nwasianweekly.com
Mar. 25, 2006

Have you come a long way, baby?

Did you know some of the most well-known companies in America today are led by women? From eBay to Avon Products, Sara Lee to Xerox, several industry giants have found that a woman at the helm can mean big profits.

Women often have tremendous say in what families spend their money on, so it makes sense to put women in executive leadership positions, especially at companies that deal with consumer products, financial services and retail.

In recognition of Women’s History Month, we applaud companies that are getting smart about hiring and promoting women for executive- and management-level positions. It’s not about filling quotas; it’s about recognizing that women offer new, different and interesting perspectives that benefit the consumer and the company’s bottom line.

The Wall Street Journal pointed out in a recent article that several companies, including Procter & Gamble, Morgan Stanley, PepsiCo and Southwest Airlines, have women poised to take on top executive positions in coming years.

So is it true? Have we come a long way, baby?

In many respects, yes. More and more companies are beginning to understand the value of diversity, whether that means gender, racial, cultural or otherwise. But many of the gains are at the staff level, not at the executive level. According to the Wall Street Journal report, women make up 50.3 percent of all managers and professionals, but only 1.4 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs. The gains are even more pathetic for women of color. Andrea Jung, head of Avon Products, is really the only Asian American female at that executive level.

Locally, we can point only to one woman in the Asian community who leads at the CEO level — Carol Nelson. The Japanese American is in charge of Cascade Bank, a full-service community bank with more than $1 billion in assets.

Up until 2003, Phyllis Campbell, also Japanese American, was president of U.S. Bank of Washington and the only other Asian American woman in the state leading a major company. Campbell has since switched over to the nonprofit sector, becoming president and CEO of The Seattle Foundation.

While we can point to many local Asian American women who are leading big nonprofits — including Teresita Batayola of International Community Health Services, Diane Narasaki of Asian Counseling and Referral Service, Elaine Ko of Interim Community Development Services and Evelyn Yenson of the Seattle Chinese Garden Society — the list in the business sector shows little progress. And we’re disappointed.

Programs like the Seattle-based Executive Development Institute, which helps Asian Americans develop their corporate leadership skills, are no good if companies are not taking action to diversify their top ranks. For whatever reason, it’s still very much a struggle to get companies to hire and promote employees of color for top leadership positions.

We aren’t giving up the campaign for more diversity at the top, but we do encourage people of color to take alternative routes to leadership positions. It’s not a CEO position, but becoming a member of a company’s board of directors can expose a person to the right connections and cultivate invaluable experience. Of course, most of these boards of directors are white-male bastions, but one good way to get started on this track is by joining the boards of nonprofit organizations, which can lead to great networking opportunities, visibility and name recognition.

Campbell herself has found her skills and experiences to be in high demand. Sitting on the boards of Nordstrom, Safeco, Puget Sound Energy and Alaska Air Group, she probably serves on the boards of more prominent companies than any other Asian American woman in the state.

Is it enough to have one or two Asian American women at such levels of business? No. It’s time to cultivate even more leaders.

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Northwest Asian Weekly • P.O. Box 3468 • Seattle • WA  98114
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