Women in the Chair ....

Helen Alexander UBM

The four women in the chair of FTSE 350 boards are an impressively select group leading just 1.14% of companies in the 350 index.  Together they are leading the way in increasing the representation of women on British boards.

The group - Dame Helen Alexander UBM, Anita Frew Victrex, Colette Bowe Electra Private Equity and Alison Carnwarth Land Securities - have dizzying portfolios in which they combine not only multiple directorships but also a wide range of trusteeships on university, cultural and charity boards.  Anita Frew, for example, has been on the board of the Donmar and Gate Theatres and Helen Alexander is Chancellor of Southampton University and both combine all of this with being mothers.

Colette Bowe

The group's portfolios undoubtedly demonstrate phenomenal networking powers but these women also share real longevity of service and, for want of a better word, "stickability" in certain areas of their careers - they are not just "business butterflies" who have flitted from one non-exec role to another.  Helen Alexander joined the Economist Group in 1985 and was CEO of the group for 11 years until she became Vice President of the CBI.  Colette Bowe was a civil servant at the DTI for over 12 years.  Anita Frew has served on the Victrex board for over 10 years and Alison Carnwarth - who is the only woman Chair of a FTSE 100 company - on the Land Securities board for over 8 years.

Alison Carnwarth

Interestingly, the four have combined this "stickability" with the confidence to make some very big and critical career changes.  Colette Bowe's was perhaps the most dramatic, leaving the civil service after becoming caught up in the scandal of the Westland Affair to work in the city as first as a regulator as CEO of the Personal Investment Authority and then Executive Chair of Robert Fleming Asset Management. Anita Frew had risen to the top of the financial sector as Head of Investment at Scottish Provident before joining the marketing group WPP as Director of Corporate Development.  As Colette Bowe has made clear such shifts are by no means easy - in her case in the full glare of the media, anything but  "At the time it felt awful. Some things can be so awful they seem unreal." (Guardian 2011) - but senior achievement in very different sectors has added to their authority as Chairs.

Such impressive role models in their own right, these women are now also leading the way in promoting women to boards with the four boards they chair having much better than average representation of women with three of the four over the 30% target set by campaigning groups and the fourth Land Securities only just shy of this target at 28.5%:

• Electra                3 of 6 directors    50%
• Victrex                2 of 5 directors    40%
• UBM                   2 of 6 directors    33%
• Land Securities    2 of 7 directors    28.5%

In their own words ... the women at the top of British business

I am fascinated by the backgrounds of women at the top of business and how they live their lives but also by how they present themselves.  What do they sound like? What are their mannerisms? How do they interact with different people? Do they have styles and mannerisms in common or as discussed in a previous blog is their individual authenticity key to their authority and charisma?

As part of this exploration I have been collecting video links of some of the women CEOs and Chairs of FTSE 350 businesses and have shared a selection below that I will continue to update ...

Laura Wade-Gery, 

E-commerce Director Marks and Spencer

Tesco.com 2007

Born: 1962
Education: Oxford University
Career: Investment banker at Kleinwort Benson, consultant at Gemini Consulting, CEO Tesco.com and Tesco Direct. Director at Royal Opera House.  Previously non-exec at Trinity Mirror.  Reportedly insisted on a board position at Marks & Spencer when poached from Tesco.
Personal: As a student travelled from Palestine to China in a journey written up by her companion William Darymple in "Xanadu"

Anne Richards, 
Chief Investment Officer, Aberdeen Asset Management

Born:1964 
Education: University of Edinburgh - Electonics & Electrical Engineering, INSEAD MBA
Career: Research fellow at CERN.  Merrill Lynch Investment Managers, Chief Investment Officer and Managing Director Edinburgh Fund Managers.  Chief Investment Officer Aberdeen Asset Management.  Non-exec director Scottish Chamber Orchestra

Girl Guiding UK 2012  

Fund Forum TV 2010 

Financial Times 2012

Alison Cooper, CEO Imperial Tobacco 

Daily Motion May 2011 

Bloomberg Nov 2011 

Bloomberg May 2011 

Born:  1967

Educated:  Tiffin Girls School, Bristol University
Career: Qualified Accountant PricewaterhouseCoopers, Finance Director, COO and CEO Imperial Tobacco, Non-exec Inchcape 
Personal Life:  Married with 2 daughters

