Susan Arnold is president of global personal beauty care and feminine care (Gary Landers photo) | ZOOM |

By Cliff Peale
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Susan Arnold took her early cues from the men: Trust your gut instincts, and bond with others. Today, she runs Procter & Gamble Co.'s $4.5 billion-a-year personal beauty care business.

Deb Henretta draws on skills she has perfected with business and babies. A three-time mom, she's the first woman to run Procter's $5.5 billion-a-year diaper division.

Gina Drosos personally tested every prototype of Olay Total Effects face cream, something few men would do. Only 39, she's in charge of Procter's fast-growing skin-care business.

"I've never for one day felt a glass ceiling here," Ms. Drosos says, adding she foresees the day when a woman will be Procter chief executive officer. "I think we're very ready. To have a company like P&G with a woman CEO, that would be great for women everywhere."

Outside the corporate Twin Towers downtown, P&G's commitment to women executives increasingly is earning notice. Shedding a reputation as a place dominated by men, Procter today boasts more women running billion-dollar businesses than any company in town.

Nationally, it's a model for recruiting, training, promoting and retaining women, a priority for corporate America for more than 20 years.

Deb Henretta is president of global baby care. (Gary Landers photo) | ZOOM |

Chairman and chief executive A.G. Lafley has no plans to retire anytime soon, but if he did, Ms. Arnold and Ms. Henretta would be possible successors, the first women to rise that high in P&G's 165-year history. So influential are they that Fortune magazine recently ranked them No. 32 and No. 34 on its list of America's 50 most powerful women in business.

Two decades after it first started heavily recruiting women from business schools, Procter has filled 19 percent of vice president spots with women. Women fill 46 percent of coveted brand manager spots, with twice as many in that position as five years ago.

To be sure, women still are a small minority in the Global Leadership Council that runs P&G. Men fill 31 of 34 positions,including chairman, chief executive officer, chief financial officer and chief marketing officer. And the leap to CEO still is the hardest one to make in the business world.

That should change as more women move up, especially in companies like Procter with good track records now, says Deborah Merrill-Sands, associate dean of the respected Simmons College School of Management in Boston.

"We should see a good shift there in the next five to 10 years," she says.

Diane Hirakawa is senior vice-president of research and development, Iams. (Ernest Coleman photo) | ZOOM |

The promotion of women is acknowledged as good business strategy, especially for companies like P&G that sell most of their products to women. Valerie Newell, managing director of RiverPoint Capital Management, a money-management firm downtown, says Procter's investment in women is well known.

"You do something like that for two, three, four years, you may not see much," Ms. Newell says. "But right now, you see women like Susan Arnold and Deb Henretta, and you start to see the payoff of what a few enlightened men started to do 25 years ago."

Plodding progress

P&G wasn't always brimming with women executives.

Just 25 years ago, men held virtually all the top management jobs. Women were mostly assistants or lower-level marketing managers, and there were even fewer women in technical fields like finance, plant management and research and development.

That started to change in the early 1980s, when P&G started recruiting women in earnest from business schools under CEO John Smale. Still, it was 1991 before Procter appointed a woman vice president, and 1996 before one became a corporate officer. That was Charlotte Otto, global external relations officer, in charge of the company's communications and civic affairs.

P&G's investment has accelerated in the past decade, particularly under recent CEOs John Pepper and Mr. Lafley.

"A more diverse team will outperform a more homogenous team every time," Mr. Lafley says. "The more diverse team will be more innovative. The more diverse team will solve problems better."

Nationally, women still are a minority in Fortune 500 executive suites. Only six of those companies have a woman CEO, led by Carly Fiorina of Hewlett-Packard. Women are only 15.7 percent of corporate officers of Fortune 500 companies, up from 12.5 percent in 2000.

At P&G, only four women are corporate officers: Ms. Arnold, Ms. Henretta, Ms. Otto and corporate secretary Sharon Abrams.

