Helping Women Rise in the Ranks of the Fortune 500

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womanladder.JPGby Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

“WOMEN Unlimited is based on my experience of doing everything wrong for the first half of my career. I often think back and agonize over it, wondering how I could have been so stupid. When I became an executive, I noticed many women around me who were smarter, but had not achieved the same level of success. That’s when it all started coming together. I realized that they weren’t doing what they were supposed to. Business is a game and they didn’t know the rules; they were taking things too personally.”

So said Jean Otte, the founder of the organization. Named one of the first female executives in her industry at the age of forty-seven, the achievement was bittersweet because, while she was happy to have had the success, she was unable to find other upper-level women with whom to communicate and network.   And thus sparked the creation of WOMEN Unlimited, an organization which provides development opportunities for high potential women who have been selected by the organization’s corporate partners.

WOMEN Unlimited has three levels of programs that they offer their participants. TEAM was specifically designed for women who are new to or just entering management positions, LEAD is for mid-level managers with seven or more years management experience, and FEW (Forums for Executive Women) is for senior level executive women. Each program is limited to twenty participants and features 360° assessments, individual/peer coaching, and panel discussions. Dawn Farris, Manager of Customer/Inventory Services for Bridgestone North America, is so enthusiastic about what she’s learned in the LEAD program that she’s planning on creating a website detailing how it’s changed her career. “My idea stemmed from a statement I read in the program: If I had a mentor or had known to ask for one many years ago- where might I be today? I have no regrets about what could have been,” Farris said. “But I am certain that the information I share with others will help those interested in growing personally and professionally.”

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Female Executives and Centered Leadership in Practice

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by Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

What do you get when you sit down with five exceptionally accomplished professional women and ask them about their real life leadership strategies? You get a wide range of powerful and pithy advice on everything from the positive effects of the current economic crisis to their own strategies for goal setting.  The women who made up the afternoon panel at the recent Corporate Best Practices summit hosted by Forté Foundation shared their varied approaches to personal and professional success, united by one common belief: that the current economic crisis has created an abundance of opportunities for women.

“I am a strong believer that in times of crisis and chaos good change will come…Keep yourself pointed toward the future.” said attorney Vivian Polak, co-head of Dewey & LeBoeuf’s Information Technology and Intellectual Property Practice Group and chair of their global diversity initiative.  Carolyn Buck-Luce, Ernst & Young’s Global Pharma Sector Leader, agreed, adding, “This is creating an opportunity to rethink ‘what are the rewards?’ It is no longer just about money; [it’s] about what motivates women.”

Carla Harris, Managing Director in Global Capital Markets at Morgan Stanley took it a step further, advising those in attendance to seize the personal opportunities that arise as well. “I’m looking for ways to expand my personal market share while everybody else is distracted.” She advised, “Think how to leverage your voice and make sure management hears that you understand the challenges and have ideas to cut costs, get customers, etc. Present yourself as part of the solution. Do not operate out of a position of fear.”

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The Boston Club: Supporting Professional Development for Women Executives in Boston

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by Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

It’s an uncomfortable fact, but many professional women’s organizations began as a result of the exclusion and in some cases, blatant sexism, experienced by women in the workplace during the 1960’s and 70’s. The Boston Club, an organization of over 600 Boston-area women devoted to promoting the personal and professional development of their peers, has a similar story to tell.

Though not one of its founding member’s, Boston Club President Kathleen Stone, understands the progress women have made over the years. Growing up in a small, suburban neighborhood, this lawyer didn’t know a single woman who worked outside the home and, even during her college years, it wasn’t uncommon for female classmates to go through the trouble of getting a degree, only to do nothing with it. There finally came a time during the 70’s and 80’s when women were joining the upper ranks of companies both large and small, only to find that they were intentionally being excluded by their male co-workers. “Essentially, The Boston Club started in 1976 because a female vice president couldn’t find anyone to have lunch with. Male executives would go out together in large groups at private lunch clubs and they wouldn’t include her. She finally met four other female executives to eat with and before you know it, a weekly luncheon turned into an organization for women working professionals who wanted to advance their female peers,” Stone said.

The Boston Club is quite rare in the way that its members come from a multitude of professional backgrounds, including business executives, entrepreneurs, political leaders, physicians, artists, construction engineers, professors, restaurateurs, and lawyers- just to name a few. As Stone pointed out, there are women in every industry in existence and they comprise over 50 percent of the population, yet they continue to be underrepresented in the upper levels of corporations. “The idea behind our organization is very basic: women should promote opportunities for other women at upper levels if and when they can,” Stone said. “We have been surveying our members for eight years and though little advancements have been made, there has been nothing in the way of major progress. There are still many companies in Massachusetts who have no women on their corporate boards.”

