There is no question that women’s position in business has come on leaps and bounds in the last 40 years. But despite the success of such trailblazers as Anita Roddick and Diane Thompson, female executives are still largely under represented in the nation's boardrooms. Influential figures like Dame Marjorie Scardino, CEO of Pearson are still the exception rather than the rule in FTSE-100 companies.

Girls continue to outperform boys in almost every subject at GCSE and A-level, which makes the under representation even more surprising. Are companies putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage by not fast tracking their talented female employees?

In a world of glass ceilings, gender pay gaps and old-boy networks it is perhaps unsurprising that over half of those questioned in a recent survey said they did not believe that women have the same opportunities as men in the world of work. A third also believed that a woman’s successful business career would have a negative impact on her family life. Yet more positively, over half believed that in the future, men and women would finally be treated equally.

But why is it taking so long and how are modern women changing old-fashioned attitudes? Successful businesswomen, Kate Robertson and Esther Lee from Euro RSCG join us live to talk about their own experiences and how they have made it in the business world.

Kate Robertson and Esther Lee join us live online at on Wednesday 22nd August at 0900

Euro RSCG Webchat

Host: Lis Speight, host
E: Esther Lee, spokesperson
K: Katie Robertson, UK Group Chairman

H: Hello and welcome to the business show, I’m Lis Speight. Today we’re talking about women in business. There’s no doubt that in the last 40 years, women really have come on in leaps and bounds, in the world of business. But despite trail blazers such as Anita Roddick and Diane Thompson, female executives are still largely under represented in our boardrooms up and down the country. So are companies doing themselves down by not fast tracking their talented female employees?
Well to talk a little more about women in business I’m delighted to say we are joined by 2 top businesswomen from Euro RSCG we have, Kate Robinson and Esther Lee, welcome along to you both ladies.
Before we talk about your careers and a little bit about what you think about women in your industry I’d like to say that this is a live show and an interactive show, so if you’d like to get involved all you have to do is type your name and a little question in the box that’s on the screen, press submit and it’ll come through to us here in the studio and we’ll try to get through as many as we can. It you’re a woman thinking about being a woman in the world of business; then get your questions in we’ve got some people here who can no doubt put your mind at rest.
So Esther tell us a little about your career? You started off spending some time, well quite a lot of time with Coca Cola before you joined Euro RSCG?

E: Yes I did. Actually I’ve just joined Euro RSCG in May of this year.

H: Oh, so you’re quite a newbie then?

E: I spent about 18 years of my career actually on the advertising and marketing communications side of the business; mostly in New York working for big agencies, working for creative hot shops. I also spent about 4 of those years actually running my own agency, I started as a creative director.

H: Oh right.

E: I then spent 5 years with Coca Cole on the client side.

H: That’s a big company to work for; it must be quite difficult to make a name for yourself?

E: Yes, it was also in a new position, it was the position of Chief Creative Officer, so it was starting a new group, really trying to drive great creative within the organisation. Hiring a lot of new people, driving new process, a new way of working with our agency, so a really exciting new opportunity to transform the way. We did creative at that company. Really very good…

H: So why did you jump?

E: It was umm….

H: It’s a hard question to answer.

E: It’s a question that everybody asks me. A couple of reasons really, one is that what I had really gone to the company to do I felt like I had already done. But more to the point, it was wanting to go to, something, which is this opportunity at Euro RSCG, as opposed to really wanting to leave Coca Cola.
It was an opportunity to work at a very different leadership level, running 23 companies in North America and managing 3000 people, and also on the global level, managing 42 global brands…

H: So it’s certainly a new challenge for you then?

E: Absolutely

H: Still getting your teeth stuck into it

E: And I’d really like to look for that next hill to climb. That’s really been how I’ve thought about my career.

H: Ok, well good luck with it all.

E: Thank you

H: Now Kate Euro RSCG is a global marketing and advertising group. You’re CO of the UK Group, or the UK Group Chairman should I say, but you’ve also done a lot of world wide work during the course of your career. Tell us a little bit about that?

