Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Powerful Women: Not Just Oprah Anymore!


In my internet browsing (read: homework avoidance) I was looking at an article on the 25 highest paid women. There a few women I'd heard of (Ebay's Meg Whitman and uh... Meg Whitman), and many that I hadn't. I thought it was great that they weren't all white; for example Pepsi's Chairman and CEO--Indra Nooyi, or Avon's Chairman and CEO--Andrea Jung. And I said "Chairman" because that's what it said for their titles in the article.

And it seemed like they were making bank too! Andrea's total compensation for 2007 was $11 million. Indra took home $14.7 million. Sharilyn Gasaway at Alltel made $38.6 million in 2007! (Too bad about her name.) But when I clicked on the link to see the 25 highest paid men, well, there wasn't really any comparison. Steve Schwarzman topped the list with $350 million. In fact, the lowest paid out of all of them still made more than Ms. Gasaway at $41.9 million (Larry Fink of BlackRock). Additionally, only one of the men is not white (#20, Kenneth Chenault of American Express). Trust me. I Googled the three in the article that didn't have headshots to make sure. Compared to the (at least) three women top 25 earners who weren't white, I thought that said something.

But I'm too tired to really figure out the ultimate significance right now. Instead, I will go make some sketch models out of paper and leave you, gentle reader, to come to your own conclusions.