By Elisa-Marie Dumas, Director of Member Relations, FWE&E

As Haiti experienced yet another devastating aftershock today, I find myself feeling incredibly sad for the community that I had been so close to just a few days ago. My husband and I flew to the Dominican Republic for a belated honeymoon, returning the day before the quake hit. Although we did not visit the island of Haiti, we met several Haitians in DR, as well as many of the locals. In the US we complain about how horrible the economy was in 2009. Believe me, as bad as it was here, most of us are much better off than the majority of people in poverty-stricken countries. This was the first time that my husband had travelled outside of the US. As we walked down the street, what disturbed him is something I’ve seen many times around the world. Poverty was everywhere. Entire families live in cinderblock houses smaller than my living room. It’s heartbreaking that there are so few resources to help them. Despite their dire circumstances, these people are some of the most beautiful, generous, and kind people I’ve ever met. They don’t beg for food or money and don’t want charity. But they’ll do anything for the smallest amount of money that could equate to what your child might receive from the tooth fairy. And even though they have so little, they’re willing to share what they have with their neighbors. In that spirit of generosity, I hope you’ll help those who are happy with so little, when we are blessed with so much. I encourage you to support the Haiti earthquake relief effort any way you can. It’s easy. You can text the Red Cross at 90999 to donate $10, or you can go to their link to donate http://www.redcross.org/ For more ways to help, there’s a list of other organizations at http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/impact/.

Today marks the 2009 release of the UC Davis Census of Women Leaders where they are reporting that once again, the number of women in the C suite and on Boards of the top 400 public companies in the state of California is a paltry 10.6% which is DOWN from the 10.9% number reported in 2008.

Equally shocking is that 118 (29.5%) of California’s largest 400 public companies have no women board directors or executive officers. Only 15 of the 400 companies have a woman CEO.  The Bay area has the county with the greatet percentage of women directors - San Francisco (15.7%), as well as the county with the least - Santa Clara (8.2%) - the heart of Silicon Valley.

I was really excited to participate in an NPR interview this morning until the first comment from a listener came in with the remark about why are we even talking about this issue since many women want to stay at home to take care of kids while their husbands bring home the paycheck.

When asked to respond to this, I could only comment that it is an example of the gender bias and stereotyping that exists for both women and men that keep things stagnating the way they are.

The reason I don’t understand why we have to talk about this issue is that there is so much data out there supporting that when there is diversity of all kinds in the board room and the C Suite that there is better financial performance, more measured risk taking, and greater creative thinking and problem solving due to the diversity of backgrounds, disciplines, gender, race etc.

Organizations will face a major talent shortage in the near future as qualified, educated women (more women graduating with MBA’s than men for example) will look at those companies who created intention around having diversity of all kinds as a better place to work.  Those who create sponsorships to create opportunities for women, who measure the degree of diversity in hiring and who actually walk the talk will be the ones who win the talent competition.

Women also can influence changing this picture by learning how to network more strategically to break into the power circles where decisions are made; negotiate higher salaries rather than justifying what is offered; and seeking out and accepting roles they might need to stretch into.

Men will take a role if they are 50% qualified and feel they will figure it out when they get there. Women tend to feel they need 100% of the competencies before they can accept the role.

This issue is about choice. Maria Shriver’s recent report on women talks about how roles are changing as many women are the main career bread winner and the husband stays home to take care of things on that front. And, there are many women who are choosing to stay home to relish the valuable time they will have with their children.

The point is, there is not one right answer here. But corporate America seems to be stuck in a model of one way of doing things that does not support the aspirations, life challenges, or goals that many women have.

We’re having a dialogue about this issue tonight with Dean Currall of UC Davis Graduate School of Business, Maureen Connors, Board Member of Decker Outdoor Corporation (in the Top 25 companies in CA on the UC Davis list); Karen Rohde, SVP of Sun Microsystems (being acquired by Oracle), Bethany Mayer, Chief Marketing Officer of BlueCoat, and Deborah Campbell, Director of Membership from Catalyst.  Come join us at 6pm at DLA to continue this discussion or comment here on what you have to say about this very important issue.

