Headline Mar 06, 2015/ ''' SALUTING : THESE OUTSTANDING WOMEN LEADERS '''

''' SALUTING : THESE OUTSTANDING 

WOMEN LEADERS '''

INDIRA K. NOOYI, Marissa Meyer, Ellen J. Kulliman, Irene B. Rosenfeld, Meg Whitman, Mary T. Barra, are one great leaders, by all and all, and every measure.

And then, Students : Mariam, Rabo, Dee, Haleema, Malala, Aqsa, Anum, Saima, Eman, Paras, Sorat, Areesha, Sameen.  are one great leaders in the making. Pakistan, is very lucky and blessed to have them.

Just few hours ago, as I toiled into the night, Dee wrote:

*We have let you down on every occasion, on every instruction, on every deliberation. We have let you down every day again, after again...... And yet, you never gave up on us?*

'Well, Dee, and You All,   -just you wait till the younger students begin questioning your performance, through protests. Let's see, if you all, have a place to hide!

I will lead the protests, [Rabo and Dee], accompanied by, Maynah, Hannyia, Meriam, Mariam,Tooby(China),  Danyial, Rhym(UK), Hazeem, Nayab,  and all these little girl-angels that are made to work in Pakistani households. You have my word on this''.

What do these women that I have named in the opening para above, have in common? 

They are chief executives of some of the world's largest companies: PepsiCo, Yahoo, DuPont, Mondelez, Hewlett-Packard and General Motors. But they also share something else.

In recent years their companies have been targeted by activist investors and other vocal shareholders seeking to make changes.

Is that a coincidence?

While women have made strides in cracking the glass ceiling, they still account for a small fraction of chief executives at public companies. Only 23 women lead companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index.

Yet at least a quarter of them have fallen into the cross hairs activist investors. What could explain this phenomenon?

Are companies led by women truly more likely to be poor performers in need of change? Or do activist investors   -all of them men-   see women as softer targets?

Patricia Sellers, a senior editor at Fortune magazine who runs its Most Powerful Women franchise, recently raised the question online, ''Does Nelson Peltz have a problem with women?''

Mr. Peltz, a longtime activist investor, has singled out Ms Nooyi of Pepsi, Ms Kullman of DuPont and Ms Rosenfeld of Mondelz.

Starboard Value, another activist fund, has set its sights on Yahoo and Ms Mayer, J Kyle Bass, the investor who predicted the subprime mortgage bubble-

Has been publicly pressing Ms Barra at G.M. to increase its dividend, which she did. But not as much as Mr Bass was seeking. 

Ms Whitman of HP put Ralph V. Whitworth on her board in 2011, in part to keep him from waging, a proxy contest against the company.

It goes without saying that activist investors have mostly waged campaigns against male chief executives because of the dearth of women at the top ranks of large companies.

Of Mr. Pteltz's 28 activist investment in companies since his funds investment inception, only three have been run by women.

That means 89% have been led by men. And not all activist investors can be lumped together.

For example, the activist investor Daniel S.Loeb pushed to install Ms Mayer as C.E.O of  Yahoo  after dislodging the existing chief executive, a man.

Still, the anomaly remains, raising the question of whether activists are singling out companies led by women.

Every activist asked about this, was outraged by the very question, insisting that a company's  performance and not the sex of the chief executive, was the only factor in their calculus to pursue an investment or activist campaign.

Depending on how you slice the data, over the last several decades companies led by women have at times, outperformed their peers   -and at other times they have underperformed, with no clear trend.

Still, some studies have shown that gender diversity at the top of companies generally leads to increased performance.

The Honour and Serving of the ''operational research'' continues. Thank you for reading, and may be grasping, -and see Ya all on the following one.

With respectful dedication to all the Students/Girls of the world. See Ya all on !WOW!   -the World Students Society Computers-Internet-Wireless:

''' The Dealbook '''  

'''Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless