Women at the top -- 25+ years later, still a depressing story

I joined the corporate world in 1981.  In the old days, when they hired you, they could still ask you when you planned to have children. Women in the '80s were expected to dress like female versions of men. Though we could reveal a flash of color in the bow ties we wore around our necks.

I've had a fabulous career, so I'll keep my complaining to a minimum. When I worked for a corporation, I managed big budgets, was responsible for communications to vast audiences, ranging from the thousands to the millions, got to travel the United States, and got to work with some of the smartest people I've ever met.

Lonely at the top

Still, I can't help but be chagrined by the stats revealed at a luncheon one of my former corporate co-workers, Jane Blanco, and I attended today.

•  Women hold 14 percent of the available board seats in Minnesota's 100 largest publicly held companies. The overall percent is not increasing.
• Only 32 of the top 100 companies have two or more women corporate directors.
• Minnesota cos. with larger revenues tend to have a greater number and percentage of women board members than smaller companies.

The keynote speaker for today's lunch event was Jeffrey Ettinger, president, CEO and chairman of Hormel Foods Corp. Hormel has four female directors out of a total of 12 and three female senior managers. Undoubtedly, it's lonely at the top.

When I was younger, I was intensely competitive. I became one of the youngest female execs at the Fortune 100 company I worked for. After 12 years of 60-hour weeks (80 during the merger with our parent co.), I hit the glass ceiling and left my extremely well-paying job. And I haven't looked back.

Like many women, I opted out of a big co. where I felt over-worked and under-appreciated. I started my own company. Within a few years, I was making almost what I was making in the big corporation. And the freedom to run my life the way I wanted to was amazing. While I continued to work hard, I was in charge of my schedule -- not my secretary who chuckled every morning when I asked if she'd left any time for me to go to the restroom.

I give the CEO of Hormel, the Minnesota Women's Economic Roudtable and St. Catherine University credit for hosting an event to talk about this very important and still sensitive topic. We all know that women directors and senior managers have positive effects on companies. Management guru Tom Peters gives convincing arguments about research on how women are stacking up against men as effective managers. He also gives impressive stats on how influential women are in our country's collective purchasing power. He's been scratching his head for years about the irony of male-dominated marketing departments trying to capture lucrative female target groups.

Are quotas the answer?

But I digress. Back to the luncheon. After his presentation, Ettinger bravely offered to take questions from the audience. One woman asked if he had noticed that the face of this country's financial crisis was male. He moved quickly on to another audience member who asked what he thought of the European countries quotas to get more women on boards.  He answered that he hoped that wouldn't be necessary.

But think about it. Who voluntarily gives up power?

After 30 years in the workforce, I personally don't want to continue 12-plus-hour days to prove I'm board worthy. But I am willing to shop at companies who have leaders who look like me. I figure that's the most efficient and effective way I can communicate at this stage in the game.

I'm interested in your opinions.

PS:To see the full 2009 Minnesota Census of Women in Corporate Leadership report, click on: http://www.stkate.edu/mn_census/09/index.html