In my previous blog, I reported on the highlights of the W.I.N. Global Leadership conference held in Prague, Czech Republic on October 8-10.

In addition to those highlights, during the conference two business school professors from London and Switzerland  delivered presentations that I found quite thought provoking. Both discussed the different characteristics that make women leaders thrive, but also pointed out ways they shoot themselves in the foot.

Do you agree with these competences and assertions from Nigel and George or do you have a different list?  Do any of these competencies strike an idea for a new development area for yourself?

Nigel Nicholson, Professor at the London Business School, began by stating that we have a fundamentally wrong model of leadership being practiced today that is based on meritocracy where decisions are made on a linear hierarchy.  It creates a purely random universe where people “get there” by luck.

What you are supposed to be doing as a leader is getting the best out of those around you.  There is a unique set of characteristics that women have used to help drive the future that are actually more positive than the male dominant hierarchy model.  However, women often don’t jump into the water if it doesn’t look good.Meaning they don’t move between enough different environments - which lessens their opportunities for leadership roles.

Nigel also talked about the strategy of the future being based on vision and outlined some key skills that women have and should develop in order to prepare themselves for future leadership roles.  These key skills include:  asking questions; de-centering (seeing what something looks like from another perspective); managing like a partner and not a boss; storytelling - connecting people with the past, present, and the future in a way that is emotionally compelling.

A leader answers the following questions:

1. Who am I and why am I here?
2. Who are we and what do we stand for? - Our core competence and real purpose
3. Where are we going?
4. Why are we going there? - Stated with conviction!
5. Why must we change? - A crisis is a terribly opportunity to waste

On the last day of the conference, George Kohlrieser, Professor at IMD in Switzerland listed out his view of the critical competencies for women leaders.  His background is very interesting as he began his career in law enforcement and grew to become a hostage negotiator.  Much of his work is about resolving conflict and many of the ideas presented below are covered in his new book “Hostage at the Table: How Leaders Can Resolve Conflict, Influence Others, and Raise Performance.”

The core competencies for women leaders he highlighted in his presentation were:

1. Being assertive
2. Being decisive
3. Social bonding to raise performance (otherwise known as connectedness or networking)
4. Managing conflict for a win-win outcome
5. Being a secure base and having secure bases
6. Mastering the mind’s eye to focus on positive goals (versus being sucked into the negative outlook on life)
7. Developing resilience
8. Understanding business

One of the most compelling statements he made was how we get to the highest level of performance through failure and how we live in a world where there is a high expectation for entitlement.

On October 8-10, 2009, I had the pleasure of attending and presenting at the W.I.N. Global Leadership conference in Prague, Czech Republic. This was my third time attending this conference and I was again impressed with the integration of creativity through music performed at the start of each plenary session and the bevy of global thought-provoking speakers.

The W.I.N. audience is very similar to that of FWE&E in its composition of entrepreneurs, executives, consultants, thought leaders who are forward-looking people and influential decision makers. They state that the W.I.N. woman is typically culturally aware, wants to be part of a community and has an international and open mindset. She is well educated, keen to learn, to grow and to contribute, receptive to new technology, embraces change and listens to her intuition.

The theme of this year’s conference was Wisdom in Action - divided into three main segments with the first day providing a global overview of topics of interest to women leaders, followed by a day of work and career issues, concluding with a day focusing on leadership and personal growth topics.

Some of the highlights for me included Axel Olsen from the Institute for Future Studies in Copenhagen who stated that the future is going to be created by women in new and different ways than we’ve seen in the past. This is the best time in life to create our own future where the opportunities are as big as the risks. The Institute offers 15 megatrends that they feel will shape the future with the top five being knowledge, new technology, acceleration, hyper-complexity and globalization. Other trends that interested me were immaterialization, individualization, networks, environment and aging. He ended by stressing that existing competition means nothing and that surprises will come from new and different angles.

Other sessions that I found quite compelling included hearing from Lorella Zanardo, Founder and General Manager of Sportgate who has taken on the challenge of highlighting sexism against women in Italy by creating a documentary entitled The Body of Women after being shocked by the images of women in the media in Italy on public television during early hours of the day.

