Women With Attitude

Lessons for Career Management

John Bank, Susan Vinnicombe

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781134445233
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Gender Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This book answers all the questions you've ever wanted to ask top-ranking women directors: How did they make it to the top? What do they think of their success? How does it affect their lives? It brings individual stories of accomplishment together with expert research into the emergence of women entrepreneurs, aspects of leadership, and the politics of breaking into the boardroom.

Here, nineteen top-achieving businesswomen tell the stories of their career success. A groundbreaking study of women in management, entrepreneurship and the politics of leadership, it includes interviews with Barbara Cassani of Go Fly airlines, Camelot's Dianne Thompson, Pearson's Dame Majorie Scardino and Anita Roddick of The Body Shop. All winners of the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year Award, their diverse lives have been brought together here for the first time.

A fascinating insight into the minds and lives of some of the world's top businesswomen, this is a must-read for those seeking inspiration and advice.

Part I
The Veuve Clicquot dimension

The story of Madame Clicquot

The Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year Award was appropriately named for Madame Clicquot who was a businesswoman ahead of her time at the start of the nineteenth century. She embodied many of the leadership qualities celebrated by the award today. While never reckless, she took risks. She seized opportunities. In 1814 she organized her first shipment of champagne to Russia, despite the fact that it tied up much of her capital. The Imperial Russian Court became one of her best customers. To satisfy Russian demand for her champagne, Madame Clicquot beat England’s blockade of the seas.

She also invented a new process for perfecting champagne, leaving it brilliantly clear. Her technique, called remuage, was soon adopted by all the other champagne houses. Fittingly, the trophy held by the winner of the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year Award for twelve months is a scale model of a pupitre, the instrument used for the remuage process.

Madame Clicquot was born Nicole-Barbe Ponsardin in 1777. Her father, Nicolas Ponsardin, was a successful businessman and she was brought up in a middle-class family used to financial independence. She married François-Marie Clicquot in 1798. She was 21 and he 24. The following year they had a daughter, Clementine.

François Clicquot had become involved in his father’s champagne business in Rheims only eighteen months before the marriage. He started to work for his father, Philippe Clicquot, just before Christmas in 1796. In June the next year he was sent out as a sales representative for the company to open new markets. His father delayed his own plans to retire until 1802. Three years later his son fell fatally ill – just seven years after his marriage to Nicole-Barbe. François had possessed a weak constitution since his youth. It did not stop him from expanding the business and travelling all over Europe. When he came down with a fever it was not regarded as serious. Twelve days later he was dead. It devastated both his father and his young wife. While still in the shock of his bereavement Philippe Clicquot announced that he and his daughter-in-law were going to wind up the business by the end of the year 1805.

Then Widow Clicquot made the amazing decision to carry on her husband’s business. It was an extraordinary act for a young woman at that time, made within a few weeks of her husband’s death. Her motive was not to earn a living. Her own father, Nicolas Ponsardin, was rich and would have gladly supported his daughter and her child. In fact, during the difficult early years of the business, Madame Clicquot subsidized the business from her own personal finances.

Her administration of the champagne company was far from an overnight success. She had eight difficult years at the outset, from 1806 to 1814, before the business became a commercial success. Four months after her husband’s death she entered into a partnership with another local Rheims wine-producer, Jerome Alexandre Fourneaux, to form Veuve Clicquot Fourneaux et Cie. The partnership gave her an opportunity to learn about the champagne business whilst running the small company.

Their traditional markets, however, fell victim to the political turmoil of the times. In response to threats from Napoleon in March 1806, England used its powerful navy to blockade France. Trying to run the blockade, Madame Clicquot and her partner lost 50,000 bottles of champagne, more than a third of their annual production. England’s blockade of Prussian ports closed those markets to the struggling partnership. An effort to use Amsterdam as a way of breaching the blockade also failed.

