Despite Progress, Few Women Are Behind the Wheel at Auto Firms
Detroit remains a man’s world, with women making up fewer than 2% of top executives in the auto industry, according to the 1988 Who’s Who guide to car companies.
But beneath the ranks of the graying corporate elite, more and more women are following paths that will lead them to the industry’s executive suites and board rooms, analysts say.
Of the 966 top executives in the auto industry and supplier companies listed in a directory published this week, 16 were women.
The annual Who’s Who in the Automobile Industry, included in the Market Data Book published by the trade journal Automotive News, includes top executives and some lower-level managers, primarily marketing executives.
None at Chrysler
This year’s version, current through April, shows General Motors with nine female executives, Ford Motor with two and Chrysler Corp. with none. The five other women on the list worked for companies related to the auto industry.
“Most of the people in that list are relatively senior,” said David Cole, director of the University of Michigan’s Office for the Study of Automotive Transportation in Ann Arbor.
“In the next five years I would expect to see a significant acceleration in female involvement . . . as more women work their way up through the product or manufacturing function and arrive at the executive level,” Cole said.
In 1987, the list contained 986 names; 12, or about 1.2%, were women. Women made up 1.7% of the listed executives in 1988.
“That’s actually a great stride for us. It’s been a long time for us; it’s certainly been a man’s domain for many years,” said Jeanne Beyer, vice president for market research and planning at Global Motors Inc. and one of the women on the 1988 list.
Cole and Beyer say women are not yet well represented in the upper ranks because it was only recently that they began choosing careers that would involve them in the auto industry.
“It’s only in the last 10 or 15 years that we are starting to see significant female involvement in our (engineering) program. Today it is 25%,” Cole said.
Choosing Careers
Women now working their way up as engineers, designers, plant managers or financial experts are part of the corporate mainstream that produces top executives, Cole said.
In contrast, most of the women already in the top ranks at GM and Ford came from the outside, Cole said.
Once women are on a career track, it takes 15 to 20 years to reach the main executive ranks from which top corporate officers are selected, Cole said.
“Now that women have pursued those careers, the recognition and opportunity is coming. But it’s no faster for women than it is for men,” Beyer agreed.
