MAURER: Another look at the glass ceiling

My longtime assistant, Marla Smith, had a sign on her desk that read, “The best
man for the job is often a woman.” I have grown to appreciate and believe in that advice.

At Indianapolis Business Journal and The National Bank of Indianapolis, we are overrun by women in all of our major
divisions, much to my good fortune. Their influence on management decisions is persuasive and pervasive. On one occasion at
IBJ several years ago, a male telemarketing employee, upon hearing a minimally suggestive voice-mail message, left
a vulgar reply. At the following management meeting, I suggested we limit our discipline to a stern warning to our employee
that his continued employment was conditioned upon more appropriate behavior. The women around the table did not buy it. He
was fired that afternoon.

Less than a generation ago, the business world was fascinated with the concept of the glass ceiling. The “glass ceiling”
is a phrase coined by The Wall Street Journal to describe the barriers women face in the workplace. The word “ceiling”
suggests women are blocked from advancing their careers and the word “glass” is used because the ceiling is not
always discernable. An article in Fortune magazine in 1991 tabulated the 6,400 highest-paid officers and directors
of United States businesses and concluded that only 0.5 percent were women. It concluded that women did not have the same
opportunities as males. The article cited independent surveys that found women overwhelmingly believed they could not hope
to reach a senior management level in a traditional corporation.

The lamentable state of affairs in the early ’90s spawned an initiative to gender-balance the books at the board level
with an expected trickle-down effect. By 1994, according to Catalyst, a research firm focused on women in business, more than
half the Fortune 500 companies they surveyed had at least one woman on their board of directors. In 2009, that number had
risen to approximately 90 percent; however, women held only 15 percent of the available board seats.

According to a recent article in The Washington Post, Norway mandates that corporate boards be 40-percent female.
Reflecting the fact that enlightened corporate decision-makers have come to realize gender diversity is good business, women
have made strides to the executive office as well, although they still have to work harder to get there.

There has also been a migration of many of the best and brightest women to entrepreneurial ventures where the barriers are
fewer and the chance for reward is higher. There is no glass ceiling (to the extent it exists at all today) in the entrepreneurial
world. If a company is efficiently delivering quality goods and services, no one inquires whether that company is owned by
a woman. Last year, The New York Times cited the Center for Women’s Business Research that estimated that 8
million businesses, or 28 percent of all businesses, were owned by women and that those businesses created or maintained 16
percent of all jobs. This phenomenon was no more evident than in Indianapolis April 21 at a meeting of the local chapter of
the National Association of Women Business Owners at the Conrad Indianapolis attended by approximately 300 women.

I write this article while eating Chicken Salad Patachou at one of my favorite lunch hangouts. This eatery was established
in 1989 at 49th and Pennsylvania streets by Martha Hoover. Martha was trained as a lawyer and served as deputy prosecutor
under Steve Goldsmith focusing on sex crimes. She just opened her seventh restaurant. Achieving success in the food service
industry is one of the toughest endeavors in the business world. Failures abound. Patachou is thriving thanks to owner Martha
Hoover, the best “man” for the job—a woman.•

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Maurer is a shareholder in IBJ Corp., which owns Indianapolis Business Journal. His column appears every other week.
To comment on this column, send e-mail to mmaurer@ibj.com.