Every formally organized institution, company or organization must have a president or a Chief Executive Officer. This is the topmost member of any team at the managerial level who makes the final decision, delegates and acts as the official representative of the organization during functions or official conferences and meetings. He is mandated power to make decisions and he in some cases has prerogative powers to make decisions without having to involve or consult the rest of the managerial team. He/she is therefore the leader to the organization that oversees all the organizational operations. One important thing to note concerning leadership and Chief executive Officers and presidents is influence processes. Influence processes can be defined as the impacts that these leaders have on the organizations and their corporate make-up and organizations based on their personalities, character and perceptions towards various concepts (Ann, 2006, p. 199).
In this paper, we are going to review a number of Chief Executive Officers and the effect that they have had on the companies that they lead. Specifically, this paper focuses on female leaders purposely because many people across the world have been stereotyped that women have to work extremely hard to match up to men’s capability and skill especially when it comes to leadership. Andrea Jung is one of the ladies that this paper will focus on. Having been the Chief executive Officer to Avon Products Inc. since 1994, Ms. Jung has brought in a lot of transformation to the company especially after being elected the president presiding the company’s global marketing activities. However, after a lot of controversial reports especially concerning the company’s stock drop with 45%, she announced her resignation in December 2011, but the company insisted that she will still remain to be the company’s CEO until a new successor is elected. She however cannot be defined as the cause of this stock drop especially because the company has been doing well since she joined it, with an average increase in sales percentage of 21% annually (Venkataraman, 2010, p. 166).
Indra Nooyi on the other hand is another enterprising woman, who has been the Chief Executive Officer of PepsiCo Company since 2007, having joined the company in 1994 as the CFO. While at the company, Ms. Nooyi earned a total amount of $4,382,569 inclusive of the compensations and base salary. She has also earned a number of titles to her name, including being ranked number four in the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women’s list. She has also been honored with a Doctorate Law degree from the University of Warwick, Miami University and the wake Forest University.
Lastly, Brenda C. Barnes is yet another woman worth taking a look at her career and profession; she has been a board member for various companies including Avon, Grocery Manufacturers Association, and The New York Times Company among others. She has also been a business manager for various companies, the latest and longest serving one being Wilson Sporting Goods (Global markets Direct, 2009, p. 57).
In their respective companies, the ladies have been in change of various activities including decisions making, allocation of resources which are some of the areas that have brought a lot of controversy especially for Andrea Jung which led her to resign from her position. Their selection for successors however has not been affected in any way because leaders are elected in their respective companies, and they have been seen as role models not only in their companies but also in the outside corporate world. This is even evident through the honorary doctorate degrees awarded to Indra Nooyi.
References
Ann, L. (2006). Avon: Building the World's Premier Company for Women. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Global Markets Direct. (2009). PepsiCo, Inc. - Financial and Strategic Analysis Review. New York: Oxford University Press.
Venkataraman, S. (2010). PepsiCo: The Challenge of Growth through Innovation. New York: Kindle Books.
