Boys on the Side
Was looking through last year’s WICT Resource Guide, plus rummaging online and found, much to my pleasure, male members of WICT. Comcast Chicago’s Joe Stackhouse, Charter’s Mike Lovett, Insight’s Michael Willner (last year), Time Warner’s Landel Hobbs and A&E’s David Zagin were listed as trustees of the WICT Foundation.
Nice.
Although, no guys on the WICT board of directors. Guess guys can only be trusted so far.
The first male member of WICT was Bill Daniels…who, when asked by Gail Sermersheim (I think it was Gail, might have been Lucille Larkin), sent a check. Lucille told me I had to join, too. So, I did. And still do. For more than 25 years.
And now there are 20 local chapters and some 5,500 members.
Don’t know how many men are included, though. (Couldn’t find that online. But will ask Benita Fitzgerald Mosley at the WICT Gala in D.C. this week.)
One of the best programs that WICT runs started in 1993 when TCI’s Bob Magness and J.C. Sparkman wrote checks to launch the Betsy Magness Leadership Institute (named for Bob’s late first wife and his critical business partner). The 14th and 15th (ooops, XIV and XV) classes are under way now.
Interesting mix of graduates (many of cable’s prominent female executives) and a diverse group mix in the current classes.
BMLI’s XIV class has 14 women from MSOs, 11 from programmers, one vendor and one association executive. XV has 10 from MSOs, 16 from programmers and one questionable from associations (SCTE’s Kimberly Maki has bolted from cable to run the SMPTE: Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers; good job, still semi-cable, sort of?).
Interestingly, CNNMoney.com posted a list showing female motion picture projectionists make 27% more than their male counterparts. Just for fun, I kept looking…female sales engineers make 43% more than their male counterparts; female telecommunications line installers and repairers make 12% more than the men; female precision instrument and equipment repairers make 8% more; female engineering managers also do 8% better; female surveyors and mapping technicians make 6% more; and female advertising and promotions managers make 5% more than males in the same job.
A lot of magazines list the best places for women to work…but I couldn’t find any listing cable-related companies (unless you stretch that to include The New York Times Co.).
And I think I know why.
The National Association for Female Executives (NAFE) publishes an annual list of 30 top companies…but requires a company with two female board members to spend lots and lots of time filling out a detailed application.
Maybe WICT should designate a staffer to do that for…oh, no two women board members?
Maybe next year? Check out the rest of CableWorld’s 2006 Most Powerful Women issue – click here.
