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09.10.2006 - WIRTSCHAFTS WOCHE
WIRTSCHAFTS WOCHE "Women's Power"
Enterprises + Markets
Be it the female head of a government or the steering lady of an industrial group – women in top positions of the world economy are advancing. WirtschaftsWoche introduces the most powerful 50 women.
The Davos of women lies not in the mountains but next to the sea. Deauville, a seaside resort in the Normandy with a wide sandy beach, precious villas and a luxurious yacht marina, has been, at the end of last week, a meeting point for around 500 female top managers from all over the world. As in the world economy forum in Switzerland, women such as the female chef of Areva, Anne Lauvergeon, the chairwoman of Lucent, Patricia Russo or the female boss of Bain, Orit Gadiesh, discussed there on intercultural management, globalization trends and megacities.
But there were also completely different topics on the agenda such as factors that make female entrepreneurs successful or the future role distribution of mother and father in society. Or whether defined percentages of leading positions allocated to women really serve equality. Agnes Touraine, a management consultant from Paris and co-founder of the “Women’s Forum for Economy & Society” in Deuville says: “It is time that we women come together and raise our voice.”
Women are advancing – and more frequently they reach the very top. Without them, it is nowhere near enough talking about the global economy. In Germany, Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel rules the government, in China Wu Yi decides on the foreign trade policy as Vice-Prime Minister, and in France the Socialist Ségolène Royal is a nominee for the presidential post.
Also in companies increasingly more women reach the position of chairwoman, which is called also Chief Executive Officer (CEO): The Indian Indra Nooyi manages lately the American beverages giant Pepsi-Co, the Japanese Tomoyo Nonaka redevelops the electronic appliances group Sanyo, and the American Angela Ahrendts keeps the British fashion house Burberry growing.
All these are reasons enough for WirtschaftsWoche to introduce the most powerful 50 women of the world economy. Power does not necessarily mean in this case that the female manager or politician in question stands very much in front of the spotlight of the public. Some of them keep in the background – but make all the important decisions. Or they steer as chairwomen or regional managers of company groups worth billions. For example Barbara Kux, the Purchasing Manager of the electronic appliances giant Philips, is responsible for a purchase volume of about 20 billion Euros. Hence, she is a main decision-maker on the yield situation and the company value.
Among these 50 women, the Americans are dominant. Because the USA has – except Scandinavian countries – the highest percentage of female top managers: 16,4 percent of the board chairs of the 500 biggest American Groups are female. This is what Catalyst, the promotion organization for women from New York, has calculated. “In the USA, laws and processes have ensured that people who have the necessary education and are willing to make a career receive a chance. Especially women have profited from this fact.” says Myra Hart, professor at the Harvard Business School.
There are diversity programs in most of the American groups, which promote women and minorities. For instance General Electric (GE) has its own women network since 1998. Female GE managers share their experiences there and find mentors. This initiative enjoys its first achievements: Eight years ago, only six percent of the managerial positions were occupied by women, today the percentage has more than doubled.
And there are other reasons why women are advancing: Companies cannot afford anymore to exclude the half of mankind from their management pools. Especially in western industrial countries talents become scarce due to the demographic development.
Women come to power frequently during crises
However, women are much more than an industrial reserve army during times of sinking birth rates. The female managers and politicians of the WirtschaftsWoche list possess important characteristics, which qualify them for top-jobs. Many are highlighted by their enormous purposefulness, efficiency and frankness. For instance Linda Cook, board member of Shell, answers to the question about the secret of her success with a Chinese proverb: “I reached my current place with luck and hard work – the harder I work, the more luck do I have.” Most of these women have children, combine different fields of life successfully under one roof – and profit from these experiences in their job.
On the other hand, it is becoming increasingly important for companies to reflect their female clientele in the composition of their top management. “The more female consumers the companies have, the more they take care of the fact how many female managers they employ.” observes Ilene Lang, President of Catalyst. Hence, many of the top women in the list of WirtschaftsWoche, work in branches that involve a direct contact with consumers: the consumer goods industry, the media business and financial institutions.
