THE GLASS CEILING, UNSHATTERED
The glass ceiling
By Alix Nyberg Stuart

As they approach the top, the pull between work and life – caring for parents, raising children, making time for a spouse – seems to tug harder at women than at men. Some women do manage that balancing act, although they remain relatively rare, according to a recent survey of female CFOs by CFO, CFO Asia’s sister magazine in the US. Fewer than 10% of CFOs in either the Fortune 500 or the Fortune 1,000 are women. Drop down a notch to controller, treasurer, and tax director, and the numbers increase to about 20% of the Fortune 500. From the ‘glass is half-full’ perspective, the 35 female CFOs in the Fortune 500 represent a 350% gain from 1995, the first year CFO magazine conducted the survey, when only ten women held the title in the US.

On the other hand, women have been pouring into the finance pipeline for decades. For more than 20 years they have outnumbered men in undergraduate and graduate accounting programs, and comprise the majority of new hires by public accounting firms. For the past decade they have earned 30% to 40% of all MBAs. From that perspective, the drop-off at the top is dramatic.

Whether these statistics prove the existence of a glass ceiling depends on who you ask. Eighty-three percent of men think it doesn’t, according to CFO’s recent survey of finance executives. Only 44% of women agree. Virtually no one thinks women lack the skills or talent for the CFO job. But as Marianne Parrs, CFO of International Paper, puts it: “There’s something going on there for sure; it’s just not at all clear to me what it is.”
It’s not clear to us either, but based on both the survey and anecdotal evidence, it seems that women either choose better balance over a full-on grab for the brass ring – or have that choice very subtly made for them.