Ideas & Debate

Women still need cautious support to the corner office

I was inspired to write this piece by three news items last week. The first was the appointment of a woman (Eng Audi Okullo) to the position of general manager for infrastructure at Kenya Pipeline Company.

This is probably the most senior technical job in a company that is mostly technological in nature. Elsewhere, there was a female CEO being confirmed to head an insurance firm. Then there was the Leading Women in Banking and Finance networking forum.

In recent years a number of private sector women professionals have progressed to senior managerial and executive positions. However, there is still much ground to cover before we realise the full potential offered by women who are as qualified and experienced as men. And I am here specifically talking about substantive senior executive positions not nominative non-executive board seats.

Societal expectations

And there is plenty of history to explain the slow pace. When we were developing our careers in 1960/70s, societal perceptions and expectations mostly destined women to teaching and nursing jobs.

Later after independence women went into secretarial jobs previously done by European and Asian women. Men careers were more diverse with open mobility into senior administrative and managerial positions.

When I joined the Mombasa Refinery as a young Chemical Engineer in 1973, the only women employees there were mostly secretaries, and when I later moved to Esso Oil Company, the same was the case.

In 1981, as a departmental manager in Esso, I needed to hire an economics analyst. A newly graduated Bachelor of Commerce woman from Nairobi University applied for the job among many other male applicants.

She was the best, but the all male interviewing panel was at a loss because hiring women into middle level jobs had not happened before. I could read predicament and hesitation in their eyes. I accepted the challenge and took her as a pioneer “experiment”.

I told the young lady that if she succeeds, then she would open up middle level job opportunities for women, not just in Esso but in the entire oil industry.

She did not disappoint and within two years, the industry was hiring graduate women for various middle level jobs. Within five years my “experiment” had risen to become a departmental manager purely on her own merit. Later in her career she founded the Petroleum Institute of East Africa (PIEA) before becoming the CEO of the National Oil Company.

And the lag in women executive development was not confined to the local scene only. When in 1985 as a young director of Esso Kenya I participated in an Exxon global executive development programme in Geneva, out of a group of about 40 there were only two women participating.

There are a number of key learning points from the story above. The hiring attitudes in the Kenyan oil industry were no different from the other business sectors and this historical gender bias is unwittingly still with us.

And this has definitely limited the chances for qualified and experienced women to the top of corporate sector. However, there is evidence of change as more globalised corporate leaders embrace gender parity in their companies.

Organisations will need to proactively play a catch-up game to redress the historical gender imbalances and bring those women who clearly show they deserve upward mobility into senior management. It should also be made convenient for them to combine their careers with their parenting roles.

The more women we have in top corporate positions, the more effective the role-modeling for the younger women to aspire to senior corporate positions.

Further, girls should be guided in their career selection not to shun professions with high technology content, because invariably many senior executives grow from among technocrats.

READ: Top bank jobs still elusive for women

In the course of my long corporate experiences I have come to believe that women do bring an effective moderating and equally motivating influence in a corporation especially in areas of responsible governance. Women are not necessarily risk averse as many tend to think, but they usually have a way of smelling bad risks from afar.

Affirmative policies

Let us now look at what is happening in the public agencies and government departments.

The introduction of the constitutional two-thirds gender rule has been a strong and effective affirmative tool. It is evident that public service hiring now demonstrates best endeavours at gender balancing.

We are starting to see a number of female CEOs of public agencies and companies, and this should serve as an example to the private sector to expedite affirmative policies for gender balancing.

It is in elective politics where stalemate is evident. Elective leadership is essentially competitive and has to be proven, not bestowed or allocated. On the other hand, the male politicians who currently hold the sway have a vested interest not to empower female competition.

It is therefore for women politicians to break the ground for themselves and future generations.

Pioneer women leaders will need to demonstrate strong developmental and moral leadership, while astutely navigating through known male chauvinism and bias.

Back to the corporate world. It is not impossible for the young professional man and woman to make it to the corner executive office if one remains focused, positive, and continuously builds success on success.

However, women are on a catch-up trip and may require affirmative action, albeit with caution not to overstep or sacrifice the merit card.

Mr Wachira is director, Petroleum Focus Consultants, [email protected]