For example Susan Arnold manages the branch cosmetics and health at the consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble and thus is the ruler of about 100 brands (among them Wella, Oral B, Cover Girl). Mary Minnick, Marketing President at Coca-Cola sells female consumers, who care about their health, fitness drinks. And at the UK-office of the publisher Random House, female director Gail Rebuck takes into account also the concerns of female readers.
And there is another trend among the 50 selected women: Many of them came to power during crises. The Japanese Nonaka took over the management at Sanyo, the worst redevelopment case in the Japanese electronic appliances industry. Therefore, she describes her job as “the hardest within Japan AG”. Also Nancy McKinstry had to subject Wolters Kluwer to a radical cure as soon as she took over the manager seat of the Dutch science publisher. A study conducted by the British university Exeter confirms that female managers frequently reach the chief post when a company is in a crisis and the danger of failure is accordingly high.
One top woman, who saved her company from bankruptcy five years ago, is the Xerox-Director Anne Mulcahy. The 53- years old woman at the top of the copier manufacturer deems female managers very important today: “As CEO, I try to ensure that that qualified women reach leading positions in Xerox. We need more womanpower.”
Güler Sabancı, 51
CEO, Sabancı Holding, Turkey
9 Billion Euro Turnover
Güler Sabancı is the most powerful woman in Turkey and an example for many western-oriented Turkish women. For 2 years, she (who is an economist) has been at the top of the second big Turkish company group after Koç, namely the Sabancı Holding which has approximately 65 companies and 45.000 employees. She started her career in the tyre sector after her university education at the Bosphorus University in Istanbul and became then the director of the cord factory Kordsa, which brought her the title “tyre queen” in the press.
Sonia Gandhi, 59
President, Congress Party,
India
The daughter-in-law of Indira Gandhi and the widow of Rajiv Gandhi is considered to be the secret ruler of India. In May 2004, the congress party led by Sonia Gandhi won the parliament elections. Gandhi, who was born in Italy, left the prime minister’s post to Manmohan Singh and still holds a ruling position in the background. The 59-year old lady is highly respected by the public as an attorney of the poor.
Mary Minnick, 46
Chairwoman, Coca-Cola, USA
19,5 Billion Euro Turnover
Mary Minnick, who has been the Marketing President at the American beverages giant Coca-Cola since 2005, is already considered for the top of the group. The female manager, who is also called “Scary Mary” at the headquarters of the group in Atlanta because of her strong ability to enforce her ideas, has introduced a series of new beverages such as fitness drinks or ice teas. In this way, she intends to tempt consumers, who care about their health.
Fumiko Hayashi, 60
CEO, Daiei, Japan
14 Billion Euro Turnover
Fumiko Hayashi has made a considerable career in a country, where many women traditionally give up their job after their marriage: Since March 2005, she has been leading Daiei, one of the biggest supermarket chains in Japan. The group, which has been shaken by crises, demands redeveloper qualifications in its managers. Before this job, Hayashi, being the daughter of a vegetables wholesaler, had been the marketing director of BMW Japan.
Marissa Mayer, 31
Vice-President, Google, USA
4,8 Billion Euro Turnover
Marissa Mayer has made a long way within the hierarchy of Google: She comes right after the founders of the company, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as product manager and vice-president. As the computer scientist, she hears every new opinion expressed by the 6.000 employees – and co-decides which project really is going to go online.
Condoleezza Rice, 51
Minister of Foreign Affairs, USA
The top female diplomat is one of the closest consultants of the US-President George W. Bush. The excellent piano player, who recently gave a concert to her colleagues at the evening of the Asean Summit in Kuala Lumpur, defends Bush’s strategy of preventive strokes against the terror regime around the globe. Condoleezza Rice prefers direct negotiations with her discussion partners – one of the reasons for her intensive travel diplomacy, recently especially to the crisis region: Middle East.
Anne-Marie Idrac, 55
CEO, SNCF, France
21 Billion Euro Turnover
While Anne-Marie Idrac was still the head of the traffic company RATP in Paris, she descended into the subway shafts with her trousers and flat shoes and talked there to her colleagues. The personnel liked this. The lady from Breton succeeded to bring down the frequency of strikes to its lowest level since 20 years.
Now, Idrac is at the top of the powerful French state railway SNCF since July 2006. The 55-year old traffic expert is the successor of Louis Gallois, who has been sent to the aviation group EADS as redeveloper.