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Catalyst Award Winner: Baxter International

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Two years ago, the new President of the Asia Pacific division of Baxter International, a company which develops and manufactures healthcare products, set a lofty goal: to achieve a 50/50 gender balance across management-level and critical positions throughout the 14 countries in the region (Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam).

In 2005, Gerald Lema took over as President of Baxter in Asia Pacific. As part of the consolidation process, he put into place a “culture of respect for individuals and their contributions by emphasizing high performance standards, knowledge transfer, continual learning, innovation and the role of gender balance in supporting innovation.” Lema and the Asia Pacific Leadership Team he formed, developed a cutting edge program designed to develop a more effective, diverse and sustainable organization through talent acquisition, leadership development, and development of technical abilities. That program – Building Talent Edge – was recognized this year by Catalyst for the extraordinary results it achieved.

To ensure a 50/50 gender balance in talent acquired, Baxter requires that candidate slates, whether provided by internal or external sources, be 50% women. To ensure that the women within Baxter are provided with the leadership, technical and functional training to enable them to advance, women are chosen to participate in development and leadership programs within the company in the 50/50 ratio. Finally, to facilitate the advancement of women within the organization, leaders share succession plans which must be comprised of slates of individuals that reflect a 50/50 gender balance. Also, there is an increased focus on internal promotions, with the number increasing form 34% in 2005 to 48% in 2008.

And the results really are staggering. In China, the percentage of women on the executive team jumped from 44% in 2006 to 85% in 2008. In Corporate Japan, an environment traditionally unreceptive to gender diversity in leadership, even saw some improvement in the percentage of women on its executive team– increasing from 17% to 33%. There was a significant increase of the percentage of women in all levels of management across the region – from 28 % to 48% of women for the director level or above.

The most important thing is the buy in from senior management and the creation of quantifiable goals said Victoria Elegant, Vice President of Regulatory Affairs and Pharmacovigilance at Baxter Asia Pacific at a corporate culture panel at the Catalyst event in March. “[The Initiative] comes directly from Gerald. It comes at the country level, by creating diversity teams as well. It is very important that we are not just saying things – that we are actually doing what we say.”

She continued, “You want to have a clear plan. If you don’t, you’ll fail. We’ve seen programs that have failed and, for the most part, it was because there was not a strategic plan on the way in. [You need to be clear about] what exactly the initiative is intended to do. [You need to be] need to be able to communicate to your senior management. It is important to make the business case for diversity inclusion and explain it to people that may or may not be interested in what you have to say. If you don’t have buy in, it will just be “talk” and not “walk.”

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Just Add Women: Ensuring Executive Women Have a Place at the Negotiating Table

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iStock_000007484696XSmall[1]_1.jpgby Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

“One of the things I’m worried about is the impact of the economy on women’s initiatives,” says Carol Frohlinger, Esq. Frohlinger is the cofounder of Negotiating Women Inc. and co-author of “Her Place at the Table: A Woman’s Guide to Negotiating Five Key Challenges to Leadership Success.” Negotiating Women provides negotiation and leadership training for women at every stage of their career.

As budgets are slashed at law firms nationwide, the fate of many employee programs, including women’s resource groups and initiatives, are uncertain. “Law firms, in particular, are fragile,” says Frohlinger. That’s because most women’s initiatives have only recently been started at legal firms. To help firms maintain the momentum of nascent initiatives, Negotiating Women, Inc. is launching the “Just Add Women® Meeting Toolkit Series”. This prepackaged program offers a solution for law firms and affinity groups that are committed to implementing professional development programs for women lawyers but can’t afford the time and money to create their own in this economy.

The Just Add Women® Toolkit comes with ready-made meeting agendas, facilitator’s guides, PowerPoint presentations, meeting checklist s and even sample email invitation describing the sessions. Topics include building a strategic network, positioning yourself for high visibility assignments, building client relationships and getting the resources you need. Negotiating Women, Inc. offers complimentary facilitator training for staff and organization members as part of the Just Add Women® Meeting Toolkit Series too. “I think people need to understand that support for this is critical,” says Frohlinger. “Women are crying out for substantive content.”

