Visionary CEOs want more senior women - Building Gender Balanced Business

Peter Löscher, CEO of Siemens AG, has made history at the 161-year-old German engineering and electronics giant by appointing Barbara Kux to the Managing Board. Featuring in Fortune’s Global Power 50 list of top women in 2005, Kux is a well-known figure in international business.

BARBARA KUX APPOINTED TO SIEMENS’ BOARD
Fortune noted her success at Royal Philips Electronics NV, where she had already made a huge difference to the firm as Chief Procurement Officer after just two years. They reported: “Even with a $27 billion budget, Kux is on the prowl for good deals. Her shopping list spans components for everything from light bulbs to defibrillators. Kux, 52, has cut the number of suppliers in half and introduced a programme in which the most popular parts are negotiated at super-bulk prices, while individual departments bargain on their own for less commonly used items. Net income has quadrupled since 2003, when Kux was hired.”

Kux will be responsible for global supply chain management and procurement at Siemens AG. Her ability to cut a deal and make savings will be critical to the company, which faces further potential costs relating to an earlier bribery scandal (still being investigated in the US) on top of the impact of the economic slowdown on its business plans.

To mark the appointment Peter Löscher commented that, “The first appointment of a woman to the Managing Board underscores the fact that we at Siemens want more women in top management positions and offer them outstanding career opportunities with our company.”

APPOINTMENT OF FIRST EVER CHIEF DIVERSITY OFFICER AT SIEMENS
As further proof of his commitment to women and diversity more broadly, he has hired a high-flier from the company’s Asian division to become the first ever Chief Diversity Officer.

Löscher rightly joins our growing band of CEOs Who Get It which now includes such luminaries as Renault/Nissan’s Carlos Ghson, Lloyd TSB’s Eric Daniels, Nestlé‘s Paul Bulcke, Sodexo’s Michel Landel and Baxter Asia Pacific’s Gerald Lema.

Hard-boiled finance and business journalists might consider the actions of these men to be PR-driven initiatives designed largely to make them feel good about themselves and fill their CSR reports with copy.

CEOS KNOW IT IS A BUSINESS ISSUE NOT A WOMEN’S ISSUE
But the story that they are largely missing is that these leaders are really committed to the change and see good business sense in being so.

It’s not as if they don’t have other things to worry about. Ghosn has to deal with the contraction in the global market for cars. Daniels is hoping to absorb HBOS into his banking group and Löscher was brought in to clean up the company from the top after one of the biggest scandals in its long history and transform it into a more multicultural beast. He will have do that, while making the company more efficient and looking for ways to cut costs in response to the current miserable economic environment. This involves a plan to cut more than 14,000 jobs.

So, these men hardly have time to waste on nice-to-have policies. If they put their minds to something and insist that it happens, they have made it a top priority. And they have all done this in regard to the advancement of women, knowing that there is something wrong with their organisations when they cannot exploit the full abundance of female talent that exists to improve their corporate performance and fully relate to markets increasingly influenced by female purchasing power.