Western Digital Executive Gives Kingdom for a Life

On Thursday, Kathryn A. Braun declared that she would trade her job and its $3.6-million annual pay package for a life.

“There’s got to be more than [computer] disk drives,” said Braun, who retired as president and chief operating officer of Western Digital Corp.’s biggest division. “For 20 years, I’ve had a fairly unidimensional life. I gave up having children. I’ve managed to keep a second husband, but not the first.

“I’m so driven that I can’t find an equal balance between both areas,” she said.

Braun--the highest-paid female executive in Orange County--epitomizes the role of a powerful businesswoman. A national player in the technology industry, she is universally recognized as a leader in the clubby, male-dominated computer field.

Yet her departure cuts to the core of a problem shared by many in the workplace: how to balance work and family life. Like Braun, a string of high-level female executives have quit at least partly because of family, from PepsiCo’s Brenda Barnes to Microsoft’s Patty Stonesifer.

A return to family life, however, is often seen as a polite excuse for executives--particularly male ones--to leave companies when there has been a management clash or a lack of career opportunity.

Braun said her decision to retire rests on her desire for a second chance at motherhood.

“This company has been my family, and its staff a substitute for having children,” she said. “When [my husband’s] child had a child--and I became a grandmother--I decided it was time to focus on my personal life.”

A 20-year Western Digital veteran, Braun is known for her straightforward nature and candid views. She earned a reputation as a cool head in the nail-biting, boom-or-bust disk-drive business.

Friends call her demanding--more on herself than on her staff--and unwilling to be cowed. Industry watchers have long speculated that Braun and Charles Haggerty, Western Digital’s chief executive, did not get along because the pair share strong personalities.

Both Braun and Haggerty have denied such speculation. But Haggerty once required Braun to attend a “charm school for executives” so she would be less aggressive--a requirement not made of any male employee, according to a discrimination lawsuit filed by a former middle manager that didn’t directly involve Braun.

“She’s a real lady,” said Alan Schugart, the outspoken former head of Seagate Technology Inc., a rival of Western Digital. “Whenever I’d hear an anti-feminist joke, I’d call Kathy up and tell her. She’d always ream me out.”

Braun said she assumed that, after graduating magna cum laude from Duke University in 1973 with a degree in biology, she’d pursue a career in medical research. But at her first job, at a now defunct Orange County computer company, Braun worked on the sales staff. When the firm’s president realized that she--and not her male sales counterpart--was working in the field, he chastised her.

She quit.

In 1978, she joined Western Digital as a technical support staff member. At the time, the company was emerging from a Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

As the Irvine firm expanded into the data storage market, Braun took on increasingly headier management positions. In 1982, she became the head of the company’s storage products unit. At the time, the division’s annual earnings were a mere $15 million.

“I learned this business while I was growing up, which is sort of like learning medicine in the emergency room,” Braun said.

Under her leadership--first as general manager, then as president and chief operating officer--the personal storage division grew enormously, and it now accounts for about 85% of the company’s $3.5 billion in annual revenue.

Braun also watched the company flip-flop between the industry’s inevitable highs and lows. Only last summer, Western Digital’s stock and revenue were flying high. But as the industry stumbled into one of the worst financial years in recent history, Western Digital joined its rivals in a brutal price war amid a global weakening demand for PC products.

“The cycles are very stressful, but this one was a little harder to take,” Braun said. “I thought about leaving [the company] a year ago, but I couldn’t walk out when the storm was just starting to hit. They’re in a better position now.”

Like Braun, more men and women are realizing that they may not be able to have it all--at least not all at once--said Melissa Wahl, national director of the National Assn. for Female Executives.

“In the ‘80s, we had the superwomen syndrome,” Wahl said. “Now, in the ‘90s, people are realizing that you have to sometimes experience your life in stages.”

Braun was long believed to be former Chief Executive Roger W. Johnson’s--and later Haggerty’s--heir apparent, say analysts. Braun admits that role once intrigued her and that she annually met with the board of directors to discuss it.

“In the beginning, it held some financial and ego appeal,” Braun said. “But about three years ago, I realized it just wasn’t for me.”

Braun attributes the shift to her growing involvement in the Costa Mesa charity Share Our Selves and her second marriage to Michael Lewis, 54.

Whether Western Digital can keep its same corporate focus without Braun remains unclear, said company insiders.

To replace Braun, Western Digital is tapping Matthew E. Massengill, 37, the head of the company’s division that develops high-end drives. Massengill has the technical experience to handle his new role as executive vice president and general manager of the division. And he has worked with Braun, off and on, for the last 15 years.

“She has a unique ability to lead people,” Johnson said. “But technical knowledge is much easier to replace than employee loyalty.”