Pucino - Not In The Club: an Executive Womans Journey Through the Biased World of Business

No job is more important to a CEO than developing talent. Yet CEOs in most organizations allow the existence of a club mentality that excludes women and marginalizes their ability to do their best work. Janet Pucino has written an important and insightful book that describes the pervasive and insidious nature of The Club. It should be mandatory reading for all leaders who want to build great organizations and all women who want to be successful in them.

Jeff Stiefler , Chairman/Director of several public and private companies, former President, American Express, former Chairman and CEO, Digital Insight

Janets ability to share her years of experience navigating the course between success, gender and growth will equip the future women leaders in business with the necessary tools to blur the lines between gender and career aspiration.

James Barlett , Vice Chairman Teletech, former Chairman, President and CEO Galileo International

Classrooms? Check. Boardrooms? Not so much. Women make up the majority of higher education students today more than 60 percent of business school graduates are female and theyre well-represented in the workforce. Still, they remain conspicuously absent from boardrooms and C-suites. Pucino uses her own career trajectory to take a compelling look at the office roles women take on, and are put in, and how to ensure that smart, savvy women get invited into the Club.

Fiona Williams , Partner, Deloitte & Touche LLP

In Not in the Club, Janet Pucino illuminates how social rather than biological processes marginalize women who work in elite, male-dominated professions. Drawing on research, as well as her extensive personal experience in professional IT workplaces, Pucino presents a much-needed and engaging intervention into workplace gender inequality, and provides a road map for companies and individuals committed to eradicating the exclusionary practices of the mens club.

Kristen Schilt , University of Chicago

Not In The Club

An Executive Womans Journey Through the Biased World of
Business

by Janet Pucino

Deep Canyon Media LLC

433 N. Camden, Suite 600, Beverly Hills, CA 90210

Phone: 424-666-9401

www.DeepCanyonMedia.com

Copyright 2012 by Janet Pucino

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ISBN: 978-0-9859027-1-1 (Hardbound)

ISBN: 978-0-9859027-0-4 (Softbound)

ISBN: 978-0-9859027-3-5 (ebook ePub)

ISBN: 978-0-9859027-2-8 (ebook ePDF)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012946226

First Edition, Printed in the United States of America
0987654321

Book Design by www.KarrieRoss.com

Author and cover photograph by Starla Fortunato

Chapter photographs provided by iStockphoto.com

A S A HIGHLY EXPERIENCED I NFORMATION Technology (IT) executive, Janet Pucino has designed and implemented leading technologies across a broad range of industries, including media and entertainment, financial services, health insurance, and technology. Throughout her executive career she ran every facet of IT, including strategic planning, application development and service delivery, risk management, enterprise architecture, quality assurance, project management, program and change management, strategic labor sourcing and outsourcing, network design, and end user computing support.

Janet held many senior level positions throughout her career. She was a Corporate VP and the highest-ranking female executive in the IT Division of a globally recognized media and entertainment conglomerate. While there, she became an executive sponsor for a womens affinity group that focused on career development for women across the company, an experience that formalized her interest in mentorship and professional development for women.

She was the Chief Technology Officer at a prestigious design college, where she was responsible for developing and implementing a strategic technology plan for film, digital media, graphic and product design, and for providing IT services in support of all design programs. Janet was the President and Founder of a management consulting company, where she successfully delivered quality IT solutions to notable corporate clients around the world. She managed quality and continuous improvement for a first-generation wireless data company, and launched new networks, applications and technologies for financial services and insurance firms in Fortune 1000 companies. Throughout her career, she drew on her passion for IT while mentoring and developing her staff along the way.

Janet received her MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and received her undergraduate degree from Northern Illinois University. She serves on the Chicago Booth Advisory Council and is a featured speaker at industry and academic conferences.

She is currently the CEO and Founder of Deep Canyon Media LLC, a content development, publishing, and consulting company in southern California.

W OMEN REPRESENT OVER 50% OF THE labor pool in the U.S. While a number have risen to top levels in corporate U.S.-based organizations (e.g., Pepsico, Xerox, Kraft Foods, Campbell Soup Company), statistically they are exceptions at the executive levels and in boardrooms. Even when women reach the uppermost echelons in business, they seldom become a member of The Club to which their male counterparts belong; The Club is the group that values its members contributions and surrounds them with a social network of power that leads them to opportunities and financial success.

This book looks at the impact of The Clubs culture from a womans perspective. At the core, this is a personal reflection of my 30-year journey in information technology (IT) management across various industries, with the goal of raising awareness regarding the distinct experiences of women in the workplace as they advance toward executive positions. I hope to call attention to the behaviors and organizational cultures that continue to hinder womens progress toward leadership positions, and to illustrate the need for inclusion and parity in our society and organizations whether corporate, governmental, or non-profit in structure. Corporate and societal changes need to occur now. Although I spent most of my management career in IT in large organizations, my experiences and conclusions about those experiences are applicable to every discipline and every type of organization large and small.