However, at SNCF, which is a colossus with 165.000 employees, only people-friendly leadership methods do not help much. Right at the beginning she was confronted with the suspicious attitude of the trade unions, which do not trust the former state secretary of the Ministry of Transport and are afraid of a slowly approaching privatization. However, such an idea doesn’t even exist. In comparison to the discussions with the railway workers, who have a known history for going into strikes, the redevelopment of this freight business with very high deficits, which is also under the pressure of private competitors, is one of the bigger challenges faced by this woman, who seems self-confident but describes herself as “shy”.
SNCF is a domain of men. Only 17 percent of the employees are female, but for many years a number of women hold seats in the board of SNCF. On the other hand, French women are used to fight for success.
Beside the chief of the nuclear group Areva, Anne Lauvergeon, Idrac is one of the few women who have made their way to the very top. Idrac began her career in politics, just as Lauvergeon. This was almost her mission ever since her infancy as the daughter of the former minister Andre Colin. After a higher education in law, she walked the classical French career road towards a top position and became one of the youngest graduates of the elite school ENA. Later, the mother of four adult daughters dressed the officers of various ministries. Prime Minister Alain Juppe appointed her in 1995 as the state secretary for traffic within his liberal right government. Idrac belonged to the so-called “Jupettes” (a word play with the words Juppe and jupe: skirt), a group of female politicians, with whom the prime minister wanted to express his modernity. After the change of the government in 1997, she became a parliament member of the central party UDF. As she was brought to the top of RATP in 2002, Anne-Marie Idrac terminated her political career.
Marjorie Scardino, 59
CEO, Pearson, Great Britain, 6 Billion Euro Turnover
The woman from Texas is steering the British publisher Pearson (“The Financial Times”, “The Economist”, Penguin Books) through difficult times. The mother of three children opposes stubbornly the demand of analysts and investors to sell the salmon-red colored finance newspaper. Marjorie Scardino has learned the media business from the scratch: Scardino, who is a lawyer, founded “The Georgia Gazette” in the USA together with her husband in the seventies – however the newspaper went bankrupt despite her Pulitzer Prize.
Be it the female head of a government or the steering lady of an industrial group – women in top positions of the world economy are advancing. WirtschaftsWoche introduces the most powerful 50 women.
The Davos of women lies not in the mountains but next to the sea. Deauville, a seaside resort in the Normandy with a wide sandy beach, precious villas and a luxurious yacht marina, has been, at the end of last week, a meeting point for around 500 female top managers from all over the world. As in the world economy forum in Switzerland, women such as the female chef of Areva, Anne Lauvergeon, the chairwoman of Lucent, Patricia Russo or the female boss of Bain, Orit Gadiesh, discussed there on intercultural management, globalization trends and megacities.
But there were also completely different topics on the agenda such as factors that make female entrepreneurs successful or the future role distribution of mother and father in society. Or whether defined percentages of leading positions allocated to women really serve equality. Agnes Touraine, a management consultant from Paris and co-founder of the “Women’s Forum for Economy & Society” in Deuville says: “It is time that we women come together and raise our voice.”
Women are advancing – and more frequently they reach the very top. Without them, it is nowhere near enough talking about the global economy. In Germany, Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel rules the government, in China Wu Yi decides on the foreign trade policy as Vice-Prime Minister, and in France the Socialist Ségolène Royal is a nominee for the presidential post.
Also in companies increasingly more women reach the position of chairwoman, which is called also Chief Executive Officer (CEO): The Indian Indra Nooyi manages lately the American beverages giant Pepsi-Co, the Japanese Tomoyo Nonaka redevelops the electronic appliances group Sanyo, and the American Angela Ahrendts keeps the British fashion house Burberry growing.
All these are reasons enough for WirtschaftsWoche to introduce the most powerful 50 women of the world economy. Power does not necessarily mean in this case that the female manager or politician in question stands very much in front of the spotlight of the public. Some of them keep in the background – but make all the important decisions. Or they steer as chairwomen or regional managers of company groups worth billions. For example Barbara Kux, the Purchasing Manager of the electronic appliances giant Philips, is responsible for a purchase volume of about 20 billion Euros. Hence, she is a main decision-maker on the yield situation and the company value.
