Hospitals & Colleges: The Gender Gap of Their Boards

Just months before  Happy Fernandez died in 2013, she had pulled together a group of prominent women in the nonprofit world (and a journalist, me) to figure out her next great thing.  Happy, a former Philadelphia city councilperson, had just retired from her position as president of the Moore College of Art and wanted to put her energy and skills into advancing women in non-profits.
Her sudden death might have ended her quest. But the women she had assembled felt they should continue what she had started.

Happy Fernandez, Philadelphia Inquirer 

A major moment in that effort  was announced today, with the first in-depth analysis of the boards of the Philadelphia area's 25 largest hospitals and 25 largest universities -- "meds and eds" as these influential institutions are called.
Among the findings: that the boards of only 4 of  the 25 colleges have 50 percent or more women members. Not surprisingly, those are schools with historically female roots, such as Bryn Mawr College. The same was true of hospitals, with those founded by Catholic sisters giving more equitable representation to women.
The study was conducted by the Nonprofit Center at La Salle University's School of Business at the request of our group, which for six years has quietly been working behind the scenes to coax  and cajole area universities and hospitals to put more women on their boards. We have now given ourselves a name–  the  Women's Nonprofit Leadership Initiative. And a website www.wnli.org, where you can learn about the members and find research proving the benefits of board diversity.
Reams of research should put to rest any disputing the value of diversified boards, from guiding institutions to better decision making to recognizing and preventing fraud. What's still too often missing today is the will to make it happen.
The full report shows that many of the region's  largest and most important institutions could do much better.
Here are a couple charts from the report -- read the full report here.
And see a story by the Philadelphia Inquirer here.

Come See this Wall of Shame

Happy Fernandez had big plans for helping develop women leaders in the non-profit world. Women in particular, she felt, could benefit from mentoring by other women who, like herself, had made difficult ascents up institutional ladders and were now reaching the end of their careers.
The politically savvy former college head pulled together some 20 women -- leaders in the non-profit  sector -- who began meeting to come up with a plan for giving back. (She included me, thinking some day I'd write about their initiative.)
Then,  very suddenly nearly two years ago, Happy died.
With her spirit and energy still in the room, her rump group continued to meet, following up on one of her ideas: to study the gender gap, both in numbers and salary, among non-profit executives in education and healthcare in the Philadelphia area. Thanks to the Forum of Executive Women,  that report was published this week -- a new addition to the Forum's annual look at corporate salaries.

The good news: the percentage of women at the helm of non-profits or on their boards is far greater than for public companies in the Philadelphia region. A survey of the area's 100 top companies in 2013, found that only 12 percent of executive positions were held by women. That compared with 26 percent of executives in health care and 29 percent in colleges and universities.
The bad news from those same numbers: even in the non-profit sector where women generally reach higher rungs, only about 1 in 4 executives are women, according to the latest data, from 2011.
Plus, most of the medical and educational institutions with significant numbers of women in leadership are those that were historically women's schools and/or Catholic institutions where nuns had significant roles. Their numbers skew the totals.
Look at the pitiful number of women on boards of some big non-profit institutions based on 2011 data:
Thomas Jefferson University -- 4 of 39 board members were women; Temple University (4 women out of 36), Virtua health system (1 out of 12),  and Kennedy Health System (1 out of 11).
Women, after all, account for most employees in both education and health. Those are areas of care and nurturing -- roles that women in particular have claimed as their dominion (though thankfully more men are stepping up at least on the home front.)
Although the numbers of women leaders at public companies (vetted by the accounting firm PwC) have been edging up,  the results remain dismal. Fewer than half the companies  (44 percent) have no women at all as top executives, according to their 10K filings. Comcast, now a big national company, in 2013 had no top executive women, no top salary earners and but one female member out of 12 on its board.
There's more:
--35 of the top 100 public companies in the area had no women on their (well paid) boards;
--Only eight companies had three or more female board members
--Only seven companies had a female CEO
And by my count, 21 of the 100 companies were all male bastions, with not a single woman on either their boards or among the top ranks of their executives in 2013, according to the report, which failed to break out that tally. For the record, let's name those without  any women leadership: Triumph Group; DFC Global; J&J Snack Foods (what, women don't eat pretzels?); Dorman Products; Brandywine Realty Trust; Five Below (we know who shops for the toys); StoneMore Partners (owners of funeral homes and cemeteries); Vishay Precision Group; PhotoMedex (a skin care firm); SL Industries; Dover Downs Gaming & Entertainment (maybe that's why its shares are worth only 81 cents); Omega Flex; RCM Technologies; Resource America; Lannett (a drug maker); Dover Motorsports (owners of Dover Speedway); WPCS International; InTEST; Innovative Solutions; JetPay (a payroll company); and ProPhase Labs (which makes ColdEEZE).
While many of these are industrial and technology companies, what do their leadership choices say about their commitment to women in STEM (Science, Technology Engineering, Math) jobs?

The report also found women lagging men financially, both in public companies and "eds and meds":
Of the "top earners":
--Women comprised only 10 percent of top earners at the 100 public companies;
--Women comprised 32 percent of top earners at health-care systems;
--Women made up 27 percent of top earners at colleges and universities.