The story of Unilver’s re-energizing of the Dove Brand as told by Angela Nelissen, Sales Director HPC of Uniliver was such an interesting story. The idea of the body self esteem campaign came from a brainstorming session held at a corporate offsite where the women were sharing the issues that meant the most to them and many of them related to self esteem. It was interesting to hear the stories of the internal communication created to “sell” the new campaign and the resistance shown by countries such as France and Italy where beauty was not viewed in the same manner. The new Dove self esteem fund for girls has been a very generous and creative offshoot of the campaign.

We heard the story of career development from Alison Smale, Executive Editor of the International Herald Tribune who, after spending many years in Eastern Europe and Russia and actually being present when the Berlin Wall came down, now lives once again in the UK. Her story of her education, opportunities that opened, and risks that she took were very compelling. What was most interesting was to learn that the International Herald Tribune is about to begin a new series on global women entitled “Turning Point” where they will cover information about women in all walks of life in all countries.

I was moved to tears by the story from Marguerite “Maggy” Barankitse from Burundi who has founded the Maison Shalom (House of Peace) and has supported up to 10,000 children orphaned by the strife in her country. Her native language is French and hearing her wonderfully accented voice tell the story of seeing her family killed in front of her, pleading with the killers to let her save the children, starting to care for them with nothing and ending with the successful story of building a wonderful school, hospital and many other services was beyond amazing. Her focus on it all being driven by love, her compassion and her belief that it could all be done was humbling.

The conference concluded with a drumming session lead by Doug Manuel and Sewa Beats where, through the practice of drumming, we learned how to follow and how to lead. An incredibly fun and motivating experience if you’ve never done it.

I look forward to hearing more stories from the other participants and will continue to post updates on the learning from this amazing group of women who come together as W.I.N.

FWE&E is in the final two weeks of planning for our major annual event – The annual Achievement Award Dinner. This year we are honoring Padmasree Warrior, the CTO of Cisco. The event will take place at the Hotel Sofitel in Redwood City on September 30, 2009.

The theme of this year’s event is “Pearls of Wisdom” and was chosen specifically because it enables us to illustrate the qualities and diversity of the women leaders in our audience who inspire us on a daily basis.

Padmasree’s story itself is very inspiring. Moving to the U.S. from India with a one-way ticket and an attitude that failure was not an option, Padmasree rose to become the CTO of Motorola in an impressive 23-year career with the organization. Under her tenure, Motorola was awarded the 2004 National Medal of Technology by President George W. Bush, the first time a company had received such a prestigious honor.

Now in her role as CTO of Cisco reporting to Chairman and CEO John Chambers, Padmasree holds a position of tremendous authority and influence over the future of an increasingly connected world, one where advances in technology are re-shaping how billions around the world live, work and play.

I have been personally honored to interact with Padmasree as we have been organizing this amazing event. What strikes me most about her is her incredible warmth and approachability, her quick wit, and her inclusiveness of others to help make a difference.

She is a strong supporter and actively works to engage more women in the fields of science and technology and hopes that her story will be an inspiration to the many women who see her and then feel “I could do that too”.

So today we launch the Pearls of Wisdom and begin our collection of other Pearls similar to Padmasree’s that we can share with our audience and the rest of the world.  I can’t wait to begin to collect the “Pearls” from the other experienced women leaders in our wonderful community.

It’s been a great weekend for women in the news.  In Kuwait, four women won parliamentary seats in Saturday’s elections after just being allowed the right to vote in 2005!

At the Preakness, a filly, Rachel Alexandra beat all the boys to be the first filly in 85 years to win!

Okay, so part serious and part silly but I’ve been thinking about this a lot since hearing Rayona Sharpnack, Founder and CEO of Institute for Women’s Leadership, lead a program entitled, “Women Empowering Women - Why We Don’t and How We Can.”

It was an interesting discussion amongst the group as we could all remember at least one occasion when a woman was not quite as “empowering” as she could have been.  And, we can probably all think of at least one occasion when perhaps we weren’t as gracious as we should have been towards another woman.