To many, that progress is too slow. It's reflected in the rest of Greater Cincinnati as well. Of public companies here, only Kendle Inc. is run by a woman, Candace Kendle. Karen Hoguet has become chief financial officer at Federated Department Stores Inc. And Karen Hendricks - a P&G alumna - was CEO of Baldwin Piano & Organ Co., but left in 2001.

"In 25 years, there's been really significant change, and it's very heartening," says Ms. Merrill-Sands, the Boston management professor. "But the leadership arena in corporations is the new frontier. And it's really slow there."

One factor slowing P&G is its century-old policy of only promoting from within. The company doesn't hire senior executives from outside, meaning it can't recruit women executives, or any executives, from other companies.

But after trying to nurture its base of female executives for 20 years, the dozens of women in their 30s and 40s that help run some of Procter's most prominent businesses mean that women will be able to compete for future promotions on an equal footing, P&G officials say.

"eBay can get (CEO) Meg Whitman from Procter, but Procter doesn't typically do the reverse, so it's by definition a longer runway," says Cincinnatian Peg Wyant, who rose to manager of corporate strategic planning and reported directly to CEO Mr. Smale before leaving in 1985. "When you have to start at the bottom and move up, that's a phenomenal record."

Pam Page, now a vice president of product supply for the fabric and home care business, is P&G's only African-American woman vice president. A former plant manager at Ivorydale who now works in Brussels, Ms. Page says the promotion of women into management in her segment of P&G is "pretty good."

"We've gotten past the point of having women as plant managers, and there are examples across the globe," she says.

The top-ranking women at P&G share an insistence that good business dictates diversity in every company unit. That means "big diversity," including gender, race and nationality, they say.

"I'd be hesitant in this business to staff it with either three men or three women in a row," says Melanie Healey, vice president of North American feminine care at P&G's Winton Hill complex. "Mixing it up brings objectivity to the business."

Examples of "big diversity" can be found throughout P&G. For example, the heads of P&G's businesses and corporate functions - fewer than three dozen people - come from 13 different countries.

"This is much more than a gender issue," says Gretchen Price, vice president of finance and accounting for P&G's global market development organization. "It's a lifeblood issue. If we can't attract or retain a diverse base, we don't have the luxury of parachuting someone in."

`Mom influence'

In businesses where nearly all of its target consumers are women, P&G hopes that its promotion of women executives translates into a real competitive advantage.

The idea - women creating products sold overwhelmingly to women - spreads across the company. Advertising is shaped around women, and Procter's top marketing officials consistently talk of crafting messages to "her."

In feminine care, a team headed by Ms. Healey developed the Tampax Pearl tampon. In home care, vice president Colleen Jay's team helped expand the Swiffer floor cleaner.

In skin care, Olay has been a huge success under Ms. Arnold and Ms. Drosos. And in baby care, Ms. Henretta has led an expansion of Pampers into baby clothes, wipes and other categories, while rolling out a new line based on a baby's development.

Ms. Henretta transferred to baby care in 1999 when former CEO Durk Jager wanted more "mom influences" there. Her three kids are out of diapers, but the days over the changing table still are fresh in her mind.

Those are marketing roles, a core P&G function where women have found easier paths, and where the advantage of understanding women consumers is at its strongest.

In areas like finance and research and development, where technical training is at a premium and women were later entering university programs, men have dominated.

Diane Hirakawa, senior vice president of research and development at Iams, says the pet-food industry has long had a "good-old boy" reputation.

"That was tough," the Chicago native says. "But once you establish that you know what you're talking about, it doesn't matter if you're a woman or from the big city or of Asian descent."

Ms. Page, an engineer who has been in P&G's manufacturing and distribution operations her entire career, says working for P&G gives her a chance to show skills she couldn't display in many other companies.

"I can make an impact globally," she says.

Ms. Price, the finance executive, says she was the only woman among 10 new hires in the finance department when she got to P&G from the University of Kentucky in 1976.

"But it's been 10 years since I walked into a meeting and even thought about that," she says. "I'm reminded of it more often when I step outside the P&G world."