But the resilient sales force Madame Clicquot employed continued to fight on against the odds and sold 80,000 bottles of champagne in Russia, Northern Europe and Germany. In the face of the turbulent market conditions due to the ongoing Napoleonic Wars (1793–1815), the champagne partnership company decided to run the blockade by shipping its champagne overland to Russia. The trip was risky, expensive and time consuming, but in the end the champagne arrived safely in Russia and sold for great profit.

Her partnership company paid half the cost of outfitting a merchant ship, the Pactole, only to lose the investment. As the war reached its full-scale disruption of Europe, the champagne company gave up its policy of trying to get the wine to market at any cost and went into a semi-dormant period. Sales plummeted to a mere tens of thousands of bottles. In 1810 Madame Clicquot’s partnership with Alexandre Fourneaux was dissolved.

Undaunted by the hostile environment, Madame Clicquot formed a new company, Veuve Clicquot-Ponsardin. When she had taken over her husband’s company, it was a growing concern, the business climate was good and she had her personal desire to preserve his memory. Four years later, the environment could not have been less favourable for a business start-up. Europe was moving to the climax of the Napoleonic Wars. Whole countries had closed their frontiers. Her father-in-law was too old to help her with the new venture, apart from investing some money. She had split with her business partner. Her sales force was totally demoralized. She herself was under no illusions about the difficulties of running a business. Yet she chose to start the new company and to persevere.

That her business was ultimately successful was largely due to her own abilities. She was a good judge of character and had an instinctive feel for business. She liked to look at problems from all angles before taking decisions. She continually sought the advice of others – her loyal salesmen, people like Louis Bohne (whom her husband met on his travels and made one of his salesmen in 1801) – mostly through letters, and other regular correspondents. But once this extensive consultative period was finished, she took decisions and implemented them with resolution. Nothing would deter her from following through with her plans, and she was single-minded in pursuing her goals.

A year after starting the new company she had her sales force on the road again, including her star salesman Louis Bohne. She wrote to him: ‘All my hopes are centred on you, on your enthusiasm and industry, convinced that if you cannot succeed no one can.’

His reply dashed her hopes: ‘You have no idea of the misery to be found everywhere. In the Tyrol I was told I deserved to be hanged for daring to offer them a luxury item like champagne, after the damage the French had done to their country.’

When traditional markets in Holland and Belgium yielded virtually no business, Madame Clicquot sent her salesmen to Italy and Malta but could find little business there. In the whole of 1811 only 17,000 bottles of champagne were sold. The following year, while Napoleon was initiating his Russian campaign, she downsized her entire sales force, keeping only Louis Bohne full-time and salaried. She sold her champagne on a commission basis through salesmen who carried other lines as well. As the First Empire collapsed around her, she showed her determination to fight on and prevail. Rheims itself was overrun by allied forces. Although Cossacks, Prussians and Russian troops occupied her home town, Madame Clicquot’s fears of having her winery sacked proved groundless as the troops were disciplined.

She and Louis Bohne decided to steal a march on rival champagne houses. Taking advantage of the chaos surrounding the ending of hostilities, she chartered a ship and sent it with 8,000 bottles of champagne to a Baltic port. She sent Louis Bohne on board the same ship with the precious cargo. An avid reader herself, she gave him a copy of Don Quixote to read on the voyage. He sold out the entire shipment in St Petersburg at record prices, and a few months later another entire shipment of 13,000 bottles was sold out as soon as it arrived. The sales in Russia seriously depleted Madame Clicquot’s stocks. The business was on the rise.

The Russian market continued to grow exponentially until three years after her death. It was a market she dominated by sheer daring and perseverance.

Her qualities and managerial behaviour made her a role model for modern women in business. She was quick-thinking. She showed courage in taking calculated risks. She enjoyed the challenge of entrepreneurship, and had a love of adventure. In her management style she was not autocratic at a time when the divine right to manage was unchallenged. Rather, she encouraged open, two-way communication. She was a good listener. Correspondence between her and her salesmen in the field show her to be empathetic to their concerns, even to their family problems. She was also open to their ideas and suggestions, enjoying their success stories and sympathizing with their setbacks. Her enthusiasm and commitment to life-long learning built confidence among her workforce. She had the ability to anticipate events and to persuade people to do things her way.

