Patient but Not Passive

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MOST POWERFUL WOMEN IN BUSINESS
Patient but Not Passive
A new kind of leader emerged in our annual ranking of powerful businesswome=
n. She is strong and resolute, but not in a hurry.=20
Patricia Sellers
Mon Oct 15 00:00:00 EDT 2001
For some 30 years--ever since women started jockeying for power in the wor=
kplace--patience has gotten a bad rap. After all, the virtue fairly reeks =
of a Victorian mission to corset women into the role of submissive wife an=
d mother. So women have shunned it. Instead they have felt the need to mak=
e bold pronouncements and rush to action. That was never truer than during=
the season of dot-com mania, when every CEO professed to be leading a rev=
olution. And any leader who failed to act quickly was supposed to get tram=
pled by the capitalist vanguard. =20
Now, in these new, more tempered times, patience may be about to reap its =
reward. In FORTUNE's annual survey of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Busine=
ss, we see the emergence of women who came to power slowly. We're not talk=
ing about women who had the patience to suffer indignities or who sat pass=
ively in an out-of-the-way corner. Rather, they stayed with a company, ste=
adily building influence there, and rose to power through determination an=
d insider knowledge, not promises and self-promotion. These qualities, of =
course, serve men as well as women. Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, =
argues that the most successful corporate turnarounds were led by such col=
orless men as Darwin Smith at Kimberly-Clark and William Allen at Boeing. =
Through a combination of deep knowledge of the corporation, personal humil=
ity, and will, they created enduring greatness. It's too early to say whet=
her Anne Mulcahy, No. 6 on our list, can pull off such a feat. But she fit=
s the profile. An unpretentious workhorse who never aimed to be CEO, she f=
elt ambivalent accepting the title at troubled Xerox in July. "I'm not as =
famous as Carly--and I want to keep it that way," says Mulcahy, 48.=20
The famous Carly--Hewlett-Packard Chairman and CEO Carleton Fiorina--is st=
ill No. 1 on our list, as she has been every year since we began publishin=
g the The Power 50 in 1998. She still heads the biggest company ($48.8 bil=
lion in revenues last year) run by a woman. And she is still as audacious =
and impatient as ever. Wall Street practically heckled her latest move--a =
bold bet to buy competitor Compaq--but Fiorina, 47, remains defiant. In di=
fficult times "people who drive change are the subject of great scrutiny,"=
she says. As a woman--and a daring, outspoken one at that--her actions ar=
e scrutinized more closely than the most driven of men. Says Fiorina: "I'v=
e had a lot of male CEOs say to me, 'Thank God they don't rank us.' " =20
PepsiCo President and CFO Indra Nooyi (No. 10) understands the urge to tak=
e bold action, but she also knows the necessity of holding back. "There is=
no question that women who reach the top have to perform at a higher leve=
l--which is why women tend to push themselves harder than men," says Nooyi=
, 46. "But we have to have the right people around who can say to us, 'You=
're draining the organization. You're pushing too hard.' " Particularly no=
w, as the U.S. prepares for an uncertain kind of war and enters what could=
be a sustained economic downturn, power seems to call for pragmatic and c=
areful leadership.=20
This year's Power 50 is full of such steady leaders. Mulcahy, Nooyi, and t=
he other corporate women who are new to the top ten this year--Mirant's Ma=
rce Fuller (No. 5), Pfizer's Karen Katen (No. 7), Chevron's Pat Woertz (No=
. 8), and Kraft's Betsy Holden (No. 9)--are all low-profile loyalists. The=
combined tenure at their current companies: 118 years. The six years Andr=
ea Jung (No. 4) spent as head of marketing at Avon gave her the knowledge =
to revive the troubled company faster than anyone expected when she became=
CEO two years ago (see It Took a Lady to Save Avon ). =20
As always, the list is a snapshot of power at a moment in time. Last year,=
power resided in the technology and Internet sectors, but that influence =
was fleeting. Gone from the list this year: "Hurricane Debby" Hopkins, who=
pushed her agenda too ambitiously at Lucent and lost her CFO job in May; =
Ellen Hancock, who failed at the startup Exodus; and Morgan Stanley's Mary=
Meeker, who influenced so many to buy into the Internet fizz. But one Web=
warrior looks better than ever: eBay's Meg Whitman, No. 2 on our list. Wh=
itman, who at times took heat for not managing aggressively enough, has ne=
ver overpromised investors; instead she has diligently delivered above-tar=
get profits every single quarter.
