Future Looks
Bright For Female CEOCandidates
The number of women in charge of large US
companies could double in the next five
years as more female managers break through
corporate America’s glass ceiling, according
to Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo’s chief executive.
Ms Nooyi, one of only 11 female chief
executives among Fortune 500 companies, said
a growing number of women had risen to
senior corporate positions and could make
the leap to a top job over the next few
years.
“The next five to 10 years I think are
very promising . . . I am meeting more and
more fantastic women at what I call
almost-CEO levels. There is a lot of hope,”
she told the Financial Times in an
interview.
“Eleven is better than zero, progress has
been made and I hope that number doubles
quickly”.
The comments by Ms Nooyi, who became
PepsiCo’s first female CEO last October
after 12 years with the consumer goods
group, contrast with the widespread fears of
a slowdown in women’s rise to the top of
corporate America.
Last year, women lost ground to men in
the share of both board memberships and
corporate officer positions, according to
Catalyst, an organisation focused on gender
and equality issues.
The research found that, despite
accounting for nearly half of the US
workforce, women make up only 15 per cent of
directors and 16 per cent of senior officer
positions in Fortune 500 companies.
“Women candidates for senior positions
face greater scrutiny than men,” said Ilene
Lang, president of Catalyst.
“But women are emerging. As companies
look for the leaders of the future they want
to play with a full deck, why look at only
half of the potential talent?”
The ranks of female chief executives of
large companies, which include Ebay’s Meg
Whitman and Xerox’s Anne Mulcahy, were
recently augmented by the appointment of
Irene Rosenfeld, a former senior executive
at PepsiCo, as chief executive of Kraft.
Ms Nooyi, who spent the first 23 years of
her life in her native India before winning
a place at Yale University in the US, said
the lack of women in senior positions was
one of the historical reasons for their
small presence in the boardroom.
She said that companies had a
responsibility to break any remnants of a
glass ceiling by setting up programmes to
help women rise to the top.
Source: The Financial Times 27 March
2007 By Francesco Guerrera and Andrew Ward
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