The departure of a CEO from one of Australia’s largest listed companies is always news, but the announcement today that Gail Kelly will leave Westpac early next year has particular impact.
Like it or not – and plenty of senior women don’t like it – there’s intense scrutiny and attention when you are part of the small cohort of women to make it to the corner office in business. Even when you are the boss, as a woman you’ll face some formidable double standards.
When Kelly departs early next year after a successful run leading the bank she leaves us, as a country, with even fewer women in leadership. There is no escaping the depressing message.
And it’s no insult to her successor, Brian Hartzer, to note that his appointment shows that once again when it comes to succession in Australian businesses there were apparently few appropriate female contenders in the pipeline.
Westpac is not alone there, with the senior ranks of most corporates absolutely crawling with men and easily outnumbering the few women executives.
Without reasonable numbers of women in the ranks right up to the C suite, women CEOs like Kelly and her handful of confreres (women made up about 3.5% of ASX200 CEOs until today) will continue to be aberrations not the norm.
Losing Kelly instantly reduces that percentage and reminds us that the progress so far in changing the gender composition of organisations has been incredibly slow and fragile, with plenty of barriers to entry.
It’s a tricky job to be a lone woman in a powerful role and when Kelly stuck up for former Prime Minister Julia Gillard a couple of years ago, commenting that the PM was consultative and urging other business leaders to work constructively with her, you could tell there was empathy for the shared experience.
Some have criticised Kelly for not doing enough to bolster the numbers of senior women at Westpac but then again, her male peers could just as easily be charged with the same accusation.
Sure, she was late out of the blocks with addressing gender, and claimed she thought the issue had been dealt with.
But in recent years the bank has been active in setting targets for women in management and establishing the 100 Women of Influence awards and a foundation to encourage more women into IT careers.
Male CEOs can do this sort of stuff too, and some do, but having a woman leader instigate these measures made a big impact.
Without Gail Kelly there is one less woman making decisions that affect thousands of people, from employees to customers, and government policy, while showing that it can be done – and without sacrificing the chance to have a family along the way.
At a time when we need so many more of these role models we can ill afford to lose one.