Jane Scaccetti, one of three women directors of Pep Boys, a car care company, explains why getting more women on boards can make a difference in decision making.  Not naming a company with just one female board member (herself), she gave this example: "I watched a board committee become enthralled with a candidate because he was once a great athlete. They asked questions mostly about his athletic accomplishments…After the interview, when I questioned the shallowness of the candidate's answers to technical questions and experience, a member looked shocked that I was challenging a great athlete."
At Pep Boys, she said, adding women to the board has changed its dynamic. "As a lone female board member when I voiced an opinion or raised an issue," she says in the report, "I would hear, 'She said.' When there were two women serving on the board, things improved to 'They said.' Now that there are three women, we hear, 'What did you say?'"

Happy, who had just stepped down as president of Moore College of Art, was seeking a way to channel women's leadership experience to help others up the ladder as her "unretiring" project. A way to give back.  Her legacy is inspiring other to find ways to do that. For one, the Forum of Executive Women offers mentoring in the corporate world. What else is out there? Do you know of another programs? Have any ideas?

Insisting on the Final Word

Happy Fernandez, a joie de vivre

She had polio at age 10 and fought back to become a competitive tennis player. Seeing her on the court, even at age 73, was like watching a performance of balance and grace, her friends said. Then there was her mind – sharp, engaged.

And if anyone had a question about her stubborn determination, it was answered by her extraordinary living will.

When Happy Fernandez suffered a massive stroke recently, her family knew exactly what they had to do. She left no possibility that she might continue living if it were not in the fullest possible way. Plus, she didn’t want to be the recipient of extensive – and futile – medical care.

Have you written your living will? Would you make such a choice?    

With her family’s permission, here are excerpts from Happy’s living will, written several years before her death last month (the bold is all hers):                                                                                  

"I want this letter to supplement any living will to make clear how I feel.

Seeing … many older people … 'ware housed' and kept alive by drugs and food at great expense to the public via Medicare and other health care systems, I do NOT want to be kept alive by any machines, medicines or other means when I have lost mental and physical abilities to care for myself. If I am in a state where I no longer am able to ask for assistance to die with dignity, this letter should be taken as a directive and request.

I do not want health care services to be wasted or used to keep me alive when by accident, stroke or other mishaps I am not able to speak, feed myself, walk, see, hear and/or otherwise function as a human being. Please do not use any means to keep me alive – surgery, nutrition, drugs, etc. I am appalled at “wasting health care resources” to care for me if my mind and/or body are so wasted. I have lived more than a full life – every day is a gift after having polio at age 10 and the scare of post-polio syndrome in 1992. I have lived a full and useful life and feel ready to die if a stroke, heart attack, brain tumor or other terminal disease strikes me.

I want any public or private family or insurance dollars to be used to nurture the development of the next generation, here in the United States or in other democracies such as India, who are faced with huge problems of poverty and the mistreatment of women and children.

I would like to be allowed to starve to death or die quickly of pneumonia or an infection if I have some such disease or accident. Please take this as an honest and binding addendum to any living will that I have signed.

I realize that this is very difficult for my sons and my beloved Dick who I have loved so much since we met in 1959 at Sebago, but please respect my wishes and do not prolong my life, which has been filled with so many joys of loving you and your families.

A Happy Life Partner, Mom and Mama.”

If you’re reading this on a phone and wish to comment, please go to www.unRetiring.blogspot.com

Happy Fernandez--Her Latest Mission

Photo by Steven M. Falk, Phila. Inquirer

Just 10 days ago,  on the eve of lung surgery,  Happy Craven Fernandez sent an email to friends and colleagues, closing with,  “Please do not send flowers or gifts etc. Non-profits in this region can always put dollars and cents to good use.”

Happy, who retired last spring from her post as president of Philadelphia’s Moore College of Art and Design, was like that. Whether running for  mayor of Philadelphia (1999), serving on City Council (1991), or teaching at Temple University and launching child advocacy programs, she poured her energy into benefitting her community.

 Last summer, while reveling in the freedom, at last, of a rare vacation in New England, she had also spent it strategizing her next step.

With fulltime work behind her, Happy was plotting out her ‘encore career.’ She had decided that she wanted to mentor women engaged in non-profit and public service work so that they could both fulfill themselves and better fulfill the missions of their organizations. But she wanted to do this in the biggest and best way possible.  So she brought together 22 of the city’s most prominent women – leaders who, like herself, had long and successful careers in the non-profit world. The group included a law school dean, a TV executive, as well as board members and leaders of some of the city’s most prominent 501(3C)s.

And, lucky for me, because of my focus on “unretiring,” she swept me into her fold.

I felt fortunate to be able to watch the process as these talented, influential women debated the best use to which their expertise and energy could be put. Should they focus on younger women just launching careers? Or people in mid-career reaching for leadership positions? Maybe their mission should be nurturing non-profit boards, some of which struggle to be effective and some of which are simply dysfunctional. Or should the group focus on advocacy – looking to foster change in organizations in which women are under-represented?

After several meetings (the last, with Happy at the helm, was just two days before her surgery), the group was beginning to coalesce, to harness their skills to a higher purpose.

With Happy’s leadership, they were (to quote Marc Freedman, the guru of the Encore Career movement) blending “clear-eyed pragmatism and the determination to make a better world, the idealism of a generation tempered by years of experience at making things work.”

Will this continue without Happy, who died today following a massive stroke three days after her surgery? What’s the most effective way to harness the collective power of women with non-profit expertise? And to what end?

Send along your ideas and I’ll share them with the group Happy launched. Perhaps this will be yet another legacy she would be proud of.