Hello, Singapore

Inside the P&G world, Procter does more than recruit women. The company also promotes an atmosphere friendly to women's concerns, the company's top corporate women say.

In P&G-speak, it's called "work-life balance," a philosophy that may explain why Procter has been named 16 times to the Working Mother list of the 100 best companies for working mothers.

Ms. Drosos says she's able to find time for training sessions with her staff and afternoon activities with her children, ages 4 and 6.

Many times, that combination means 6 a.m. conference calls with marketing execs in Asia - it's 7 p.m. in Singapore - and similar calls after the children go to bed.

"What that buys me is, to use this week as an example, attending my son's school holiday play," she said a week before Christmas. "This is not a place where face time is important. What's important is delivering great results."

Some junior women employees echo those feelings. Janet Fletcher, a brand manager in the deodorant business, says she feels "empowered" to advance her career. After 12 years in P&G's manufacturing arm, she moved into marketing in 1999.

Taydra Mitchell, a 31-year-old brand manager for Head & Shoulders, says Ms. Arnold and Ms. Henretta are examples worth following. But she'd like to see more African-American women in positions of power, too.

"When you come into the company, there are lots of programs in place that are part of the infrastructure," she says. "It's great to look up and see someone and say, `I can walk in that place.' "

That advancement depends on results, Ms. Arnold says. She tries to land executives who have a "gut feeling" for beauty care brands.

"People who come to beauty care aren't necessarily interchangeable," Ms. Arnold says. "The business is fragmented, it moves quickly. Sometimes, you can't wait for data."

Ms. Henretta, head of baby care, used gut instinct to help plan and install an "Experience Room" at the unit's headquarters in Blue Ash. Furnished with an oversized crib, dresser, table and chairs, the room helps adults understand the view of a baby.

Visitors there can put on a pair of heavy gloves, helping to understand how hard it is for a baby to perform simple tasks. She's tried to impress on visitors and P&G employees alike the importance of going beyond diapers to add wipes, clothing and other products under the Pampers name.

Her goal, born from experience: Help women view Pampers as not just a diaper, but a partner in raising their kids.

"I helped the company see that Pampers always has been bigger than diapers to women," Ms. Henretta says.

What's best for the pets

If she wants to do what's best for the baby, Ms. Hirakawa, of Iams, wants to do what's best for the dog or cat.

The Chicago native joined P&G when it bought Iams in 1999. When she joined the Dayton company out of graduate school in 1985, a mentor told her a small company would let her concentrate on what was important.

"He told me, `Iams will let you do what's best for the animal,' " she says. "I took him at his word, and I've never regretted it."

Since the acquisition, Ms. Hirakawa has seen some of the advantages of a big company, too. Recruiting, particularly of women, is a whole lot easier, she says.

"They look, and they say, `Where am I going to grow?' " she says. "Now, they can see all those other opportunities. I can now recruit top-notch, diverse candidates."

The language in P&G's commercials for Swiffer, the floor cleaner that exceeds $350 million in annual sales, is reflective partly of Colleen Jay's personal experience. The Canadian native says her three daughters love "Swiffering," a verb that now is in the company's ad campaigns.

"These things create insights," she says. "Believe it or not, they ask to help clean."

Gretchen Price asked for a new assignment last year, one that took her off the company's corporate financial team and into the global market development group. With only one promotion possible in her former job - to chief financial officer - she says it was all about broadening her own experiences.

"This role has given me such an appreciation for the business outside the U.S.," she says.

Ms. Healey, vice president of North American feminine care at P&G's Winton Hill campus, has that same appreciation.

The Brazilian native led development of the Tampax Pearl tampon in 2002.

She recalls her years at Johnson & Johnson, where she said there were fewer opportunities in Brazil to work with a diverse team or gain work experience in other countries.

"It's just one of those little signs that makes you say, `Hmm, that's a signal,' " she says.

E-mail cpeale@enquirer.com

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