Women in S.C.'s boardrooms?

By Dick Hughes  

JULY 19, 2010 6:00 a.m. (1)

Nancy Hedrick is unique as chief executive officer of Computer Software Innovations of Easley.

In a Journal survey of 2009 CEO compensation of 39 publicly traded companies based in South Carolina, Hedrick stands out as the only woman holding the top corporate job.

The survey also reveals few women are employed as chief operating or financial officers, and boards of directors, prized networking links, overwhelmingly are comprised of white males.

Of the nine largest publicly traded companies with annual revenues in excess of $600 million, only Denny’s, the Spartanburg restaurant chain, has more than one woman on in its board. Most have none.

(Click here to see how much the state's CEO's make.)

Denny’s has three, including chair Debra Smithart-Oglesby, who last month was named interim CEO until a replacement is found for Nelson Marchioli, who departed under unannounced reasons.

The two largest corporations, Scana, the electric, gas and nuclear utility with revenues of $4.2 billion, has two female boardmembers, and Sonoco Corp., a consumer and industrial packaging company with revenues of $3.6 billion, has one female director.

The South Financial Group of Greenville had one woman left on its board after the resignation Jan. 1 of Darla Moore, who broke glass-ceiling barriers in New York banking and is a major benefactor of the University of South Carolina’s business school.

No women are identified as directors on Web sites of ScanSource of Greenville, AVX of Greenville, Force Protection of Ladson, Kemet of Simpsonville and Advance America of Spartanburg.

With limited membership on boards, women and minorities are excluded from a productive networking resource to advance their careers, and companies are denied diversity of opinion in governance, said Jill Vales, president of JV Management Services of Greenville.

Before starting her own business, Vales was vice president of human resources at ScanSource, CFO of a publicly traded company in Florida and auditor for Fortune 500 companies.

“It starts with the board,” she said.  “You can have five vice presidents but no or few women on the board” and women will view that as indicator of a culture that will limit their opportunities for C-level promotion.

The male-dominated system also perpetuates itself because “you hire people like yourself unless you consciously change the process to prevent that.”

Hedrick and Vales believe another link that benefits men is their domination in MBA programs that not only provide valued credentials on resumes but also school ties for networking.

According to the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, an accrediting agency for MBA programs, the percentage of women who received in MBA degrees has stayed relatively consistent at 39 percent the last decade.

At the Darla Moore School for Business at USC, the percentage of women enrolled in MBA programs grew from 28.9 percent in 2003 to 30.7 percent in 2008 and then dropped to 25.2 percent last year.

Hedrick, who became CEO of Computer Software Innovations five years ago when she and her partners took the company public, said networking is critical and “men do a better job of that than women, though we’re learning.”

Hedrick and three of the other four original partners remain key officers at CSI.  Unique among public companies, they are compensated at roughly the same level regardless of hierarchy.  That small “d” democracy is a carry-over from their collaboration as a private company, Hedrick explained.

Despite sharp cutbacks in purchases of software and hardware by schools and public bodies, CSI’s niche market, the company was profitable through the recession.  Hedrick earned $230,974 last year, which includes stock options valued at $25,779 she took in lieu of a salary increase.

The highest paid executive of a publicly traded S.C. company last year was Harris DeLoach, CEO of Sonoco, who was paid $8.7 million, about a million more than he received last year.

W.B. Timmerman, CEO of Scana, received $5 million, slightly below what he earned in compensation in 2008.   CEO Michael Bauer of ScanSource earned $3.6 million, pretty much what he received in 2008.

Because of special bonuses, two local bankers, J. Barry Mason of First National Bancshares of Spartanburg and H. Lynn Harton of The South Financial Group, did well despite poor performances by their banks.

Mason, who was named CEO in August, received $1.6 million for the half year. It included a signing bonus of $550,000 in cash and stock and option awards valued at approximately $959,000.

First National Bank lost $43.7 million in 2009, is under tight regulatory control as a troubled bank, is significantly, if not critically, undercapitalized, is in default on a major loan and has been delisted by NASDAQ, making trading in the stock more difficult and expensive.

Harton, who became CEO in late 2008, received $1.6 million, which included $611,250 in base salary, a retention bonus of $500,000, deferred compensation and pension-value changes valued at $410,674 and perks worth $87,399.

After losing $1.3 billion since January 2008 and with nearly $1 billion in problematic loans still on the books and insufficient capital to absorb them, TSFG was on the verge of collapse when in May it found a buyer, TD Bank, at the discounted price of 28 cents per share.

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Bruce  - And?   |2010-07-19 02:36:11 So there are no woman in those positions. What's your point? Oh yeah... create a problem where none exist in order to justify yourself. Pathetic. Reply

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