Women, minorities and Asian Americans
| By John S. Pinto The June 2007 issue of CFO magazine contains an article on how diversity programs are working in large corporations and the results of these programs. The article starts out with a story about Oscar Munoz, the CFO (chief financial officer) of CSX Corporation. CSX is a $9.5 billion multinational corporation. Mr. Munoz had made a presentation and was passing through the pool area of a resort. A White-American couple on vacation thrust wet dirty towels into his hands and asked him to take them away. Mr. Munoz takes a generous view of the incident. “Everyone has images in their mind of what to expect from different groups,” he says. For years, large corporations have implemented programs to recruit women and minorities into their upper ranks. While women have made some progress, minorities have made very little. In the finance departments of the Fortune 500, the number of women has risen from 24 in 2001 to 38 in 2007. The number of minorities in these same companies has remained unchanged since 2001, at 14. At the lower levels, the disparity between women and minorities is even more dramatic. Doreen Tobin, CFO of Verizon Communications Company, says, “The only thing I can point out is that we have been hiring talented women for the past 20 years, whereas the push to hire minorities is much newer.” CFO magazine did a survey which shows that more than 60 percent of those who responded to the survey do not consider diversity efforts a high priority. There may be several reasons as to why more women have succeeded. One reason is simply a function of demographics. Women make up about 50 percent of the U.S. population, while minorities (male and female combined) make up about 30 percent. Also, women are evenly dispersed throughout the nation, while minorities are concentrated in states like Texas and California. Minorities are virtually non-existent in Maine and Montana. Another reason may be socioeconomic factors. Most female CFOs are White and college-degree holders. In some cases, a parent may have been a corporate executive. Well-educated immigrants seem to be finding success in corporate America. While small in number, these immigrants have little in common with U.S. born Hispanics and Blacks. Mr. Munoz and Derica Rice, CFO of Eli Lilly and an African American, were the first in their families to attend college. Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo (and former CFO) probably was not the first one to attend college in her family. However, education may not be the only barrier. Asian Americans are disproportionately represented in higher education compared to the general population; but they rarely make it to the top. Michael Fung, CFO of U.S. Wal- Mart stores left a promising career at a large public accounting firm because he did not see any other partners who looked like him. As he moved on in his career, he had to work through some cultural obstacles to accomplish his goals. Fung, of Chinese descent, was raised to value "the idea of placing others' needs above yours, operating in harmony and deferring to authority figures." He says that as a senior executive, you can't work in deferential mode. Traditional Asian culture holds that making direct eye contact is rude, while in American business culture, avoiding direct eye contact is cause for concern. As people of Asian descent, we sometimes are placed in awkward situations. Of even more concern is how our children react. We try to teach them our cultural values and customs. As they assimilate into society these values tend to get lost. There is no easy answer. Fung says, "You don't need to lose your values, but you need to adapt." |
John Pinto's column