One attendee shared a story of how she was nervous recommending a good friend who is also a skilled consultant for a particular role as she was concerned on how it might reflect on her if the woman crashed and burned.  She eventually did recommend her and the work turned out well but this was an example of a common story.  I’ve heard the same reasons stated for why one woman on a Board of Directors does not recommend another qualified woman she might know.

In Rayona’s work, she talks about how our culture and upbringing create the contexts for how we perceive life today.  Then we create assumptions that masquerade as facts that justify the decisions that we make.

One of my “contexts” is that you have to work more than twice as hard as everyone else just to stay even.  After hearing Rayona, I really started thinking more about the effect this has had not just on me but also on my team as I continue to push them to strive above and beyond.

There is a quote attributed to Madeline Albright, former Secretary of State under President Clinton, where she shares that there is a special place in hell for women who don’t support other women.

What contexts do you notice in your life?  In Rayona’s language, what can you “trade up” to in order to show support for other women?  Does it make a difference?  What do you think?

What a compelling title!  Claire Shipman, Senior National Correspondent ABC News and Katty Kay, Anchor BBC World News have been thrilled by the reception this new book has been receiving. Read the authors’ blog

to learn more about the book and the buzz.

Published just last week on June 2nd, the publisher has already moved into it’s 2nd printing due to the unprecedented demand.  And FWE&E is very proud to be the only venue in the Bay Area hosting Claire and Katty to share their perspectives in person.  Register today for our event at Oracle on June 16th.

So, what’s all the buzz about?  Claire and Katty feel that we are in a unique period in history where women have a chance to take a stand and create a life, both work and personal, that works better for them.  The last time in history where there was such a confluence of events occurred when Rosie the Riveter entered the workforce in droves during World War II.  In Chapter 1 of their book, they list compelling statistics such as the fact that women account for more than half of the educated workforce; more women than men are graduating with advanced degrees; many studies exist showing that companies with the best records for promoting women outperform their competition by every measure of profitability - equity, revenue, and assets.

When I first started reading the book, I wondered how it might apply to me as I don’t have a partner, children, or elderly parents to worry about.  Am I qualified to “Write My Own Rules for Success?”   Then I realized that, even though my story was different, it still fit the need to do some rewriting.

Several years ago, when I was Managing Director of legal publishing company, and then later as SVP of another large division - I lead a life of constant travel, meetings, stress and pressure with the motto of “no pets, no plants, no partner”.  I stopped using that moniker when I realized I was scaring my team but I also stopped using it when I realized that this lifestyle was not exactly fulfilling.

When my health and general well being were at their lowest, I made a drastic decision to quit my job, change careers, and move across the country.  If I had read Womenomics, I might have instead negotiated my current situation to give myself the time and space I needed to lead a healthier, more fulfilling life.

Things worked out in that I live somewhere I love, doing work I find fulfilling, with an enriching community of friends, a cat named Pebbles (yes, same name as Susan Boyle’s cat!) and even some plants that I try not to kill on a regular basis.  Having read Womenomics

the final conflict download

, I see that there are many ways to write your own rules and some of the keys are to be really clear about what you want; be fact based and employer-oriented in the “ask” (meaning consider what’s important to them and your team as well as you), and then over-communicate about how you’re adding value in your new way of working.

Let’s go out there and be role models for women and men about how to lead more fullfilling lives!   Continue this discussion here or in the Event Gallery in our members-only Online Community.

I’m thrilled to announce that today marks the launch of a new Online Community for our members. We are announcing it at our conference Business Applications of Social Networking which is being streamed live on UStream.tv. Click on this link at about 8:45am PST to watch the event and send us your comments!

www.ustream.tv/channel/business-applications-of-social-networking

So, why are we launching this Community and what will it mean for our members? When I first joined the organization six months ago, one of the first things I wanted to do was to get to know who our members were. What I encountered was the typical directory of members that gives the name, rank and serial number but did not let me know the breadth of experience that the individual had or what her perspectives were on topics like politics, philanthropy or global issues.

Also, I received phone calls from members, like one I received yesterday from a CEO searching for a new CFO, asking how to find members with certain skill sets, who could speak on a particular topic at a major event, who could be nominated for an award, or who might be qualified for a Board seat.

I found I could turn to a select few people to network and look for referrals, spam all my members with endless emails or find a better application to enable the members to tap into each other’s networks and best practices.

