BC Business
Take a moment to scroll down this year’s Top 100 list of public and private companies and count the number of women who appear in the CEO column. Don’t bother putting down the BlackBerry; you’ll need just one hand to do it. In fact, a hand that’s missing a couple of fingers will do.
Only Powerex Corp. (number 20), led by CEO Teresa Conway; the Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority (number 26), led by Pat Jacobsen; and Providence Health Care (number 48), led by CEO Dianne Doyle, are headed by women. If you scrutinize the Top 100 list of public companies, you’ll add just one more: Intrinsyc Software International Inc., squeaking in at number 100 with CEO Glenda Dorchak. Conway’s reaction to being told she’s a rare breed? She’s not surprised. “When I look at my position and look at people in comparable positions across the industry, it’s reflective of that. I know of only one other female executive in a position similar to mine.” Doyle isn’t any more astonished. “It’s still pretty tough being a senior executive in any kind of business and being a wife and a mom and the softball coach and the manager of the hockey team and all that kind of stuff you have to do to have a broad and fulfilled life.” Even in health care, she notes, there are more male CEOs than female CEOs, “despite the fact that probably 80-some per cent of the providers of care within health care are female.” Taken at face value, our Top 100 list seems enough to raise Betty Friedan from the grave. Is it time to revive the sisterhood and burn our bras all over again? Well, not exactly. If you ask Roslyn Kunin, principal of economics, business and HR consultancy at Roslyn Kunin & Associates Inc., there’s more to this riddle than meets the eye. “First of all,” she points out, “women start more businesses than men, and they have a lower failure rate than men. But they don’t tend to grow as big. I think, if you were looking for the ‘Middle 100 Companies,’ you’d find a much higher proportion of female CEOs.” The corporate world just isn’t that appealing to many women; the long hours, the endless sacrifices of family time and the intense competition are enough to turn many men off, let alone women, who are still the primary caregivers at home. “Women – and men, too – are realizing that people have more options than just climbing the corporate ladder in a large organization,” says Kunin. As large companies increasingly rely on outside talent, there are more opportunities to find success in smaller companies, she adds. For many women, those outside roles are more desirable. Doreen McKenzie-Sanders is a veteran journalist (she got her start at the Province 65 years ago, “when all the men went off to war”) and executive director of Women in the Lead Inc., a directory of businesswomen seeking positions on corporate boards. She says her database currently lists 615 women from across Canada, with a large percentage categorizing themselves as entrepreneurs. It was only as recently as 1973 that MBA programs saw their first female graduates, McKenzie-Sanders notes, and those women weren’t always greeted with open arms when they set out into the male-dominated corporate world. “I think a lot of women got very discouraged and became very successful entrepreneurs,” she says. From McKenzie-Sanders’s perspective, women have gained enormous ground in the workplace. “When I went to Crofton House,” she recalls, “it was never even suggested that we’d have careers in the professions. We were to marry well, live happily ever after and ‘don’t bother your pretty little heads about money. Daddy will look after that, and then your husband will.’” Still, insists Kunin, the fact that we’ve come this far doesn’t make the male-to-female ratio of our Top 100 list acceptable. “After all, women make up 50 per cent of the labour force,” she says, “so they should make up more than three per cent of its top leaders.” So what will it take to see a Top 100 list with some gender balance? Conway, who says five out of eight executives at Powerex are women, says encouragement from peers was key to landing her high-powered gig. “I think that’s an area that women can work on to better themselves in organizations: providing other women encouragement and support to go for the leadership roles.” She also believes that women need to plan their careers more strategically. “I think women may think about the next job,” she says, “but not the next two or three jobs ahead for them. Males have a longer-term planning horizon for careers.” Lest you presume a woman’s ascent up the corporate ladder requires her to opt out of marriage and motherhood, think again. Both Conway and Doyle are happily married, with children. In fact both cite supportive partners – along with the ability to hire good help – as integral to their successes. But without the luxury of an understanding partner and a nanny, the corporate world can seem an insurmountable mountain to climb. Society still expects women to be the main caregivers, remarks Doyle. If you can’t afford help, “the ability to do that and have a personal life, get your education, get credentialed, commit to an executive position that has all kinds of wild hours – it’s just not humanly possible.” While the gender divide in our Top 100 list may be out of whack, things are slowly but surely changing. Last year, for instance, the female count was two. And as Kunin predicts, given our tight labour market, corporations will have no choice but to turn to more women – and ethnic minorities – for leadership skills. “Right now,” she says, “we are in a serious talent war, and the luxury of any kind of discrimination is something that we can no longer afford at all.” Related Stories: View from the Top Mineral Explosion Ones to Watch