The scarce presence of women in charge of the large corporations in the United States was dealt another blow with the resignation of PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, a setback that worries women’s management organizations.
The departure of Nooyi, who commanded the multinational soft drink company for the past 12 years, put the number of female CEOs of the S&P 500 index at 23, that is, 5% of the total, according to data from the Catalyst research group.
Her resignation is in addition to the one made effective in May by the former executive director of the food company Campbell Soup, Denise Morrison, another of the long-established and well-known business leaders.
“The departures of Nooyi and Morrison are not being replaced by other women, and as a result, female leaders are losing ground in the top positions,” the president and CEO of the US Women Executive Network told Efe. . (NEW, in its acronym in English), Sarah Alter.
Nooyi, in fact, will be relieved in his office in October by Spaniard Ramón Laguarta, elected unanimously as his successor by the PepsiCo Board of Directors.
For the president of the National Organization of Women of the USA (NOW), Toni Van Pelt, this lack of female leadership “is detrimental to the US economy as a whole.”
“Women in leadership positions give added value to our culture and corporations and the way they treat their clients,” Van Pelt told Efe.
According to a recent investigation by the NEW, the senior female senior positions in the USA. They are leaving their jobs “about four times more than the rate recorded by men.”
“We have to reverse this trend for the sake of our competitiveness,” said Alter.
Nooyi, a rare avis among the executives of the S & P 500 index companies, was the woman with most time at the head of one of those big companies after Debra Cafaro, who heads the real estate fund Ventas since March 1999.
They were the only ones who had been CEOs of companies that are part of this select group, one of the most important stock indices in the US for more than a decade. and considered the most representative of the real market situation.
With the aim of improving these numbers, Alter considered that “prejudice should be reduced integrated into the American work culture, support women as they grow in their professional career, reduce their isolation and address the conflicts that arise between life labor and personal “.
For his part, Van Pelt explained that it would be “important” that women who currently occupy positions of responsibility brought with them to these positions of command to other women, “just as men do”.
In addition, he argued that the lack of women in positions of authority is because “patriarchy, particularly white men, does not want them to arrive there and do everything possible to not lose control.”
Both interviewees coincided in emphasizing that inclusive and sexually diverse companies have better results, both in the goods and services market and in the financial ones.
“Teams with gender diversity are also more innovative, although women do not always get credit for the ideas they help generate or create,” said Alter.
The empathy with the client, the collaboration, renovating proposals, a “more human and peaceful” point of view and diverse experiences are just some of the characteristics that women, according to the experts, can contribute when leading large companies in the USA.
