min-myinnersoul

Meet Jean-Claude Moreau. Brussels' answer to Ramamritham.  It is well known that Homo Sapiens Ramamrithamitis is thriving beautifully in Brussels  under the umbrella of the European Commission. Monsieur Moreau has excelled himself in a number of fields and he is keeping with this tradition in trying to bring legislation that women should have a quota of 40% on the Boards of European companies. We in India, know all about quotas and reservations. But surely Europe has better sense. Apparently not. M Moreau noted, after years of diligent research, that women only constitute 13.7% of directors in large listed companies in Europe. Given that women certainly constitute 50% of the population, and apparently 45% of the workforce, this was considered totally unacceptable.The Solution ? Legislate a quota. Wow. Only a Jean-Claude Moreau can think of that. It would be hard to think of a dumber idea. There is no doubt at all that women in the workplace are discriminated against by culture...

The news came out yesterday that Brenda Barnes was stepping down as Chairman and CEO of Sara Lee. She's stepping down on medical grounds; she had suffered a stroke in May. May we wish her a speedy recovery. I had posted sometime ago on The "Different" Brenda Barnes . She's a great role model for women who take a career break to raise children and come back successfully to top management. She's one of the best examples of women juggling career and home in a balanced way. Many successful career women choose to focus almost exclusively on their career. Brenda Barnes is different. She stepped off and stepped back again. Successfully. Her stint at Sara Lee was a mixed bag. She restructured the company and focused it as a foods company, selling of bits and pieces. She certainly  developed a strong management team - the interim CEO is a person some readers of this blog will recognise from past association. But shareholders did not see success in the share price. Neverthe...

A dear friend posted in her blog, a couple of days ago, something that brought a lump to my throat. She’s a brilliant professional – great academic track record (a national gold medalist, no less), top drawer performer, highly regarded in her company. And yet she faced the same choice that confronts every Indian career woman – family or career. As 90% of Indian woman do, she chose family. She passed up an opportunity for career advancement. Others applauded her for her “sacrifice”. But as you can imagine, her heart was heavy. And she wrote this wistful post, which continues to tug my heart. I won’t link her post, as she may not want it to be too public, but you can more or less guess what it would be. Another dear friend, wrote this sometime ago. The blogosphere, and terra firma, is full of such situations. This is something that confronts every single Indian middle class woman who has a career interest. In many cases, their husbands are incredibly supporting. They are not MCPs – the...

Financial Times recently published its list of the top 50 women in world business . The usual toppers were all there – Indra Nooyi (Pepsico), Andrea Jung (Avon), Irene Rosenfeld ( Kraft), the highly controversial Ho Ching (Temasek – as our Singaporean friends will know). At No 14 stood Brenda Barnes, Chairman and CEO of Sara Lee, the makers of Kiwi shoe care, Douwe Egberts & Senseo coffee, Hillshire Farm meat, Good Knight mosquito coils and a whole host of famous brands. She’s a lady with a difference. And her story merits telling. In 1997, she was president of Pepsico North America. One of the top jobs in Pepsi. A glittering career. She would have surely risen even higher. But then she turned her back on the job and walked out. To spend time with her family – her three kids - and be a fulltime mom. Seven years later she came back. Sara Lee hired her. A year later she was Chairman and CEO. Consider this for a moment – the upper echelons of corporate America is a dog eat dog world. ...

Thus screamed the headlines from a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission in the UK. In their report , they made fantastic allegations – Women earn 80% less performance pay than men in the financial services industry in the UK. There was also a 30% gap in basic pay between women and men. Every newspaper in the UK carried this story of how women are discriminated against. This is precisely the sort of research and conclusions that we can do without. I have some experience of this sector and this country to know that this large a discrimination does not exist. So I read deeper. What has this worthy Commission done ? They’ve simply added up the salaries of women they surveyed and compared with the men they surveyed. And found this difference. So what does this say ? It does not say discrimination. It just says women are doing less senior jobs than the men. Or a greater proportion of women are doing lesser paying jobs than men. The right comparison , in case there was gender d...

Nasscom in conjunction with Mercer Consulting has published a report on Gender Inclusivity in India. According to press reports on this study, India has more working women than any other country in the world. 30% -35% of the overall 400 million workforce is women. Nasscom sites (www.nasscom.org) has a link to the report. Click (http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshowpics/4524928.cms) for a press report on the study. There are some blithe conclusions that the IT and BPO industry are responsible for the high proportion of women in the workforce in some way. I haven’t read the original report (I am not paying $60 for this), but I am reacting to the press reports. Balderdash. Indian corporate world is a male chauvinist pig. Period. I’ve worked in a number of places. Nowhere have I seen a more women unfriendly business environment than in India, although things are changing * Any employee is considered worth his salt only if he slogs like a maniac. Its often said that the office beg...