Susan Ivey made it happen for women.

AuthorBranson, Douglas M.
PositionBOARD LEADERSHIP

Ed. Note: The following profile of Susan Ivey, retired chairman and CEO of Reynolds American Inc., appeared in The Last Male Bastion: Gender and the CEO Suite in America's Public Companies, a book by Douglas M. Branson (pictured) published in 2010 by Routledge, an imprint of the Taylor 8c Francis Group (www.routledge.com). Branson, a top corporate law expert, holds the W. Edward Sell Chair in Business Law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. He is a prolific author of books and articles on corporate governance, with a particular interest in the role of women in corporate management and on boards. (His previous book was No Seat at the Table: How Corporate Governance and Law Keep Women Out of the Boardroom.) The information on Ivey and Reynolds American that follows is as of the time she still led the company. Subsequent to The Last Male Bastion's publication she retired from Reynolds American following a 30-year career in the tobacco industry. She joined the board of Tupperware Brands Corp. in August 2011 and is also a director of R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co.

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SUSAN Ivey began her career in tobacco because she was a smoker. She could not find Barclay menthol cigarettes in Louisville, so she telephoned Barclay's producer, Brown & Williamson Tobacco (B&W). Marketing officials told her that B&W's hometown, Louisville, had no distributor for the brand. Ivey wanted to sell, according to her, something she "had a passion for: cosmetics, alcohol or cigarettes." Admiring her forthright approach, the B&W managers hired Susan Ivey,

Ivey didn't come from tobacco country. Raised in New York, after graduating from the University of Florida in 1980, she followed her boyfriend, who obtained a position at General Electric's Louisville manufacturing facility. While she worked by day, first at Lanier Business Products Co. and then in her entry-level position at B&W, at night Ivey studied for an MBA at Bellarmine College, the local Jesuit university. After she received her degree, she moved quickly into a succession of management roles at B&W, which sanded off any rough edges: district sales manager, brand director, and vice-president marketing.

Her next steps were international ones, with B&W posting her lo the parent corporation in England, British American Tobacco (BAT). She served there from 1990-1994, followed by two years as a marketing director in Hong Kong. Back in London. Ivey held several posts, including director of...

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