I was lucky to be introduced to Gina Bianchini, CEO of Ning by one of our members and found the Ning application to be the answer we were looking for. Members can log into our new Online Community at http://community.fweande.org and will be directed to fill out their profile and start collaborating! If you are a member, you will receive an email invitation to join the Community shortly.

It also lead to the idea of the Business Applications Conference. One of the first steps in launching a community is to find the application that fits the needs of the members, then educate them how to take advantage of it. It’s not about the technology, it’s about how to fit the application into your normal activities so that you can take full advantage of what it has to offer without feeling overwhelmed by having one more place to go to for connecting.

The program is a who’s who of experts in the field including Ross Mayfield, Founder and CEO of Socialtext; Jeremy Owyang, Senior Analyst, Social Media at Forrester Research; Gina Bianchini, CEO of Ning; Robin Wolaner, CEO of TeeBeeDee, along with a great panel of both strategists and tactical gurus.

Google is the key sponsor and we greatly thank them for their support.

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I’ve been absolutely amazed at the number of articles I’ve seen recently about sexism in America that segue into the alarming statistics on the stagnation and slippage of women’s advancement in corporate America. What’s driving the numbers and why is there such emotion around the topic - from both men and women? For example, check out the recent article in Conde Nast’s Porfolio entitled Sexism in the Workplace. Some really “interesting” statistics include: (and there are many more):

• American Bar Association shows female attorney weekly wages amounted to 70.5% of male lawyer’s in 2006 compared with 77.5% in 2005.
• Number of women holding Fortune 500 board seats increased steadily between 1995 and 2005 but has been essentially flat for the past 3 years.
• Number of female corporate officers at Fortune 500 companies has dropped in each of the past three years.

What’s even more interesting is reading the blog comments of the readers. The venom represented by both men and women shows mass stereotyping, fear, anger and a general sense of powerlessness on the part of women. The Wall Street Journal had a front page article on Saturday March 29th titled At the Barricades in the Gender Wars talking about Hilary Clinton’s campaign and the fear her supporters have about a sexist backlash. A lot of questions about whether America is ready for a woman leader. My colleague Paige Wesley mentioned that she’s talked to a number of women from various generations who are actually concerned about this – feeling that a woman won’t get Congressional or public support to be effective in the White House.

How is it that other nations have been able to cross this barrier and the U.S., where we pride ourselves on civil rights and women’s lib, still quakes at the idea of women in power? Why is gender even a point of debate when there are so many other more serious issues to discuss? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one! What’s the next step? How are we as women owning – and investing in - our power and authority? What needs to happen to drive the change we want to see? Is it about networking skills - developing our own “old girls club”? Having intention? Being mentors? I think we could all benefit from hearing about how your gender may have affected your rise to leadership - both positively and negatively. What did you learn from the experience, how would you change your response to it now? Looking forward to continuing the discussion! apo prednisone quitting celexa side effects

Today, Monday November 17th, 2008, UC Davis Graduate School of Management, in partnership with FWE&E, is publishing the 4th Annual UC Davis Study of California Women Business Leaders to report on the latest numbers of women leaders for the top 400 public companies in the State of California.

In addition to UC Davis, we are proud to partner with The InterOrganization Network (ION), an organization consisting of 12 member organizations like ours in the major business centers of the U.S. including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Detroit, etc. We combine our energies by all providing census data with our partners for our local areas and our programs are based on advocating the advancement of women to positions of power in the business world, especially to boards of directors and executive suites. Download ION’s 2008 Report (pdf).

The fourth annual UC Davis Study of California Women Business Leaders found that only 13 of California’s 400 largest public companies have a woman CEO. Overall, women hold just 10.9 percent of board seats and executive positions — insignificant progress from 2007, when the figure was 10.4 percent, and from 2006 and 2005, when it was 10.2 percent. Download the complete report (pdf)

What can we do about changing this picture? On November 18, 2008 FWE&E will host “Women in Corporate Leadership: Action Plan for Change” from 8 to 10 a.m. at Microsoft, 1065 La Avenida, Building I, in Mountain View. Register today to attend the event.

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