Why Women Aren’t C.E.O.s, According to Women Who Almost Were
“I said, ‘70 percent of the seats go to white men.’ ”
Yet many women work in companies with public commitments to diversity
and clear policies against discrimination, with many men who sincerely believe they want women to advance.
In a Korn Ferry survey in April of 786 male and female senior executives, 43 percent said they thought
that continued bias against women as chief executives was the primary reason more women did not make it to the top in their own companies — and 33 percent thought women in their firms were not given sufficient opportunities to become leaders.
Early in her career, she said, “My biggest Achilles’ heel was my own confidence in myself
and my ability to accomplish a task that seemed giant and daunting and scary.”
Dina Dublon, who retired in 2004 as chief financial officer of JPMorgan Chase, said male colleagues sometimes told her they were reluctant to have
dinner or drinks with female subordinates — important bonding activities in the corporate world — because it might be seen as flirtatious.
You whip the ball, and if it happens to knock somebody on the head, so what?’
And my husband said, ‘Why the hell did you help him get his job two years ago?’ ”
Her turning point came when she was outmaneuvered by male colleagues during a corporate reorganization.