First foray into the corporate boardroom.

• Position: LEADERSHIP

Ed. Note: Barbara Hackman Franklin joined her first corporate board in 1979, following six years as a commissioner of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and two years, from 1971-73, as a special assistant in the Nixon administration heading a leadership effort to recruit women into senior policy and decision-making positions, the subject of the new book A Matter of Simple Justice (see main article). In "An Oral History of Corporate Governance," published in 2001 by Directors & Boards, she talked about the early days in the 1970s when women began advancing in greater numbers into corporate boardrooms. Following is an excerpt.

I was vice chair of the Consumer Product id Safety Commission (CPSC) at the time when Harold Williams was chairing the Securities and Exchange Commission. I remember having lunch with him one day, and he was telling me about his interest in independent directors on boards. There wasn't anything regulatory on this at the time, so it was all bully pulpit on his part. That was probably my first real awareness of the role of corporate boards.

I certainly don't recall corporate governance included in any studies at Harvard, although I stiff find it amusing today to remember that a course taught by one of the most esteemed members of the faculty, General Georges Doriot, was closed to women. We were warned by our counseling professors not to try to sign up for that course because he didn't take women. [Ed. Note: She was one of the first women to graduate from Harvard Business School, which she did in 1964.] When I ran into him many years later, I told him I had wanted to take his course and what did he think about not allowing women in his class. He looked right at me and said, "I'm damn proud of that!" [Laughter]

When I got into the business world with the Singer Co. and then with Citibank, I was doing financial analysis work so I would be aware of the board meetings coming up. But it was a much different world in the 1960s. It was much simpler. We did not have the pressures of a global economy. There wasn't much board governance in evidence. The CEO was perceived as running everything.

When I stepped down from the CPSC in 1979, there was a provision at the time that limited the commissioners from being involved for one year in the industries we regulated. Because of this conflict provision, I could not accept the first board offer I received, which was from Westinghouse. I went onto the Aetna board first since...