She failed in two business ventures away from her mainline concern with the Champagne House. Both were run by Georges Kessler – the Clicquot Bank and mill investments. When they went into liquidation she honoured her obligations, but discharged them through a proxy, Edouard Werle. This left her free to stay focused on the champagne company, which demanded her energy and full commitment. It also distanced herself from events that might have hurt her business reputation.

She was kind and generous towards her rather quiet daughter, Clementine, and to Clementine’s attractive and romantic husband Louis de Chevigne whose company she enjoyed. But she was always careful not to involve either of them in the champagne business.

One of the qualities required of a successful senior manager or chief executive is the ability to identify talent and to develop people, and Madame Clicquot had this competency. She recognized the managerial potential of Edouard Werle who arrived in Rheims from Germany in 1821. She gave him increasing levels of responsibility in the running of the business and, when he proved competent, kept promoting him. After twelve years in her employment she made him a partner in the business. This judgement – to give an equity stakeholding in the business (something denied to members of her family) to outsiders on the basis of merit – showed her strength of character.

La Veuve Clicquot died at age 88. Her legacy of a successful company with 650 acres of some of the finest vineyards in Champagne speaks for itself. Her motto – ‘One quality .. the finest’ – still guides the company today.

The Business Woman of the Year Award

The Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year Award is three decades old. Its original title reflects the ambience of 1973, the year it was first presented; it was called ‘Woman in a Man’s World Award’. The first winner of the award was Stella Brumell, managing director of Benford Ltd, the largest manufacturer of concrete mixing equipment in the UK. The award continued with that dubious title until 1978, when it became The Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year Award. For the first nine years of the award Veuve Clicquot worked in partnership with The Times newspaper. ‘The first editor we worked with in 1973 was Sir William Rees Mogg and the last was Harry Evans’, explained Moira Collins, who conceived the idea of the award at Veuve Clicquot. The link between the award and The Times was broken in 1982.

Veuve Clicquot found a new partner for the award in The Institute of Directors. ‘We ran it with the IOD beginning with Sir Walter Goldsmith, then Sir John Hoskyns and finally Peter Morgan’, Moira Collins said. ‘Since 1990 we have gone it alone and held the event at Claridges.’

What is the selection process for choosing the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year Award winner?

It starts in early autumn when Veuve Clicquot UK, from its Central London offices on St George Street, sends out by post 6,000 booklets printed in the champagne company’s distinctive yellow and deep purple colours. The FTSE 100 companies are on the mailing list, as are a number of women’s organizations and the wider Veuve Clicquot network of business contacts built up over the years. The attractive booklet, with the use of many photos, explains the purpose of the award, gives a little history about it, and lists the winners during the past thirty years. There is a photo of the immediate past winner and some words from her. There is a sketch of the founder Madame Clicquot. Most importantly the booklet explains how to nominate someone for the award and provides a tear-off entry form. People who nominate candidates for the award are promised a dozen magnums of Veuve Clicquot should their candidate win. They are asked to include supportive documents about her in the form of company reports and press clippings and other evidence of the candidate’s worthiness.

Veuve Clicquot UK receives over a hundred nominations for Business Woman of the Year from the business community in this manner each year. The nominations arrive to be sorted in January and February.

In February or March a panel of ten, selected by Veuve Clicquot to broadly represent the business community, then meets to consider each of the nominations and to debate their merits and make a shortlist of five candidates. These five candidates receive an interview from John West, managing director of Veuve Clicquot UK, and Moira Collins, the founder and current director of the award. They spend about an hour and a half with each shortlisted candidate. It is a supportive interview in which the candidates are encouraged to tell their stories in an open manner. They may be asked questions about items concerning themselves or their businesses that the panel members wanted clarified. The shortlist of candidates for the award is then announced to the national press sometime in mid- March or early April.