Dido Harding, CEO Talk Talk

My Bottom Line, BBC Mar 2012

Born: 1964
Educated: BA PPE Oxford, MBA Harvard Business School
Career: McKinsey, Marketing Director Thomas Cook, Commercial Director Woolworths, Commercial Director Tesco, Convenience Director Sainsbury
Personal Life: Married to John Penrose MP, 2 children
Other: Horse lover and former jockey, grand daughter of Field Marshall John Harding



Harriet Green, CEO Thomas Cook

My Bottom Line, BBC Jun 2012

Born: 1962
Educated: BA Medieval History King's College London, MSc Business Psychology London School of Economics
Career: Arrow Electronics, CEO Premier Farnell, Group CEO Thomas Cook, Non-executive Director Emerson & BAE Systems
Personal life: Married, children
Other: Yoga devotee



Alison Carnwarth, Chair Land Securities
My Bottom Line, BBC Nov 2011

Born: 1953
Educated: BA German & Economics, Reading
Career: Qualified accountant, investment banker at Henry Schroder Wagg and Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette.  Portfolio non-exec director who has served on over 15 boards and is currently on boards of MAN, Zurich Insurance, PACCAR and ISIS Equity Partners.  Resigned from Barclays in 2012

Angela Ahrendts, CEO Burberry

Financial Times, Oct 2010

Born: 1960
Education: Merchandise & Marketing, Ball State University
Career: Donna Karan, Executive Vice President Liz Clairborne
Personal Life: Married with 3 children.
Other: Devout Methodist.  Husband works from home




Ruby McGregor-Smith, CEO MITIE
My Bottom Line
Orange National Business Awards

Born:
Education: BSc Economics Kingston
Career: Qualified accountant, BDO Stoy Hayward, SERCO, Group Finance Director MITIE, Group Chief Operating Officer MITIE, Group CEO MITIE, Non-exec Director Michael Page International
Personal Life: Married with 2 children
Other: Took a career break to care for her youngest child



Carolyn McCall, CEO EasyJet

Keynote Investor Relations Society 2011
Born: 1961 Bangalore, India
Education: BA History & Politics Kent, MA Politics, London
Career: CEO Guardian Newspapers, CEO Guardian Media Group. Previously non-exec Lloyds TSB, New Look, Tesco
Personal Life: Married 3 children
Other: Trained as a teacher


Dame Marjorie Scardino, CEO Pearson
Leader Power Tools 2010


Born: 1947 USA
Education: Baylor University, University of San Fransisco School of Law
Career: Lawyer, journalist, CEO Economist Group, Non-exec Nokia and on boards of Oxfam and MacArthur Foundation
Personal Life: Married with 3 children
Other: Founded the Pulitzer prize winning Georgia Gazette




Cynthia Carroll, CEO Anglo-American
ABNDigital 2011

Born: 1956, USA
Education: BSc Geology Skidmore, MSc Geology Kansas, MBA Harvard Business School
Career: Geologist Amoco, Alcan, Managing Director Aughisih Aluminia, President Alacan Bauxite, CEO Alcan's Primary Metals Group. Previously non-exec at Sara Lee and AngloGoldAshanti
Personal Life: Married with 4 children - husband works from home

The women on the board at Barclays ...

Dambisa Moyo, SAB Miller

A non-exec seat on the board of a large listed company has been seen by many as a safe sinecure at the end of a long career; you were not expected to rock the boat but in return could expect a low public profile and little public pressure.  If it was ever such, the “shareholder spring”, (with high profile revolts at WPP, Aviva, Trinity Mirror, G4S and Astra Zeneca), and the corporate governance crisis at Barclays have put paid to this cosy, obscurity.  Women on boards must now expect and, I would argue, embrace a certain degree of controversy.

Alison Carnwath and Dambisa Moyo, the two women non-execs at Barclays will, (with the rest of the Barclays board), be subject to intense scrutiny over the next few months as the SFO investigates the possibility of criminal prosecution of bank staff for fixing LIBOR rates.  The roles that Alison and Dambisa have played on the Barclays board will become clearer as these investigations unfold  but what is certain is that they are no strangers to controversy and have both been known to contentiously rattle cages. 

