Jun

24

All due respect, the slam against female CEOs is only because there are so few of them in the CEO biz that men can still poke fun and smear. Once there is a substantial percentage of progesteronic/estrogenic CEOs around, the model will magically "get better".

Or so I feel.

Ed Stewart comments: 

M, it is not necessarily that the lady CEO's were not up to task, but rather that desperate companies looked to "pass the buck" to a female CEO at just the wrong time. And the reason i think is that it is still a "newsworthy" or "progressive" thing to do, so the company can get good press about it (particularly in the tech industry) and appear to be innovative without actually accomplishing anything of substance. As very few women, even highly intelligent women, are truly tech oriented, they tend to bring in "Jargon-filled, MBA dialect" solutions which tick off companies that have an engineering culture, etc.

A counterpoint (with regards to performance) is TJX CEO C. Meryowitz who came in in 2007, who many credit with an outstanding performance that has vastly rewarded shareholders. She also worked up the ranks and was not "cherry picked" and placed on top at the last minute.

On a related note I firmly believe all men should consult as many women as possible in order to understand the modern consumer economy. So much of the spending makes such little sense to so many of us (men) we are completely lost. For example my wife was shopping at Lululemon early on, (a store I laughed at as ridiculous), I didn't think whole foods would catch on and continue to grow, TJX seemed like a bunch of junk no one needs - but to Meryowitz's (and my wife's) credit it is now one of the stocks that I own with the largest unrealized gains, in spite of not doing well this year. 


Comments

Name

Email

Website

Speak your mind

Archives

Resources & Links

Search