Among these 50 women, the Americans are dominant. Because the USA has – except Scandinavian countries – the highest percentage of female top managers: 16,4 percent of the board chairs of the 500 biggest American Groups are female. This is what Catalyst, the promotion organization for women from New York, has calculated. “In the USA, laws and processes have ensured that people who have the necessary education and are willing to make a career receive a chance. Especially women have profited from this fact.” says Myra Hart, professor at the Harvard Business School.
There are diversity programs in most of the American groups, which promote women and minorities. For instance General Electric (GE) has its own women network since 1998. Female GE managers share their experiences there and find mentors. This initiative enjoys its first achievements: Eight years ago, only six percent of the managerial positions were occupied by women, today the percentage has more than doubled.
And there are other reasons why women are advancing: Companies cannot afford anymore to exclude the half of mankind from their management pools. Especially in western industrial countries talents become scarce due to the demographic development.
Women come to power frequently during crises
However, women are much more than an industrial reserve army during times of sinking birth rates. The female managers and politicians of the WirtschaftsWoche list possess important characteristics, which qualify them for top-jobs. Many are highlighted by their enormous purposefulness, efficiency and frankness. For instance Linda Cook, board member of Shell, answers to the question about the secret of her success with a Chinese proverb: “I reached my current place with luck and hard work – the harder I work, the more luck do I have.” Most of these women have children, combine different fields of life successfully under one roof – and profit from these experiences in their job.
On the other hand, it is becoming increasingly important for companies to reflect their female clientele in the composition of their top management. “The more female consumers the companies have, the more they take care of the fact how many female managers they employ.” observes Ilene Lang, President of Catalyst. Hence, many of the top women in the list of WirtschaftsWoche, work in branches that involve a direct contact with consumers: the consumer goods industry, the media business and financial institutions.
For example Susan Arnold manages the branch cosmetics and health at the consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble and thus is the ruler of about 100 brands (among them Wella, Oral B, Cover Girl). Mary Minnick, Marketing President at Coca-Cola sells female consumers, who care about their health, fitness drinks. And at the UK-office of the publisher Random House, female director Gail Rebuck takes into account also the concerns of female readers.
And there is another trend among the 50 selected women: Many of them came to power during crises. The Japanese Nonaka took over the management at Sanyo, the worst redevelopment case in the Japanese electronic appliances industry. Therefore, she describes her job as “the hardest within Japan AG”. Also Nancy McKinstry had to subject Wolters Kluwer to a radical cure as soon as she took over the manager seat of the Dutch science publisher. A study conducted by the British university Exeter confirms that female managers frequently reach the chief post when a company is in a crisis and the danger of failure is accordingly high.
One top woman, who saved her company from bankruptcy five years ago, is the Xerox-Director Anne Mulcahy. The 53- years old woman at the top of the copier manufacturer deems female managers very important today: “As CEO, I try to ensure that that qualified women reach leading positions in Xerox. We need more womanpower.”
Güler Sabancı, 51
CEO, Sabancı Holding, Turkey
9 Billion Euro Turnover
Güler Sabancı is the most powerful woman in Turkey and an example for many western-oriented Turkish women. For 2 years, she (who is an economist) has been at the top of the second big Turkish company group after Koç, namely the Sabancı Holding which has approximately 65 companies and 45.000 employees. She started her career in the tyre sector after her university education at the Bosphorus University in Istanbul and became then the director of the cord factory Kordsa, which brought her the title “tyre queen” in the press.
Sonia Gandhi, 59
President, Congress Party,
India
The daughter-in-law of Indira Gandhi and the widow of Rajiv Gandhi is considered to be the secret ruler of India. In May 2004, the congress party led by Sonia Gandhi won the parliament elections. Gandhi, who was born in Italy, left the prime minister’s post to Manmohan Singh and still holds a ruling position in the background. The 59-year old lady is highly respected by the public as an attorney of the poor.