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Catalyst Award Winner: KPMG LLP

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In the early 2000s, KPMG had a turnover rate of employees in the mid twenty percent, with an even higher percentage for women. “The profession itself is very challenging and demanding. And if you look back into the early 2000s it was particularly so in general and more so for us because we were the smallest of the large professional services firms. There was a tremendous war for talent, and it was very competitive.”

The wakeup call came in 2003 when a commissioned employee satisfaction survey revealed that only 53% of employees surveyed agreed that KPMG was a great place to build a career. “Our chairman at the time, Gino Kelly, decided that it was not going to be business as usual. We put a lot of focus on a lot of different initiatives, one of them being the women’s initiative,” added Angela Avant, Partner in Charge of Diversity at KPMG. And that was the foundation for their award-winning Great Place to Build a Career Initiative, which was recognized by Catalyst this year. Read more

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Latinas in Corporate America

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by Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

Latinas are statistically the most underrepresented group in the workforce amongst minorities in the U.S. according to Ramona Armijo, a Latina Ph.D. candidate in Walden University’s Masters in Education/Knowledge Management. That’s the bad news. The good news is that their cultural understanding and language skills make Latinas extremely competitive candidates for filling top positions in the private sector to serve the growing Hispanic segment in the U.S. So why so few Latinas in corporate America? “Societal factors, including education and cultural traditions, often compromise the career objectives of high-achieving Latina women, but the lack of research on Latina professionals makes it difficult to address these factors,” Armijo said.

Successful Latinas often say that some of the biggest challenges they faced had little to do with finances or the pursuit of education and more to do with their culture, family, and selfless guilt as the top reasons they felt held back. Carmina Pérez, former Vice President of Lehman Brothers, editorial producer at CNN, and personal finance writer for AOL Latino, felt the strange cultural pressure to dream small as a young girl growing up in San Juan, Puerto Rico. “One of the professional hardships I’ve had to overcome is the attitude towards women in business that I learned from Latin culture. Growing up, I was never really pushed to study hard or find a high-paying job because it was more important to be a señorita and to focus more on looking good and finding a husband,” Pérez said.

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Catalyst Award Winner: Gibbons PC

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“The law firm is a service business. We don’t sell product: our greatest resource is human capital. So, we started our Women’s Initiative—we were one of the first law firms to begin such an endeavor—because we recognized that the face of the legal practice was changing. 50 % of law school graduates are women now; we wanted to attract the best of the best talent,” said Patrick C. Dunican, Jr., Chairman and Managing Director of Gibbons PC, a top law firm in the New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Delaware metropolitan regions.

Named one the nation’s top 200 firms by The American Lawyer, Gibbons recently won the Catalyst award for its Women’s Initiative. Christine Amalfe, Chair of Employment Law at Gibbons and co-founder of the Women’s Initiative 12 years ago, spoke of the importance of maintaining the firm’s commitment to the advancement of women, even in these difficult economic times. “In the law firm world, management changes a little more regularly than it does in the corporate world. Changes on the executive committee, rainmakers…lawyers come and go, especially women lawyers. Women have learned that they can walk away from firms that are not supportive and go to those that are supportive. We wanted to be on the receiving end.”

The Women’s Initiative at Gibbons provides professional opportunities for women including new and experienced Gibbons attorneys and Gibbons clients, to network, mentor and support the advancement of women in all professions. Amalfe justified the program’s expense, saying, “we have committed financial resources, hard work and sweat equity over many years to make things work. You can’t depend on what you said in 1997. In this economic environment, when firms are looking to cut costs and people are losing their jobs, you need to justify the existence of an initiative [which costs] a good amount of money every year. You justify it with the business case. There is no doubt that there is a business case for promoting, retaining and advancing women in law firms and in every company. And if the senior management gets that, even in difficult economic times, they will find a way to continue.” And, there is a business case for it, with Dunican crediting $6 million dollars of business to the Women’s Initiative. “Women [in our client organizations] are making the legal decisions. It is not the old boys’ club anymore.”

The Gibbons approach to the advancement and retention of women has several components, including education, internal and external communication, and organization of the firm around the business case and training and development. “First you have to educate…You have to tell your colleagues about how important it is,” adds Dunican, “and then you have to communicate…and for law firms like ours, this is ‘American flag and warm chocolate chip cookie’ stuff because our clients are asking us to identify our numbers; they are asking us how many women we have and then they look at us 5 years later to see how we are doing. This is really important to our business and we need to have a relentless focus on it.”

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