While the economy and its points of power change, the definition we use to=
evaluate power remains the same. We consider the size and importance of a=
woman's business in the global economy, her clout inside her company, and=
the arc of her career--where she has been and where she is likely to go. =
When appropriate, we also weigh the woman's influence on mass culture and =
society. That factor lifts Oprah Winfrey to No. 3 on this year's list. She=
owns a product, The Oprah Winfrey Show, that generates more than $300 mil=
lion in annual revenues and reaches 26 million viewers in the U.S. each we=
ek--plus millions more in 106 international markets. Her show, and now her=
magazine, O, The Oprah Magazine (whose subject is personal empowerment), =
have immense influence on the popular culture--from what books people read=
to what kind of lives they lead. =20
The shifts on our list this year are dramatic, with 14 newcomers and three=
returnees from previous years. But one trend is especially intriguing: Wo=
men are taking on bigger businesses than ever. A few years ago responsibil=
ity for a $3 billion business almost automatically earned a woman a spot o=
n this list. No more. (Unless she wields media power like Martha Stewart, =
No. 13.) This year's FORTUNE 50 includes several women who lead businesses=
with annual revenues of $20 billion or more. That's a first. The ranking =
has become so competitive, in fact, that some women moved down even though=
their power increased. Example: Shelly Lazarus. She heads a healthy busin=
ess, ad giant Ogilvy & Mather (where, by the way, she has worked for 30 ye=
ars), whose revenues grew 20% last year. Plus, she added a prestigious boa=
rd seat--General Electric--to her resume. But in order to make room for ne=
wcomers, Lazarus slides to No. 11, from No. 7 last year.=20
One newcomer is Southwest Airlines President Colleen Barrett (No. 20). Loy=
alty and self-knowledge took Barrett to corporate heights she never imagin=
ed while growing up in tiny Bellows Falls, Vt. Barrett couldn't afford to=
go to a four-year college and had no specific ambition beyond believing s=
he "would be the best legal secretary in the world," she says. Barrett sta=
rted as Herb Kelleher's secretary in 1967, a decade before he quit a Texas=
law practice to launch Southwest Airlines. She made an indelible mark as =
the startup grew to be America's top-performing airline. In her job as exe=
cutive vice president of customers, she helped create Southwest's famously=
collegial culture and provided essential structure and discipline to Kell=
eher's grand vision. "I've never wanted the CEO job," says Barrett. "I don=
't think I have the talents for it. I'm a great No. 2 person." Now 57, Bar=
rett is exactly where she wants to be. =20
Loyalty does not mean kowtowing. The women on our list push their companie=
s to change and grow, and they take personal risks. "Women have to take a =
lot of risks because there is no natural career progression," says Mirant =
CEO Marce Fuller. She should know. Fuller was getting great marks running =
international project development for Mirant's former parent, Southern, in=
1994, when her boss asked her to take charge of the company's tiny North =
American power plant operations. After looking closely at the business, sh=
e told her boss she didn't want the job unless she could do something alto=
gether new--build a high-tech risk-management and marketing organization t=
o complement the expansion of power plants in the U.S. "I told him, 'If yo=
u don't have this piece, you don't have a game plan,' " she says. It wasn'=
t an easy sell. Only 35 at the time, Fuller lobbied Southern's board for a=
pproval. Once she got it, she built a 600-person energy trading and market=
ing unit that is expected to generate $25 billion in revenues this year. S=
outhern, a regulated utility, spun off Mirant last spring. So now Fuller i=
s her own boss--and, with Mirant sure to be among America's largest compan=
ies this year, a FORTUNE 500 CEO.=20
One of the few. The grim news is that there are only six women CEOs of FOR=
TUNE 500 companies, including Fuller. And there are fewer women in the pip=
eline than anyone would have thought 30 years ago. "When I was 21, I was e=
xpecting that by this point we'd be in the fifty-fifty range," says Betsy =
Bernard (No. 23), CEO of AT?Consumer. The reality, though disappointing, h=
as motivated Bernard to become "a catalyst, making sure that other women g=
et opportunities." Bernard, 46, and other women emerging now are not based=
on the old model--the shark-like Linda Wachner, whose company, Warnaco, c=
rashed into bankruptcy this year. Or the flamboyant Jill Barad, who was bo=
oted from Mattel last year. Says PepsiCo's Indra Nooyi: "PepsiCo, which us=
ed to be known for hiring 'Pepsi pretty'--blond, blue-eyed males--has made=
an Indian woman its president. That says a lot about the future of women.=
" Let's hope Nooyi is right. Meantime, if you don't see a new Wonder Woman=
in corporate America, it doesn't mean she doesn't exist. She might be qui=
etly and diligently doing her job.=20
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