Remembering Dorothy Height (1912-2010)
Dorothy Height, whose life was captured in the 2005 musical
biography titled, "If This Hat Could Talk,"
and who attributed her fondness for marvelous hats to a generation in which
"Too many people...fought for the right for us to be dressed up and not put
down," died on April 20th at
age 98.
Widely recognized as the
"matriarch" of the civil rights movement, in 1963 Ms. Height tried - and failed - to persuade organizers of
Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech to allow a woman to be among those who addressed
the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington,
D.C. Cropped out of photos because she was a woman,
she worked tirelessly to overcome gender prejudice.
Recognizing the importance of women in
leadership, she spoke out against the absence of civility during the "black
power" movement of the sixties, although she later embraced its goal of
increased economic power. With renewed attention on women in the workplace,
it's appropriate to honor Ms. Height, and other women like her, by our voices
and our action. As Lola Adesioye of the Huffington Post observed in remembering Ms. Height, "...our
voices are heard only by using them."
We are pleased to share with you, in this 2010 Spring
issue of Ebrief, information about
notable women like Ms. Height, new research about the number of women directors
on the boards of Russell 3000 companies, a series of women's economic
empowerment principles published by the UN that urges the proactive recruitment
of more women to corporate c-suites and boards and a framework for evaluating
board diversity based on the GRI sustainability reporting model. We also are please to announce an event we
hope will help increase the effectiveness of Wisconsin
women as corporate directors.
If you would like to subscribe
to future issues of this Ebrief, please go to the home page of our
website, www.milwaukeewomen.org. If
you are reading the print version of this issue, and would like to access the
links (highlighted in blue) to more information, you may do
so using the electronic version which also is on our
website under "News and Resources."
Jilaine Hummel Bauer MWi Steering Committee Member Founder & Principal, Bauer Consulting
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Looking from Past to Future
Women in Corporate Leadership
The earliest identified woman in the United States to serve
on a corporate board was Marjorie Meriwether Post; her father's death in 1914
left the 27-year-old heiress the owner of the rapidly growing Post
cereal company. She took charge of the
board and showed great business acumen. In 1987, the very first independent Director of the Year to be honored
by the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) was Juanita Kreps. Among her board appointments were the boards
of J.J. Reynolds and J.C. Penny.
Looking
from the past to the present, DiversityInc has been studying why some corporate
cultures have sustainable and incremental track records of women being promoted
in to the highest levels, along with retention of comparable men. In this year's ranking of the Top Ten Companies for Executive Women, Sodexo ranked #1 with a world-class
mentoring program, extremely strong employee groups and one-third of its board
of directors as women.
Another
company noted for the distinction of being the only company within the S&P 500 to be served by both a woman
Chair and a woman CEO, is the Xerox
Corporation. A longstanding champion for workforce diversity, in July 2009 Xerox tapped Ursula
Burns to succeed Anne Mulcahy as CEO, with Ms. Mulcahy
remaining as Chairman of the Board. In a recent interview for
a European professional women's publication, Anne confesses that shortly after she became
CEO when the company was in a life-threatening crisis, she cancelled all
activities relating to her as a woman leader, believing it was a distraction and
not good for her company. When she reversed herself, however, she received a phone call from another female CEO of a
Fortune 500 company who convinced her that it was her role and duty to continue
to speak up and remain accessible as a role model for the next generation of
women leaders, and she has served in that role ever since.
Earlier this year, LATINA Style, the premier magazine
addressing the needs of professional Latinas in the United States, hosted its
12th Annual LATINA Style 50 Awards & Diversity Conference
recognizing the 50 companies providing the best opportunities for professional
Latinas. Among the factors considered
were the number of Hispanic women executives and board members. A Latina
women recently appointed to a Wisconsin public
company board is Nina G. Vaca who serves on the Board of Directors of the Kohl's Corporation. Ms. Vaca, who also sits on the Board of
Directors of Comerica Bank, is the founder and CEO of Pinnacle Technical
Resources, Inc., a staffing, vendor management and IT solutions firm that has
flourished to become the fifth-fastest growing firm of its type in a $20
billion industry.
