Pioneers, Fast-Trackers Make Up Powerful Women List
The 10 most powerful women in corporate America, as identified by Savvy Woman magazine, all are over 40 and no more than two rungs below the chief executive position in their company.
Two Los Angeles women are included in the 10, listed in the May issue of Savvy. They are Camron Cooper, 49, senior vice president and treasurer of Atlantic Richfield Co., and Linda Wachner, 43, president and chief executive of the apparel firm Warnaco Group Inc.
The others listed as the business world’s most powerful women are:
* Patricia (Tosh) Barron, 46, director of corporate management, Xerox Corp., Stamford, Conn.
* Carol Goldberg, 58, president and chief operating officer, Stop & Shop Cos., Boston.
* Katharine Graham, 71, chairman and chief executive, Washington Post Co., Washington.
* Ellen Hancock, 46, vice president and general manager of communications systems, International Business Machines Corp., Armonk, N.Y.
* Judy Rogala, 48, senior vice president-central support services, Federal Express Corp., Memphis, Tenn.
* Muriel Siebert, 59, chairman, president and chief executive, Siebert & Co., New York.
* Jan Stoney, 48, president-consumer division, U S West Inc., Englewood, Colo.
* Marina Whitman, 54, vice president and group executive, General Motors Corp., Detroit.
Savvy said the women were chosen because of the size of their companies, their positions and the opinions of industry analysts.
The magazine, due on newsstands April 18, said the group includes both business school fast-trackers of the past 15 years, “raised with the idea that women can achieve anything,” and earlier women corporate pioneers.
One of the most profound differences between the two generations of women represented on the list is the pioneers’ acknowledgment of self-doubt and anxiety brought on by assuming an “untraditional” role. This was not not shared by the second wave, the magazine said.
GM’s Whitman, for example, was recruited from the academic world by the car maker 10 years ago and she said that she would have never pursued a job in the industry.
“My imagination just didn’t stretch that far,” she said.
