This blog is no longer updated but it remains open as an archive.
The 'Women at the Top' blog is part of a series of online and print publications that focuses on women's achievements in business. With up-to-date news and incisive analysis, the blog will provoke discussion on the role of the world's most prominent businesswomen. www.ft.com/womenblog
For more Women at the Top news, video interviews and other features, visit www.ft.com/womenatthetop
Liz Bolshaw
Liz Bolshaw is a business journalist and editor. She has been a successful book publisher, online editor, magazine editor and publisher.
She was launch editor of the Europe-wide online community Entrepreneur Country, has published magazines for PwC, 3i, dunhill and Bafta, and launched The Sharp Edge, a magazine for and about entrepreneurs, with Duncan Bannatyne. She is a regular contributor to Thomson Reuters’ Venture Capital Journal.
Her last project for the Financial Times was as editor of the paper’s Business Education magazine.
Rebecca Knight
Rebecca Knight is a freelance journalist based in Boston. She writes regularly for the FT on business education, entrepreneurship, and management.
Andrew Hill
Andrew Hill is an associate editor and the management editor of the FT. He was City editor of the FT and editor of the daily Lombard column on British business and finance from September 2006 to December 2010.
He was the FT’s financial editor from June 2005 to September 2006, with overall responsibility for coverage of companies and markets. Before becoming financial editor, he was the FT’s comment & analysis editor, in charge of the paper’s opinion and features pages.
From 1999 to 2003, he was the FT’s New York bureau chief. He joined the FT in 1988 and has also worked as foreign news editor, UK companies reporter and correspondent in Brussels and Milan.
Pino Bethencourt
Pino Bethencourt is a professor and leadership expert at IE Business School in Madrid. She is also an author and executive coach.
Lynda Gratton
Lynda Gratton is professor of management practice at London Business School.
Linda Tarr-Whelan
Linda Tarr-Whelan, former ambassador to the UN commission on the status of women, is a Demos distinguished senior fellow.
Nine steps to reach the executive suite
“We are good at looking at what potential looks like – this man, this woman has got the right stuff. We are also good at identifying traits and behaviours that make good leaders. But we are less good at identifying the experiences, the key job assignments that a career needs to have.”
Modest moves towards better self-promotion
In a recent taped workshop, an executive at PwC, the professional services firm, shares that she’s uneasy revealing the brand-name organisations she’s advised for fear of “bragging”. Another says she’s hesitant to say the names of chief executives she’s worked with directly, lest it looks like she’s “name-dropping”. (more…)
Helping the next wave of women
Sheila Wellington was the first woman to become secretary of Yale University in the 1980s, a prestigious role that ranks just below the Yale provost and president. After completing her stint at Yale, she ran Catalyst for 10 years, a nonprofit group that works to improve opportunities for women in business. (more…)
In one of the swankiest spot in New York’s Chinatown this week, the Women’s Venture Fund (WVF) held its 14th annual gala, and honoured two highly successful women in business, writes Devon Portney. They are Ida Liu of Citibank, and Alitia Faccone of McCarter & English, the law firm. (more…)
Financial world’s ethnic equation
It is not easy being a woman on Wall Street. And it’s even harder being a woman of colour. According to new research from Catalyst, the non-profit group that aims to expand opportunities for women in business, those belonging to racial minority groups face greater challenges than white women in developing trusting relationships with their managers in the financial services industry. (more…)
Political leaders advocating measures in the short term to ensure a long-term solution to the global debt crisis is a concept with which we have all become familiar. But are business leaders following the mantra of short-term steps for long-term gain when it comes to their own leadership strategy? (more…)
In a business environment where competition, employees and teams are becoming more global, and stakeholder groups are more diverse, what are the characteristics of an effective business leader in the 21st century? And where do women fit into this picture? (more…)
Gender wars: women just as competitive as men
It is something of a truism to say that men are competitive and women are co-operative in life and work. But a new study from Harvard Business School challenges this received wisdom.
Research examining how men and women respond when competing or co-operating on a given task indicates that male and female performance appears to be strongly linked to the gender of their opponent.
Fitting in at Xerox: Ursula Burns talks to Women at the Top
The perception that women must be seen to be “one of the guys” in order to do well in the workplace is a common one.
It is a view partly shared by Michael Treschow, the chairman of Unilever, who told me some time ago that the dynamics of male and female upbringing can determine why women at some companies feel excluded from taking their place at the table.
The school for Africa’s first ladies
Bess Truman once famously quipped that her job as first lady entailed little more than sitting “quietly on the podium next to her husband” and making sure “her hat was on straight”.
Times are different, of course, and while the position of first lady comes with no pay and no official responsibilities in most countries, a new fellowship programme developed by the Rand Corporation, the non-for-profit research organisation, is trying to change that. The programme, which is held at Rand’s office in Arlington, Virginia, aims to help African first ladies and their staff develop analysis skills that will enable them to exert a bigger role in health and social policy across the continent. (more…)
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