THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 22, 1994 TAG: 9408170374
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JANET DUNPHY, SPECIAL TO BUSINESS WEEKLY
LENGTH: Long : 165 lines
Hampton Roads boardrooms are almost entirely the province of men.
Although half the area's 10 largest public companies have female directors, women at the top remain scarce.
Hampton Roads Business Weekly's survey found five women and 82 men serving as directors at the 10 largest companies.
More than a decade has passed since women in great numbers entered the professional ranks of companies in the United States. Now a debate has begun: Are women on the career track making major strides on the corporate ladder?
The answer, apparently, is no.
Accomplished women have become vice presidents in many companies. Few, though, have reached senior executive levels. Even fewer have worked their way to the board of directors, the highest rung in corporate America.
This has created a current of thought: Given more time, women will climb the ladder and reach the boardroom.
``I think it's evolutionary,'' said Betsy Duke, president of Virginia Beach-based Bank of Tidewater. ``Generally boards are drawn from top management. It's unlikely that you get many women from those positions. Historically the numbers are low.''
That's true in Hampton Roads and throughout the United States. A Wall Street Journal study reported two overlapping trends.
Women have moved up the ladder. Of all the white-collar nonclerical jobs in the nation, women accounted for 46 percent of the positions in 1992, compared with 22 percent in the late '60s. But great numbers of women haven't moved far. Females held only a third of all the managers' jobs in the United States in 1992, the Journal reported.
Studies like the Journal's support another notion: More than time matters for women trying to rise in the ranks. Companies have to ensure that female executives get the training and responsibility received by men.
``The culture (of a company) is more important than policy,'' former Monsanto Co. personnel manager Rose Jonas told the Journal. ``If the culture doesn't change, nothing will change for women.''
Catalyst Inc., a research group in New York, claims that almost half the nation's biggest corporations have no female directors. What's more, it says, women hold no more than 5 percent of the vice president-level positions in big business.
However, women have flooded into the labor force in the past decade. They carry more influence at home and work. So the debate about women in the boardroom and in the ranks of management has increased.
``Corporations everywhere now are looking more and more for women who are willing to serve,'' said William Wallace, the just-retired dean of Old Dominion University's College of Business and Public Administration. ``Just about every woman who rises up the professional ranks is going to be sought after to serve on a board.''
Wallace cites a simple reason. Stockholders want women in the boardroom. Women help make the company appear responsible in the public eye.
Wallace, former chief operating officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said women are especially prominent in banking.
``Banks are very conscious about trying to have their boards represent a great cross-section of the constituency they serve,'' he said.
While some bankers have public relations in mind, Norfolk-based Cenit Bancorp said intellect was the driving reason for inviting Anne Shumadine onto its board several years ago.
Shumadine, 51, started her own law firm in 1988 and merged it this year with the Norfolk law firm Mezzullo and McCandlish.
``You don't really think of her as representing a constituency,'' Cenit president Mike Ives said. ``We were looking at her for her analytical process. who would bring a deliberate thought process to the board. She deliberates and comes to a conclusion.''
Shumadine said women are more attuned to human needs than men are, but as a director she doesn't focus on women's needs.
``I'm more concerned that everyone in the organization be treated fairly,'' she said. ``I think it's really a question of giving everyone opportunity.''
That Shumadine came to Cenit's board from outside the bank was unusual in Hampton Roads.
``Companies here tend to promote from the inside,'' said Mike Jacobs, president of the Lee Group, a Norfolk firm that recruits upper executives and directors.
Selecting directors with inside knowledge of the company poses a hurdle for women. Few women are in senior positions. Many coming up the ladder haven't had time to gain the deep insights sought in directors.
``We have a very small board made up primarily of top management people who have made their way up the ranks,'' said John Gullett, vice president of corporate communications at Noland Co.
Noland, a Newport News-based wholesaler of heating, cooling and plumbing supplies, has female department heads, but no women at the vice president or board level.
``It's not historically a very glamorous business,'' Gullett said. ``It's a male-oriented business, not by our choice.''
Gullett said the company tries to attract women, mainly in its sales force.
``Ten years ago we didn't have any female managers,'' he said. ``We're going through an evolution. We've been in business since 1915. It wasn't that long ago it was a male's world.''
In the United States, that was less than a generation ago. Men held almost all supervisory jobs. Times have begun to change.
Sally Andrews, deputy city attorney for Hampton, was the first woman to join the Hampton Roads Bar Association in 1975. And she was the first woman to serve on a regional Commerce Bank board.
``I think things are coming around and it's something that should be happening,'' Andrews said, adding that there's ``a larger pool of women in business now.''
In the last nine years, the number of companies specifically seeking women for senior jobs has increased about 30 percent, said Jacobs, the Norfolk recruiter.
He's placed women in senior vice president positions in New York and Chicago. But Hampton Roads companies have not asked him to recruit women.
``Companies are trying to diversify their senior-level management positions,'' Jacobs said. ``They want the worker bees to see that they are diversifying.''
Jacobs has six $100,000-plus openings outside the region where the preferred candidate is a female. He said women with the proper skills are abundant, but women willing to overcome the intangibles are scarce. Complicating matters, he said, are basic questions: Can the husband relocate? Are the children ready to move?
Women who do make the move can find a new set of pressures.
``Women grow up being socially different. They approach problem-solving differently,'' said Karen Corrigan, acting vice president of Sentara Health System in Norfolk.
``It's not that the way I do it is wrong. It's that I do it differently,'' Corrigan said. ``If you're the only one in the room being different, there's pressure. I think you have to work a little harder to stay even with the perception of a male counterpart.''
Elaine Abicht handled the pressure her own way. She began her career with Smithfield Foods Inc. 19 years ago as a temporary production worker. Today, Abicht, 40, is vice president of purchasing and the only woman in the parent company's upper management.
``I think I happened to be in the right place at the right time and took advantage of learning all I could,'' Abicht said. ``I've shared the knowledge of the people in positions ahead of me who were young and aggressive, and as they were promoted I had a chance at it too.''
Her common-sense advice to other women working their way up: ``Stop thinking that I'm a woman and I deserve special treatment. Don't expect anything special because you're in a minority. If you work very hard and do the very best you can with your company, no one will care if you wear a skirt or trousers with your suit.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff color photos by MOTOYA NAKAMURA
On the Cover: Anne Shumadine
Anne Shumadine, 51, started her own law firm in 1988 and merged it
this year with the Norfolk law firm Mezzullo and McCandlish. She
serves on the board of Norfolk-based Cenit Bancorp.
Chart
Female Execs
Source: The Wall Street Journal
For copy of chart, see microfilm
Chart
Lifting the Glass Ceiling
Source: Fortune Magazine
For copy of chart, see microfilm
KEYWORDS: WOMEN EXECUTIVES
by CNB