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International Trade/Offshore Manufacturing/Sourcing/Export/Import/Consulting The Global WomanBy Lya Sorano
Pernelle Wantzin was enjoying her much deserved vacation in rural Norway, when a telephone call intruded and disturbed her sense of peace and tranquility. It was her boss, calling from their headquarters in Brussels. "We've decided to open Milan," said the president of Radisson/SAS Hotels, "and we want to give you the assignment."
A Dane with fluency in seven languages, and having already worked in eight different countries around the world, moving from Belgium to Italy was the proverbial piece of cake for Wantzin. She is now the general manager of Milan's Radisson/SAS on via Fauche.
While it is important for companies to have global plans, the execution of the plans can only be successful with good local people, Wantzin says. She also says the emphasis on marketing and human resources, now seen in particular in many U.S. companies, will work well for multinationals and for the women they employ, who are naturally drawn to these fields, where their competencies shine.
In the era of globalization, more managers and professionals than ever before travel for business, move across borders and work with foreign nationals. The number of women among them is increasing rapidly, especially in companies that value what has been termed "the feminine intelligence," a woman's way of communicating, and the collaborative skills that contrast with the more masculine competitive model.
In a recent conference in Europe, the role of the business woman in the era of globalization was discussed, with the global competencies of an educational base, ongoing learning, languages and cultural awareness as the main focus. Among the topics were: The importance of flexibility; the benefit women and their employers derive from a woman's cooperative management style; the "glass ceiling" and the need to make choices (which comes first - family or career?); as well as the phenomenon that these days a "trailing spouse" can just as well be a man as a woman. Underlying it all was the topic of "networking" and the role business women's organizations are expected to play as their members move from job to job across continents.
When Microsoft decided to make an impact in the Russian market, it hired Olga Dergunova, who is now, at 32, the software company's youngest and only female country manager. In Italy, Microsoft turned to Nuria Vea from Spain to manage its strategic relations.
Nokia, the Finnish telecommunications company, hired Rosanna Cella, an Italian, to head its human resources team for the southern European countries. She came to them with international managerial experiences gained at AT&T and NCR.
Soon Mi Shin, a Korean, worked for American Express for 12 years, once, while living in New York, as the company's general manager of the Corporate Card & Travel Business in Argentina Ð not an easy commute! She was hired away by Citibank to launch its credit card business in Italy. Her commute is easier now. She lives in Vienna.
Global Trends
She identifies shifts from a regulated work environment to a competitive one; from a local business focus to a global one ("glocal"); a trend from giant multinationals to autonomous micro businesses under one corporate umbrella; from workers needing to have employability instead of counting on employment security; from intermediate to direct access to resources and markets; and from single working knowledge to multiple working knowledge.
The new skills with which a successful manager now enters the work place are systems thinking, intercultural competence (It's good to know during the Monday morning office chit-chat that Ajax is a soccer team before you assume they are all talking about a soap powder!), cost-efficiency consciousness, flexibility and a continuous-learning ability. Olivares, too, stresses the model of cooperation vs. competition, as does Prof. Elio Borgonovi, who says corporations that continue to hire and promote women to higher positions will benefit from the fact that women are interested in group successes (family, company, society), while men have been shown to be more interested in personal successes.
The glass ceiling is by no means a barrier women have overcome. One corporate executive interviewed is now one of 22 vice presidents in her company; the other 21 are men. She knows that it will be one of them, not she, who will eventually assume the presidency.
When asked if the sacrifices she has made along the way have been worth it, she said, tearfully, "no." Her son had, by-and-large, been raised by his stepfather and now, at the age of 19 and away at college, just at a time when his mother's need to focus more on family issues is coming to the forefront, he has become almost a stranger to her.
Women in their thirties, the closer they get to "the big four oh," know much better today than did women in the 1960s and 1970s that they cannot "have it all" and that at some point in their lives they must make a choice between family and career as the main focus of their lives.
Patrizia Ciompi, a recruiter with Heidrick & Struggles, says that when a company asks her to find a comptroller for them, she has resumes from many women to choose from; when they ask her to find them a CFO, she has none. She says women in the work place benefit from an innate sense of flexibility, entrepreneurship, self-motivation and change-agent capability, but that if they decide on motherhood, their chances of reaching the top positions in corporations are virtually eliminated.
The businesses of the rest of the developed world still regard Corporate America as their role model, nowhere more so than in its attention to the needs of the entire family, when a manager or executive is assigned to a post in another country. In the U.S., whole industries have sprouted up to deal with the issue of "the trailing spouse," who in bygone eras was always the wife.
Only later did some attention begin to be paid by American corporations to the needs and interests of their transferring personnels' wives, and it took even longer for companies to get used to the idea that husbands had to be accommodated if their spouses were the global managers and executives on the move.
Jennifer Coile is a U.S. Information Service deputy director, posted to a Western European country and expecting a transfer soon to a South American location. Married to an artist, she and their daughter are happy with their husband/father's role as househusband. Both state that the U.S. government, as employer, pays ample attention to family needs while making optimal use of employee competencies.
It is perhaps an interesting footnote that Italian male executives, unlike many of their American counterparts, are generally not eager for international assignments. Not that they do not believe themselves to be competent; they just don't want to leave their mothers!
So what is the role of business women in the era of globalization? Smart companies will continue to hire, promote and transfer them because women bring these companies the competencies they need. Having said that, there is no doubt that women are not chosen for positions if they are not the best.
Flexibility is a quality constantly stressed in discussions surrounding hiring decisions, as are the ability to help build teams and function as a member of a team, the ability to communicate ("To communicate as a woman," Angela Paladino, who places women in human resources, information technology and finance fields, says, "is a valuable skill."), foreign language fluencies, as well as the ability to motivate people and use technology.
And what of the role of the networks that support them?
An in-house study conducted by the Swiss outplacement firm EcoNova established that 39 percent of its 1997 clients had found their new positions through networking practices, followed by 31 percent as a result of direct marketing efforts, 8 percent through advertisements and 7 percent as a result of having worked with a search firm. (The study also revealed that 15 percent of its clients in 1997 decided to become self-employed.)
The expectation members of global business women's networks appear to have is that first and foremost they facilitate job searches, but as a secondary role great emphasis is placed on "support." If you are an American female executive assigned to a tour of duty in Japan, Chile or anywhere else in the world, it is a significant comfort to know that an organization exists that helps you meet women who understand you, can empathize with you in tough spots, and share tips and referrals with you on anything from baby-sitting to dry cleaning.
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