Where are all the business women?

The Canadian Business Hall of Fame has chosen its inductees for 2009 – this year, there appears to be a woman included in the six prestigious group – Mrs. de Gaspé-Beaubien accompanies her husband into the hall of fame. Although there were four women on the selection committee, there still seems to be a dearth of women represented not only in nomination process, but among the ranks of hall of famers period. With this new batch of inductees, I count three ...

I wrote this for a Workplace magazine in December 2007, and, unfortunately, it still seems to apply.
The Canadian Business Hall of Fame (CBHOF) recently announced its 2008 laureate inductees – six prominent business leaders “recognized for their business excellence and honoured for their outstanding business achievements and enduring contributions to Canadian society.” This year’s laureates are three Irvings (Arthur, Jack and J.K.), John McCaig (Trimac), Serge Godin (CGI Group) and John Cleghorn (Royal Bank), but there isn’t a single woman listed.

The next press release across my desk noted that women comprise only 28 per cent of the total IT work force in Canada. Why, the release asks, do woman continue to ignore IT positions? Is it fear of a closed boys’ club, skill capabilities or simply a lack of awareness?

It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that much of what’s preventing women from pursuing top roles is, in fact, awareness – or, more precisely, the lack of it – about Canada’s women executives. According to a study conducted by Rosenzweig & Company in early 2007, the number of women heading Canada’s 100 biggest publicly traded companies had tripled … to three! And, there are just two women listed among the 150 CBHOF laureates – Sonja Bata and Muriel S. Richardson, both wives of successful men.

But, that doesn’t mean there aren’t strong women out there filling top roles. Each year, Profit magazine accepts nominations and publishes a list of Canada’s Top Women Entrepreneurs. All the companies on the 2007 list have revenues of over eight million dollars; heading the 2007 list are Rebecca MacDonald, of Energy Savings Income Fund ($1.5 billion), Gabrielle Chevalier, of Solutions 2 GO Inc. ($270 million), and Madeleine Paquin, of Logistec Corp ($217 million).

That list doesn’t even take into account other high profile, high performing business women, such as Kathy Sendall (PetroCan), Barbara Stymiest (RBC), Heather Reisman (Indigo Books & Music), Nancy Southern (ATCO), Martha Billes (Canadian Tire) or Eva Lee Kwok (Amara).

It’s easy enough to blame the “old boys club” mentality for this lack of profile. But, let’s face it, that club is rapidly losing members. Maybe time and attrition will gradually see women filling those spaces – after all, the oldest woman on the above list is Eva Lee Kwok, who is just 64. Yet, for some reason, these women are not recognized as mentors for younger women coming up the ranks. When I asked my teenaged daughters who were the women they looked up to, they couldn’t think of a living, prominent woman to name.

A telling story revolves around the woman who headed the National Post’s 50 Top Business Women in Canada list in 2002 – Eleanor Clitheroe. You may remember Clitheroe as the beleaguered CEO of Hydro One, who was abruptly fired by the Ernie Eaves’ (Conservative) government as being overpaid and for breaching her fiduciary trust.

Many on Hydro One’s board, as well as others involved at the time, supported Clitheroe, saying her salary was lower than many CEOs in comparable positions. However, she was slammed by the media, other women executives, and the government alike, leading Sir Graham Day, former chair of Cadbury Schweppes who was involved in the Hydro One privatization scheme, which Clitheroe was overseeing at the time, to remark, “If Eleanor was a man, it might have been different. If she had been ugly, it might have been different. But she is relatively young, attractive, well-groomed, articulate and female, so I have to think the media saw it as, wow, what a juicy story. It saddens me that other women were not prepared to stand up for one of their own.”

Clitheroe has since left the business world to become an Anglican minister, and has launched a lawsuit against Hydro One.

What we women need to take away from the story, though, is that women still haven’t gotten together to celebrate our leaders and provide the support group – the “old girls club” if you will – that men have relied on so faithfully. PetroCan’s Kathy Sendall notes that women have a hard time celebrating their own and other women’s successes. She encourages us to think about, “The disservice we do all women when we fail to graciously accept recognition and celebrate our accomplishments.”