Women directors at work: a conversation with Siri S. Marshall.

• Author: Kristie, James
• Position: Interview

"Men learn that what motivates a woman to serve on a board is not a desire to 'rock the boat' or introduce some personal agenda but a wish to add value to the board." That is one of the observations made by Julie Hembrock Daum of SpencerStuart in the preceding article on the growing demand for women directors. To enlarge on that theme of added-value service and discuss other important issues related to the evolving role of women directors, Daum and DIRECTORS & BOARDS Editor James Kristie visited with Siri S. Marshall.

At the time of the interview, Marshall was Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of Avon Products Inc., a company with four women on its board. She joined Avon in 1979 as an attorney in the U.S. legal department and held positions of increasing responsibility since that time. As this issue was going to press, she was named Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary of General Mills Inc. She also speaks with a director's perspective, having joined the board of NovaCare Inc. earlier this year. Excerpts from the conversation between Daum and Marshall follow.

Julie Hembrock Daum: Maybe a good place to start is with Avon. Could you tell us a bit about the Avon board and the women on your board?

Siri S. Marshall: We have a board of 12, four of whom are women. Our Chairman and our President are our two insiders. All of the men are currently CEOs or former CEOs. (Editor's Note: Avon has since added Richard S. Barton, President, U.S. Customer Operations, Xerox Corp., to its board.) Of the four women on our board, one is primarily an academician and three are running businesses.

We have had women on our board since 1972. The first woman on our board was Cecily Cannan Selby who, at the time, was running the Girl Scouts. She is still on our board. She now has her own consulting firm.

In 1974, Avon added another woman, Ernesta Procope, the CEO of E.G. Bowman Co., the largest minority-owned insurance brokerage company in the country. She is a successful African American entrepreneur who started up this insurance business. She just retired from our board this year.

We also have on our board Remedios Diaz Oliver, who is Hispanic. She is the CEO of a company called All American Containers Inc. She came to this country when she was an adult, from Cuba, and has built a global company supplying containers to different countries all over the world. She joined the board in 1992.

Last year Ann Moore, the president of People magazine, joined our board. And Brenda Barnes, the COO of Pepsi-Cola Co., just went on our board this year.

So, you see that we have women directors with very strong business backgrounds.

Daum: It appears that Avon has sought individuals with specific qualifications, those who can bring something to the company, and that prior board experience has not been an overriding priority.

Marshall: Avon is very clear about who is responsible for making our business a success: they are women customers and 1.7 million representatives -- virtually all women -- who are our sellers, our distributors, around the world. At the same time we also have a keen appreciation for the need to have women in senior management positions and in decisionmaking positions throughout the company. On all of those fronts, having women on the board is essential. There is a symbolic factor. For any company that is serious about having career paths for women, no one is going to take them seriously if they don't have women board members. I don't think you can understate the importance of that.

But more than that is the different perspective that these women can bring. We have women entrepreneurs on the board, and our sales force is made up of women entrepreneurs. We have large African-American and Hispanic markets here in the U.S. and abroad, and a great number of our representatives come from those ethnic groups. We have that kind of representation on the board. So, you don't have to convince our senior management, our board, and certainly our chairman about the importance of having women on the board.

Daum: How did these women come to your attention?

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