Getting on Board:
Perspectives for Women on Becoming Effective Corporate DirectorsBelieving that board diversity makes good
business sense, last October Milwaukee
Women inc announced its 2014 Initiative, calling upon
Wisconsin's companies to increase the
number of women directors on their boards to 25% by the year 2014.
In furtherance of this goal, on Thursday, May
20th Milwaukee Women inc is co-sponsoring a program for the 21st century woman director, designed to help them be successful and effective board
members. To learn more and register for
the program, co-sponsored with Foley & Lardner LLP, one of the nation's
leading law firms on corporate governance issues, please respond to the EVITE.
Women's Empowerment
Principles Recognize the Economic Impact of
Women Directors and C-Suite Executives
Economists believe that the cost and benefits of decision
making appear in the future, since it is only the future that we can influence.
Empowering women to participate fully in economic life across all sectors and
throughout all levels of economic activity is essential to
- Building
strong economies;
- Establishing
more stable and just societies;
- Achieving
internationally-agreed goals for development, sustainability and human
rights;
- Improving
quality of life for women, men, families and communities; and
- Propelling
businesses' operations and goals
International Women's Day was celebrated on March 8th
by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) and the UN Global
Compact (UNGC) publishing the Women's Empowerment Principles. The Principles, which represent a series of seven steps companies can
take to ensure the empowerment of women in the workplace, follow on the heels
of the SEC rule adopted last December requiring U.S. public companies to
disclose information about their board diversity practices and a growing number
of countries that have adopted (or are considering adopting) legislation
mandating gender diversity on corporate boards. The second of the Principles
urges companies to "proactively recruit
and appoint women to managerial and executive positions and to the corporate
board of directors," and further recommends that at least 30% of those
responsible for corporate governance decision-making in all business areas are
women.
Benchmarking and A
Possible Framework for Assessing Gender Diversity Among Corporate Directors
The number of surveys and reports available for
use in evaluating how public companies are doing relative to gender
diversity among their directors and
within their c-suites continues to grow. These include reports with regional
data such as Milwaukee Women inc's October 2009 biennial report and the and the InterOrganization
Network (ION) March 2010 annual report aggregating
the regional data of its 14
members including Milwaukee Women inc.
Among other recent reports is a white paper,
"Uneven Progress: Female Directors in the
Russell 3000," issued by The
Corporate Library that examines its database of over 30,000 public company board
seats.
According to The Corporate Library study, although
almost 90% of S&P 500 companies have at least one woman on their boards,
only 60% of companies comprising the Russell 3000 do, and only 50% of Russell
2000 companies have at least one female director. Even within the S&P 500, only 14
companies have female board chairs with Xerox Corporation having the
distinction of being the only company
within the S&P 500 to be served by both a woman Chair and a woman CEO. Although more common than women board chairs,
the study also found a paucity of women chairing board committees within the
S&P 500: 45 chaired compensation committees; 58 chaired audit committees;
and 75 chaired nominating committees.
For companies looking for ways
to improve gender diversity at the board level, the Global Reporting Initiative
(GRI) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) published a guide last
October using the GRI Sustainability Reporting Framework. Developed originally by institutional
investors who believe that social and environmental performance, in addition to
financial performance, informs the investment decision making process, the guide,
titled "Embedding Gender in Sustainability Reporting," cites research
suggesting organizations with gender diversity on corporate boards and in
senior level management tend to perform better financially, and recommends that
companies include "gender-disaggregated" date on the composition of boards and
management in their sustainability reports.
Sustainability reporting, especially through the
use of this framework, are being issued by a growing number of global companies
at the urging of institutional investors who believe that they help companies engage stakeholders, set goals
and measure progress towards meeting social, environmental and financial
targets. The SEC Investor Advisory Committee, formed in 2009 to provide
the SEC with input on regulatory policy, recently announced its plans to
provide later this yeaer, through its Investors as Owner SubCommittee, a work
plan for U.S. sustainability disclosure. |
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