K: Well I came into advertising and marketing from a legal background but when I left South Africa I came here to do Pan European work as it was called then. It’s funny, because it was when Pan European was a really unfashionable thing to do, you know nobody like Europe and the people who weren’t very good did the Pan European stuff. But it also meant for me that I was travelling a lot. But it defiantly gives you a completely different perspective on the kind of work that you do, on the way that you get people to work together. You break away from national stereotype. The again I find it tough, when it comes to doing the UK Group Chairman role where I’m working UK only and I’ve only got a third of the people that Esther’s got. But to work in one country only is again a different thing but I do think when you’ve done multi national work it gives you another perspective and a different way of working, it’s a different career path, but also interesting. Less well planned.

H: Less well planned, I thought you’d said less well paid, lets not go into that.

(All laugh)

H: In a recent survey over half of those questioned said that they didn’t believe that women have the same opportunities as men in the world of work, and a third also believe that a women’s success career could have a negative impact on her family life.
They’re quite stereotypical views, do you think that’s true, are there pay issues, is there a glass ceiling, is family life interfering with women in the world of work still?

E: I’ll answer part of your question, the stereotype piece anyway. I absolutely do believe that there’s still a different scale in terms of pay and in terms of opportunity.

K: Definitely

E: I do think that women in business suffer from the fact that we are still a paternalistic society. I think that we are in business more comfortable with male leadership. I think that suffers from how women move ahead, I think there are certain parts of your career where there seems to a lot equality and once you get to the upper level it does get more difficult.

H: The glass ceiling?

E: Absolutely

H: So how do you break through that?

E: A couple of things actually, and we were chatting about this in our family backgrounds a little bit before the show.
I was always bought up with the belief, from my parents, that I could do anything; I was raised no differently than my brothers. I think part of it is not assuming that there is going to be limitations, going for it, having conviction, using your intellect to actually drive success and results. I think a lot of people get caught up in “I’m going to be held back”. Therefore it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

H: So it comes from within?

E: Not always. The glass ceiling certainly exists for all those reasons we talked about; as greater comfort with male leadership, a certain amount of male camaraderie where women are on the outside of that, certain discomfort level and stereotyping of women who are strong in business…

H: Its not necessarily seen as a good trait.

E & K: Absolutely

K: I had a mother who was a career woman and very strong, and like Esther I was certainly bought up with expectations of my own self.
But I also think the debate needs to change, this issue of “working mothers having a negative impact on the family life”. I’m sure in terms of financial contribution – workingwomen don’t have a negative impact.

H: Exactly

E: You would never say, does the father working never have a negative impact on family life, well if they’re starving then no, he needs to work.
There’s one that speaks to our inbuilt prejudices and sociological history, but this needs to move on. Is there a ceiling? I think so, but Esther’s got a point there and it’s an excellent point; if women expect these problems with the glass ceilings then there will be problems. As I’m sure men do, men think they have barriers somewhere.

H: On that point, Phippa has sent in a question, she’s from EdinburgH:
Did either of you feel pressure to over perform in the workplace to boost your profile ahead of male colleagues?
So do women have to work harder do you think to get ahead?…..Of course you’d say yes, of course we do.

E: Unfortunately it’s difficult for me to separate out just the pushing harder because I have an imperative to succeed in general. There may be a sense of you need to prove your intellect to get over the perception that you’re a weaker candidate than your male counterpart sitting next to you, But for I think that it’s never been something that I’ve been conscious of, its been about pushing and driving a vision because that’s an internal imperative. To me, it’s freed me from having to really think about “am I being held back or not”. It’s about freely perusing the things that you believe in.

H: What advantages to you think women have in the business world, what can a woman bring to a job that men can’t?

E: I think that there are advantages; Kate and I were talking about this as well. There are the standard advantages that women are known for, things like being a bit more intuitive, more collaborative sort of cutting past the pasturing and getting right down to business, I think there are those elements.