Alison Carnwarth, Barclays

Alison Carnwath, (aged 59), has been one of the van-guard of women non-executive directors.  Following education at a Welsh boarding school and Reading University and qualification in the 1970s as an accountant, she was an investment banker rising to the executive board at both Henry Schroder Wagg and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette in New York where she was Managing Director.  Since the early 1990s, she has built a portfolio career serving on 15 different boards, and in addition to Barclays, is currently a non-exec director at Man, Zurich Insurance and PACCAR and chair of the board at Land Securities and ISIS Equity Partners. 

She was named by The Times as one of the 100 most influential directors in the UK and yet it has been claimed that “a large party of the City club just don’t like her” (The Guardian May 2012).  She was for example lambasted by the trade press for what they described as a “graceless” speech to the outgoing CEO at Land Securities because she acknowledged that she had not got on with him personally. (The Evening Standard Apr 2012)

Alison Carnwath, Land Securities

Alison certainly experienced the full barrage of shareholder fire this spring when she was subject to high profile votes against her re-election to the Barclays and Man boards, with 22% and 33% respectively of shareholders voting against her.  At Barclays, she was seen, as Chair of the Remuneration Committee, as responsible for the board’s award of a bonus to Bob Diamond despite poor trading and for failing to explain effectively the award at the meeting with shareholders.

However, subsequent coverage in the Wall Street Journal, suggested that Carnwath had actually strongly opposed the bonus and it had been forced through by Chairman Marcus Agius who had demanded that the board support the award unanimously.  Her performance at the shareholder meeting, some now claim, reflected her thorough lack of support for Diamond's bonus.  Indeed, some who have served with her on other boards claim that she “is no pushover on pay” and takes a much harder line than most board members, (The Guardian May 2012). Some Barclays shareholders have now demanded that the split between Carnwath and Agius be officially revealed.

Dambisa Moyo, Barclays

Dambisa Moyo, (aged 43), has been similarly prepared to challenge the status quo and to make herself unpopular in doing so.  Born in Zambia and with a Masters degree from Harvard and a doctorate in Economics from Oxford she worked at the World Bank and Goldman Sachs.  She came to wider prominence in 2009 with her best-selling critique of AID to the developing world, “Dead Aid”, which was followed by “How the West Was Lost” and “Winner Takes All: China’s Race for Resources”.  She joined the Barclays board in 2010 and has also served on the boards at SAB Miller, Barrick Gold and Lundin Petroleum.

Dambisa's first book, "Dead Aid", challenged the effectiveness of long term AID programmes from the World Bank and the governments of the developed world claiming that they have actually undermined Africa's growth.  Although a best-seller, it was subject to savage criticism from the renown economist Jeffrey Sachs that sparked an acrimonious dispute between the two on their respective blog postings in the Huffington Post.  Her second work "How the West Was Lost" which attacks the "economic and social complacency of the west" received many positive reviews but was slated by The Economist (Jan 2011) and The Financial Times for its controversial arguments.

Dambisa Moyo (Damabisa Moyo.com)

I am in no way qualified to pass judgement on the effectiveness of Alison Carnwath and Dambisa Moyo as board directors at Barclays, and that's not my interest here.  (As more and more women join boards, some will prove themselves outstanding non-execs and some poor just as the men on boards always have done.)  My interest, is the importance of genuinely independent minds on the boards of our large public companies and the implications of this for the behaviour of women directors.  Business is by its very nature controversial - there are inherent tensions between the interests of customers, shareholders, management, employees, governments and our environment and decisions have to be made in which some interests lose out some times.  It is the board's role continuously, to resolve these conflicting interests in a way that ensures the long term sustainability of the company.  To achieve this effectively board members have to be willing to challenge accepted practices, to at times disagree publicly with management and despite an obvious need for smart diplomacy to further one's ends, have to be willing to be disliked.  Alison Carnwath and Dambisa Moyo have both shown themselves willing to embrace this behaviour and in this regard at least are effective roles models for other women in the increasing challenges that non-executives must take on following the "shareholder spring".