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Business Voice
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February, 2007<br>
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A dearth of women chief executives in the FTSE 100; yet more women starting businesses. Pioneers such as BUPA CEO Val Gooding and Baroness Hogg at the top of industry; yet enduring gender-based pay discrimination. It’s difficult to pin down the truth about women in business.
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Margaret Heffernan blasts through the fog with her contention that women-owned companies are creating a “new norm” for entrepreneurial, business and management success. And she comes armed with hair-raising facts from the US: every day, 420 new women- owned firms are formed; and they’re growing faster, more profitably and stand a greater chance of sticking around.
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Women, and women-owned businesses, tend to spot niches; keep values central; be more in tune with social trends; speak out when facing crisis; and see
leadership as orchestration rather than barking orders. This, says Heffernan, is the future model of business success.
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I was particularly struck by Barbara Krumsiek of Calvert Investments. She believes that funds will not be competitive if they don’t push companies to develop productive, equitable, healthy cultures.
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Reading How She Does It (now titled 'Women on Top') feels like attending a kaleidoscopic, high-energy drinks party, packed to the gunnels with brave, buzzy, imaginative businesswomen. I left energised – and convinced.