K: Yes.

E: There are even things that I would maybe say are advantages, I think as a person I am more affectionate than a lot of my male counterparts, it allows me to warm up to people more quickly and bridge the gap a little more quickly. Is that helping me in business? I think that sometimes it really does it puts people at ease; it’s not about me being competitive with a male on the other side of the table or female.

H: So you’re more of a team player?

E: I think there are plenty of male team players so I want to stereotype of the role-reverse. But I think that male ego does come into play in business that a lot of women get past.

K: Esther and I were saying that we’re in-group situations that the lone 1 or 2 females in the room do not have to position themselves relative to the other people that are actually in the room. But you do see a lot of men positioning themselves in an authoritative way, its almost like an animal thing and women don’t have that. Esther’s right.
It allows you to get to the person communicating quicker, which means you can get to the real issue at the table that matters.

H: We’re about half way through the show, it’s flying past so keep you questions coming in. We have a question here from Hilary in GloustershirE:

I personally think it comes down to company culture and where I used to work it was very a case of you could only go so far. Where I am now as long as I prove my ability it wouldn’t mater if I was male or female in terms of moving up the ladder. Would you agree with that, are there differences between companies?

K: In our industry, and I think Esther has a wider experience of other industries than I have. I would say I feel fortunate that at Euro RSCG Worldwide the CO David Jones has bought in and promoted to the talent regardless of gender, I am sensible to the fact that I think he’s put me in the job I’m in because I was the better candidate.

H: Well exactly you don’t wan to be bias towards women.

K: I think that I work in an industry where I would absolutely never be in that situation, what do you think?

E: I absolutely agree, not only about David, because he is that way, but culture is built a lot from the leadership of a company, and the leadership has tremendous amount of impact on whether or not women are seen as equal or not, sometimes that leadership is one persons sometimes a board of directors or a whole management level but it really starts there and that trickles down. It it’s a culture of equality or promoting women and celebrating women in the workforce, it’s a much different ball game than if not.

K: We’re in a terrific situation at Euro RSCG Worldwide; I think its incidental but to me its really exciting thing because we’re the 5th largest group in the world in our industry, our 3 biggest markets are the USA naturally, the UK and France, and all 3 of those are headed up by women.

H: Fantastic! Go girls.

(All laugh)

H: Now we’ve had another question in about pay gaps, which is obviously a thorny subject.
Do you fell that gender pay gaps are still an issue today, not only because of the attitudes of men, but because women feel uncomfortable to ask for a pay rise or promotions because of the roles they feel they should follow.
So historically do you think women are bad at asking for more money or a promotion?

K: I need Esther to give me a master class in this right now.

E: I would suppose that is true; I know that to be true.

H: Why are we so hopeless at it?

E: I don’t know if it’s necessarily an inability to negotiate maybe it is. I do know that the pace scale discrepancy is there. I know personally that I’ve been quite aggressive at things like that. So is it about aggressively asking, is it about being the good girl and taking what you’ve got, I not sure what that is.

H: It’s about embarrassment for a lot of women I think.

K: I’ve not been aggressive about it and to my enormous detriment I have definitely suffered from it. I am guilty here because if I look at my workforce in the UK, I’m not sure if I myself am paying as much attention to the pay gap.

H: Equality yes, its shocking really.

K: It is a very bad thing, and is definitely definitely there.

H: How do we get over that, its got to change hasn’t it?

K: People like us have got to be conscious of it. It is a very serious issue that has to be addressed. Starting with me!

E: I’ve been a big believer in, it’s not even a gender issue, and it’s about paying for talent, paying for what the job pays. In some cases also paying for expertise and seniority.
Having built this relatively new group at Coca Cola, it was never an issue of who got paid more, whether they were male/female., it was really about the job.

H: Which is what it should be.

E: There were some jobs held by men and others by women, but they all got equal pay.