Who are the panel members? Sky Business News journalists, Simon Bucks and Michael Wilson; BBC Economic Unit’s Nigel Cassidy; The Sunday Times ex-business editor, John Jay; journalist Kirsty Hamilton; and business editor, Rory Godson. There is Dame Judith Wilcox, past chairman of the Consumers Council, who is a member of the House of Lords and pays particular attention to consumer affairs. Stephen Quinn, editor of Vogue, adds a bit of style to the panel. BT’s Patricia Vaz, a former winner of the award, is on the panel to represent corporate business. The previous year’s award winner is also invited to sit on the panel. This year it was Dianne Thompson, CEO of Camelot, who won the award for the year 2000.

The panel of ten, which is chaired by Moira Collins, then reconvenes to select the winner of the award. All the shortlisted candidates are invited to a reception at Claridges in London late in April. Here, the five candidates are presented with a bouquet of flowers and the award winner is presented with the silver trophy.

The twenty-ninth winner of the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year Award for 2001 was announced on 25 April 2002 as Barbara Cassani.

Part II
The profiles

Barbara Cassani

Barbara Cassani, CEO, Go Fly

Barbara Cassani, as CEO of Go Fly airlines since it began in 1998, has become one of the most inspirational women business leaders in Britain. She predicts that the positions of the low-cost airlines and the conventional airlines will shift irrevocably.

‘Low-cost airlines are already taking the place of the conventional airlines. The transformation is underway. Take the air travel market between London and Glasgow. Low-cost airlines have gone from zero to about 50 per cent of the market. BA and British Midland have now a relatively small proportion of flights between those two cities. In the place of these conventional airlines as major contenders for that route are easyJet, Go and Ryanair.

‘It is only a matter of time before the low-cost carriers become the dominant players on many domestic and European routes’, she said. ‘The roles of the low-cost carriers and the traditional carriers will be reversed. We will become the mainstream carriers while the traditional airlines become niche players charging a premium for additional services.

‘Customers don’t want to pay a lot for short trips. They don’t need very much from a product standpoint. They don’t want a hot towel and a glass of champagne. They just want to get there on time at a reasonable cost.

‘I always knew the low-cost airline sector had potential but I thought that it would take ten years for the traditional airlines to be forced to come to grips with the reality of the new economics that drives the airline business. September 11 has caused traditional airlines to rethink their own businesses. They are a lot less profitable. Airlines like BA were making money on other parts of their network such as the North Atlantic – but they were using these to cross-subsidize loss-making routes in Europe. As a result of losing the North Atlantic profits, they have had to wake up and adjust their networks in a way that was sensible, given the fact that they have a high-cost structure.’

The extent of the damage to conventional airlines is considerable. Since the terrorist attacks and the downturn in business, airlines have grounded and mothballed unneeded aircraft. Research from Boeing suggests that two-thirds of the 2,000 jets grounded after the attack – about 1,300 planes – will not return to service, but will be scrapped at a cost of $1.3 billion.

Barbara Cassani is quick to point out that the essentials of the low-cost model are important. ‘We are discounters and the more we can lower our prices the more we can grow our market, which is just the opposite of the traditional airlines. This year our capacity grew by 30 per cent. We have added 30 per cent more aircraft and so we would expect to add at least that much in revenue every year as well’, she told a business conference in Belfast. She knows what she is talking about. Her low-cost airline carried 310,000 passengers to Northern Ireland from its base at Stansted in one year.

‘When we do business planning within Go, the issue is can we cope internally with this level of growth and ensure that we still have our high standards on punctuality, that we are employing good people, training people satisfactorily, and that we are running a safe and secure airline’, she said.

The dynamic 41-year-old Italian-Irish American executive heads an exciting new venture. The management buy-out is now the nation’s third largest low-cost airline behind Ryanair and easyJet.

She ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Foreword
• Preface by Rt Hon. Harriet Harman, QC, MP
• Authors’ preface
• Acknowledgements
• Part I: The Veuve Clicquot dimension
• Part: II The profiles
• Part III: The commentary
• References