PepsiCo has named a woman CEO: Indra K. Nooyi, an Indian-American who was born in Chennai (then Madras) and educated at Indian universities before graduating from the Yale School of Management.
Nooyi joins 12 other female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. This low rate of representation for women at the highest levels of American business suggests that the glass ceiling is still a concern. Still, Nooyi’s promotion is perhaps a sign of change. Keeping in mind that people don’t typically become CEO until well into their careers, and that women only started entering the workforce in great numbers perhaps 25 years ago, we may still be in the early stages of transition in the upper echelons of the business world. After all, people of my generation, still in their thirties, are the first to have spent their entire professional lives in environments regulated by sexual harrassment laws. When people born in the 1970s are old enough to be CEOs of Fortune 500, I expect to see a higher percentage of women in top executive positions, if not total gender equality.