Who’s Who 2009 The Movers and Shakers in Welsh Business

The Western Mail’s “Who’s Who 2009 The Movers and Shakers in Welsh Business” landed on my desk last week.  It can also be viewed on line at Media Wales’ website www.walesonline.co.uk although you must first click onto the business pages and then on to the Who’s Who guide.   The criterion for entry is “those considered influential in the private sector”.  When we put in my firm’s submission for inclusion in the guide, the submission rules provided clearly that only one person per organisation could be put forward yet in his foreword to the guide Sion Barry advises “There are a few instances of more than one representative from a company” without detailing on what basis a company managed to get more than one representative in.    Number of employees?  Size of turnover?  Employing lots of people  “influential in the private sector?”

Anyway because I’m sad like that and because I’d done the same thing to Insider’s Power 100 I counted up the total number of people listed in the Private Sector section – 354 – and then I counted how many women there were within that 354.  There were 32.  Superwomen we failed to hit even 10%.    The split of influential people in Wales (as determined by the Western Mail and ” a number of their business contacts who provided their invaluable expertise in helping to identify suitable candidates”) is more than 90% male, less than 10% women. 

If Sion Barry had been to a Superwoman event (especially our flagship event in October which last year was attended by more than 160 women) I think he’d be forced to conclude that women account for more than 10% of the influential people in the private sector in Wales.  (We’ve never said men aren’t allowed -we’ve just never had one apply to come.)  So why is our showing in this guide so poor?  I think it is at least in part to the requirement on the submission guidelines that only one person per organisation could be put forward.   The percentage of women on the board of companies is low (just 12% on the FTSE 100 boards in November 2008) but the percentage of women who are chief executives and chairs is even less.  Based on the Western Mail’s guidelines only the chief honcho could be put forward so even really very senior honchas with bags of influence could not be included if they did not have the top job.  Unless of course one of the Western Mail’s contacts identified them and what’s the odds those contacts have got cojones not ovarios? 

There’s lots of reasons women don’t get the top job.   Sometimes due to discrimination, sometimes  because they want to work hard but also be  good mothers which doesn’t sit well with the time commitment and unbroken career path of the very top job.   Michelle Obama doesn’t have the top job in America but she’s got plenty of influence.     Sion Barry invites us to email him if you believe you should be included in the list and says if you do he will consider adding you to the on line version.  Superwomen – let’s get emailing – sion.barry@mediawales.co.uk