At the Georgetown Law Faculty Blog, Emma Coleman Jordan has an important post up. Below is an excerpt:
… Today, the Hewlett Packard Corporation finds itself embroiled in a bitter dispute surrounding the firing of one board member and the resignation of another. In the last few days, a ferocious board fight at HP has spilled into the reports of several national news organizations. The NYT has this report and this about the escalating board intrigue at HP. Board chair, Patrica Dunn has been accused of making use of a variety of private investigative techniques to trace the source of leaks that led to the resignation of former Hewlett Packard CEO,Carly Fiorina in early 2005.The NYT reports that the phone records of both board members and reporters were obtained by “pretext”. Pretexting is an investigative technique in which the investigator pretends to be the subject of the investigation in order to obtain the release of private information that would only be available to the subject.
The two board members who either resigned or were fired are both males. The primary executives involved in this corporate drama are both women: Carly Fiorina former CEO and Patricia Dunn, Chair of the Board. The California Attorney General has announced an investigation into the charges that Dunn improperly used private investigators to track down leaks from the HP Board. The AG declared that “a crime” has been committed. CNN reported that Hewlett Packard stock slid on the news of the Attorney General ‘s investigation. Newsweek has this report on the underlying dispute within the company.
The HP dispute should be viewed in light of the following research findings about the progress of women, including women of color, in roles of corporate leadership.
In July, Catalyst, a non profit research and advocacy organization devoted to expanding the opportunity for women to achieve positions of corporate leadership issued a report which tracked women executives in the Fortune 500, and found that most large U.S. companies have made minimal progress in advancing women:and especially women of color:to leadership and top-paying positions over the past decade. Catalyst found that “If this rate of progress continues, it could take 40 years for women to achieve parity with men in corporate officer positions.”
The 2005 Catalyst Census of Women Corporate Officers and Top Earners of the Fortune 500 found that in the last three years, average growth in the percentage of corporate officer positions held by women fell dramatically to 0.23 percentage points per year, the lowest yearly gain in the past ten years. Between 2002 and 2005, the total number of women corporate officers increased by a mere 0.7 percentage points to 16.4 percent. the average Fortune 500 company had 21.8 corporate officers in 2005; on average, women held only 3.6 of these positions. Women occupied only 9.4 percent of clout titles (those higher than vice president), up from 7.9 percent in 2002.
More than one-half of the Fortune 500 had fewer than three women corporate officers. Only eight companies in the Fortune 500 were led by a woman CEO in 2005, and none of those companies were among the Fortune 100. Women held only 6.4 percent of top earner positions, up just 1.2 percentage points from 2002. And fully 75 percent of Fortune 500 companies reported no women as top earners.
Hewlett Packard, with more than 86 billion in revenues, ranks 11th on the list of Fortune 500 companies. Before her highly contentious resignation in 2005, Carly Fiorina was the only woman CEO in the top 20 of the Fortune 500. …
Read the post in its entirety here.
–Stephanie Farrior
