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Leadership Expert: Gradual Change Needed For Women To Climb To Top CEO Spots

Jaynie Studenmund addresses the audience during the Oklahoma City University Meinders School of Business Women in Leadership conference Wednesday at the Cox Business Services Convention Center in Oklahoma City.
Brent Fuchs
/
The Journal Record
Jaynie Studenmund addresses the audience during the Oklahoma City University Meinders School of Business Women in Leadership conference Wednesday at the Cox Business Services Convention Center in Oklahoma City.

The nation’s workforce is getting older, and more diverse, with more women and minorities ascending to top spots some of the nation’s largest companies.

At Wednesday’s Women in Leadership conference at the Cox Convention Center in downtown Oklahoma City, where Houston-based CDR Assessment Group CEO Nancy Parsons told attendees it would be 400 years before women occupied 50 percent of CEO positions at Fortune 500 companies, The Journal Record’s Sarah Terry-Cobo reports:

Parsons described her research on the slow pace at which women have risen in the ranks of publicly traded companies. A 1979 law banned workforce discrimination based on pregnancy, but that wasn’t enough for women to rise in the ranks, Parsons said. Women account for only 4.2 percent of CEOs at Fortune 500 companies, after starting at zero. If that 1-percent-per-decade trajectory continued, then it would take several hundred years until women make up 50 percent of public company executives.

The conference was hosted by Oklahoma City University’s Meinders School of Business, and Dean Steve Agee said the school’s masters of business administration program includes ways to address that.

Former Yahoo! and eHarmony top executive Jaynie Studenmund told attendees women should consider their jobs “daytime marriages,” and change their definition of success, Terry-Cobo writes:

She said she would rather work with stellar co-workers who have good product than with good co-workers who have a stellar product. Great people can improve the product and are more likely to treat each other with mutual respect. She said she eventually left the Internet industry because her work was so intense that it cut into quality time she had available for her sons. She joined several public company boards, which provides money equivalent to a full-time job but doesn’t have the same demands on her time.

“All this is important to remember who you are when it comes to children and family,” Studenmund said.

Jace Wolfe checks a patient’s cochlear implant at Hearts for Hearing in Oklahoma City.
Credit Brent Fuchs / The Journal Record
/
The Journal Record
Jace Wolfe checks a patient’s cochlear implant at Hearts for Hearing in Oklahoma City.

Amplified Market

As Baby Boomers delay retirement, and that’s leading to an increased demand for high-tech hearing devices. That’s compounded by a federal health law requirement going into effect this year requiring Medicare patients to receive routine hearing tests, according to Terry-Cobo:

Wayne Morris, the president for the Oklahoma Hearing Aid Dispenser’s Association, said about 10 percent of the population suffers from hearing loss that can be aided. As the nation’s workforce ages, that number is likely to increase. About 14.5 percent of people in the U.S. and in Oklahoma are 65 or older, according to 2014 U.S. Census Bureau statistics. There’s a good chance that Oklahomans suffer a higher-than-national-average rate of hearing loss, Morris said. A large portion of jobs in the Sooner State are blue collar, such as construction, the oil and gas industry, and farming, where people are exposed to noise pollution.

The Business Intelligence Report is a collaborative news project between KGOU and The Journal Record.

As a community-supported news organization, KGOU relies on contributions from readers and listeners to fulfill its mission of public service to Oklahoma and beyond. Donate online, or by contacting our Membership department.

The Journal Record is a multi-faceted media company specializing in business, legislative and legal news. Print and online content is available via subscription.

Brian Hardzinski is from Flower Mound, Texas and a graduate of the University of Oklahoma. He began his career at KGOU as a student intern, joining KGOU full time in 2009 as Operations and Public Service Announcement Director. He began regularly hosting Morning Edition in 2014, and became the station's first Digital News Editor in 2015-16. Brian’s work at KGOU has been honored by Public Radio News Directors Incorporated (PRNDI), the Oklahoma Association of Broadcasters, the Oklahoma Associated Press Broadcasters, and local and regional chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists. Brian enjoys competing in triathlons, distance running, playing tennis, and entertaining his rambunctious Boston Terrier, Bucky.
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