Mary Minnick, 46
Chairwoman, Coca-Cola, USA
19,5 Billion Euro Turnover
Mary Minnick, who has been the Marketing President at the American beverages giant Coca-Cola since 2005, is already considered for the top of the group. The female manager, who is also called “Scary Mary” at the headquarters of the group in Atlanta because of her strong ability to enforce her ideas, has introduced a series of new beverages such as fitness drinks or ice teas. In this way, she intends to tempt consumers, who care about their health.
Fumiko Hayashi, 60
CEO, Daiei, Japan
14 Billion Euro Turnover
Fumiko Hayashi has made a considerable career in a country, where many women traditionally give up their job after their marriage: Since March 2005, she has been leading Daiei, one of the biggest supermarket chains in Japan. The group, which has been shaken by crises, demands redeveloper qualifications in its managers. Before this job, Hayashi, being the daughter of a vegetables wholesaler, had been the marketing director of BMW Japan.
Marissa Mayer, 31
Vice-President, Google, USA
4,8 Billion Euro Turnover
Marissa Mayer has made a long way within the hierarchy of Google: She comes right after the founders of the company, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, as product manager and vice-president. As the computer scientist, she hears every new opinion expressed by the 6.000 employees – and co-decides which project really is going to go online.
Condoleezza Rice, 51
Minister of Foreign Affairs, USA
The top female diplomat is one of the closest consultants of the US-President George W. Bush. The excellent piano player, who recently gave a concert to her colleagues at the evening of the Asean Summit in Kuala Lumpur, defends Bush’s strategy of preventive strokes against the terror regime around the globe. Condoleezza Rice prefers direct negotiations with her discussion partners – one of the reasons for her intensive travel diplomacy, recently especially to the crisis region: Middle East.
Anne-Marie Idrac, 55
CEO, SNCF, France
21 Billion Euro Turnover
While Anne-Marie Idrac was still the head of the traffic company RATP in Paris, she descended into the subway shafts with her trousers and flat shoes and talked there to her colleagues. The personnel liked this. The lady from Breton succeeded to bring down the frequency of strikes to its lowest level since 20 years.
Now, Idrac is at the top of the powerful French state railway SNCF since July 2006. The 55-year old traffic expert is the successor of Louis Gallois, who has been sent to the aviation group EADS as redeveloper.
However, at SNCF, which is a colossus with 165.000 employees, only people-friendly leadership methods do not help much. Right at the beginning she was confronted with the suspicious attitude of the trade unions, which do not trust the former state secretary of the Ministry of Transport and are afraid of a slowly approaching privatization. However, such an idea doesn’t even exist. In comparison to the discussions with the railway workers, who have a known history for going into strikes, the redevelopment of this freight business with very high deficits, which is also under the pressure of private competitors, is one of the bigger challenges faced by this woman, who seems self-confident but describes herself as “shy”.
SNCF is a domain of men. Only 17 percent of the employees are female, but for many years a number of women hold seats in the board of SNCF. On the other hand, French women are used to fight for success.
Beside the chief of the nuclear group Areva, Anne Lauvergeon, Idrac is one of the few women who have made their way to the very top. Idrac began her career in politics, just as Lauvergeon. This was almost her mission ever since her infancy as the daughter of the former minister Andre Colin. After a higher education in law, she walked the classical French career road towards a top position and became one of the youngest graduates of the elite school ENA. Later, the mother of four adult daughters dressed the officers of various ministries. Prime Minister Alain Juppe appointed her in 1995 as the state secretary for traffic within his liberal right government. Idrac belonged to the so-called “Jupettes” (a word play with the words Juppe and jupe: skirt), a group of female politicians, with whom the prime minister wanted to express his modernity. After the change of the government in 1997, she became a parliament member of the central party UDF. As she was brought to the top of RATP in 2002, Anne-Marie Idrac terminated her political career.
Marjorie Scardino, 59
CEO, Pearson, Great Britain, 6 Billion Euro Turnover
The woman from Texas is steering the British publisher Pearson (“The Financial Times”, “The Economist”, Penguin Books) through difficult times. The mother of three children opposes stubbornly the demand of analysts and investors to sell the salmon-red colored finance newspaper. Marjorie Scardino has learned the media business from the scratch: Scardino, who is a lawyer, founded “The Georgia Gazette” in the USA together with her husband in the seventies – however the newspaper went bankrupt despite her Pulitzer Prize.