H: That’s good to hear, well-done Esther. Simon has sent a question in:
How do you think women’s management style differs from men, is it down to the individual rather than the gender?
Would you rather work under a woman r a man?

E: I think that there are certainly stereotypes around, for example; Women Leaders v Male Leaders. Whether those are blanketly true, I don’t really think so. I think that there are some incredibly easy going women managers and some tough women managers.
We were talking about women getting pegged emotionally, I have seen a lot of male bosses in my time who have also been quite emotional, it’s not highlighted in the same way.

K: It’s always highlighted as a negative with women. If I were to put something across strongly it would be pushed aside by somebody saying you’re too emotional about it. That’s not the case when a man says something of the same calibre, he wouldn’t be brushed or told he is being emotional. And I hate that! I absolutely hate it, its rubbish!

E: Stop being so emotional

(All laugh)

H: Don’t start

K: You’re allowed

E: I couldn’t help myself.

H: Do you think people take qualities such as ruthlessness and strength from a man more easily than from a woman?
So if you had a female boss who was very ruthless and very strong and hard that you would think that she is a bit of a bitch actually, than a guy, who is just a strong manager.

E: Absolutely. It’s about comfort level for women leaders. I have had tough female and male managers and I actually respect that quality. My last boss at Coca Cola was a woman who was very tough and I had a tremendous amount of respect for her.
I actually do believe it gets lensed differently from what it actually feels.

K: It’s better described as strength than toughness…

H: That’s quite a subtle difference but it’s there isn’t it.

K: It’s very important, and I’m there with Esther on the tough thing what I don’t like in business and I don’t like it in our business, and I’m going to get emotional about this again.
I don’t like toughness from men or women that leads to mistaking fear for respect. It’s no the same thing. Frightening someone to death so that they don’t speak up or put their point of view, or that they work in a panic stricken way that they are scared of you.
This has nothing to do with respect, and I think men are guiltier of this than women.

H: Oooo. We’re nearly hat the end of the show, just have time for a couple of questions, John from Hampshire says:
Surely if you take 5 to 10 years to raise children, you’re going to have to expect to lose out on a traditional career progression, where as men don’t take as long a time out. Isn’t that a reality?
Now Kate you’ve got children haven’t you, did you take a lot of time off?

K: I have a daughter, but I didn’t take time out because financially we couldn’t afford for me to do that. I completely take Johns point, if someone has been at home for 5 years it will be tough for him or her to come back in at the same level at which they left.
I don’t encounter that very much. Women I know are very respectful of not doing that.

H: Now, girls are still outperforming boys at GCSE’s and A ‘level’s, but they’re still not getting anywhere in the world of work, unlike the boys. What do you think the future holds for the women of the world?

E: I actually think that, that will change; it’s interesting we talk a lot about changing economies. The knowledge economy for example, was something we relied on greatly; where information and technology were once a competitive advantage analytical and logical skills got you ahead. We’re now moving into the creative economy, where intuition, innovation and creativity will create growth for companies in the future, I think women will excel in these areas even a little more than men potentially, I think we’re going to see that change over time, I really do.
Society is still paternalistic; it’s going to be a long time before you see a change in that idea. Looking at governments for example, just have a look at how many men are leading countries over women.

H: We can only hope and pray.

K: There is an underlying economical force driving women to be in the working world. Women are absolutely needed in the workplace and they can only improve it.

H: On that note, if there are any women watching out there, who are making their way up the career ladder; do you have any tips for women in the workplace?

E: I would give advice that I followed myself; to not think about it being a barrier that you’re a woman. It’s about having that vision, having those beliefs within you and its about driving towards something that feels right.

K; I would say to women, you determine, and can determine how good you are.

H: Well that’s all we’ve got time for but Esther Lee and Kate Robinson thank you very much for joining us it’s been an inspiration hope to anyone watching. That’s all from the business show today, thanks very much for watching and remember there is not glass ceiling the sky’s the limit.

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