Both highly regarded women have been replaced by men, a fact that’s not lost on Kathryn McQuade, a retired executive who held top posts at Canadian Pacific and Norfolk Southern.
McQuade, who was CP’s chief financial officer when E. Hunter Harrison became chief executive in 2012, was not surprised by the apparent ouster of Sanborn and Fitzsimmons. She says Harrison, who now heads CSX, has a different mindset than some of the other railroad chief executives.
“Hunter’s so focused on running the business that diversity is never mentioned. It’s not a priority,” McQuade says, noting that Harrison always treated her fairly.
At the three railroads where Harrison has been CEO — Canadian National, CP, and now CSX — men hold all of the executive vice president positions.
New CEOs routinely replace executives and bring in their own lieutenants, so the changes announced last month at CSX are not unusual as the railroad parted ways with its top operating, marketing, and legal officers.
“All three have long ties to the previous leadership,” notes analyst Anthony Hatch of ABH Consulting. “Notably two are women — and are among the highest-ranking female leaders in the industry.”
Sanborn, Hatch says, is an “oft-praised operator — and major presence representing the company at the Surface Transportation Board listening session on Oct. 11.”
She joined CSX in 1987 and rose through the operating ranks, including positions in network operations, locomotive management, and division operations. Sanborn was named one of Trains’ 75 People You Should Know in the magazine’s 75th anniversary edition.
Fitzsimmons, meanwhile, is a “longtime player in the rail legal scene and throughout all of the machinations at CSX going back to TCI and before,” Hatch says, referring to The Children’s Investment Fund proxy battle of a decade ago. She joined CSX in 1991, was named corporate general counsel in 1997, and in 2003 assumed her current role as the company’s top legal and public affairs officer.
All of the Class I’s say they value workplace diversity and are committed to increasing the number of women in the workforce as well as in management positions. They also have increased the representation of women on their boards of directors in recent years.
In a statement, CSX said it, “prides itself on fostering an inclusive culture where every employee is fully engaged to maximize his or her potential. Women professionals hold important roles in the management of CSX, including in the senior human resources, federal relations, real estate and technology positions, as well as in positions of responsibility in operations and engineering. We appreciate all the characteristics that make each employee unique, and our openness to diversity broadens our access to the best talent and ensures we retain a dynamic workforce.”
As of 2016, the last year for which statistics are available, 24 percent of total CSX management positions were held by women.
Just a week before the executive departures were announced, a Florida women’s executive group recognized CSX for advancing gender diversity on its board of directors.
But a stubborn gender gap persists in top management ranks at all of the Class I railroads.
Some 22 percent of the senior-level executives at the seven big railroads are women, according to a Trains News Wire review of the corporate leadership pages on their respective websites. That’s slightly below the 25 percent of women who hold executive and senior-level positions at S&P 500 companies, according to Catalyst, an advocacy group that tracks workplace inclusion.
The percentage of women declines when measured by C-suite positions, those at the executive vice president level and above, whose titles generally include “chief.”
A News Wire review of railroad websites shows that only 15 percent of C-suite positions at the Class I railroads are held by women, versus 19 percent in the LeanIn.org and McKinsey & Co. Women in the Workplace Study 2016, which surveyed 132 companies.
The Class I C-suite figure will drop to 11 percent when Sanborn and Fitzsimmons leave CSX on Nov. 15.
None of the Class I railroads has a woman as its chief executive, compared to 5.8 percent of companies in the S&P 500, according to Catalyst.
Part of the railroads’ gender gap stems from raw numbers: Women make up less than 10 percent of the Class I railroad workforce, versus 44 percent in S&P 500 companies. And that makes for a smaller promotion pipeline for women, particularly in an industry with male-dominated operating departments.
The remaining women in C-suite positions at the Class I railroads include:
- Julie Piggott, chief financial officer, BNSF Railway
- Cindy Earhart, chief financial officer, Norfolk Southern
- Rhonda Ferguson, chief legal officer, Union Pacific
- Beth Whited, chief marketing officer, Union Pacific
Research recently published found that persons treated by female physicians in the hospital setting have lower all cause mortality when compared to those treated primarily by male physicians. That study did not indicate why. But this is nonetheless a fascinating finding.
James Giblin, how many women executives at the big trucking companies?
Notice how the ones that remain are on non-EHH railroads.
I’m sure there was a ton of experienced white guys running investment banks, but that ‘experience’ didn’t hold them back from imploding their companies or needing a taxpayer bailout. Sometimes, there are more important aspects to a person’s leadership skills than simply ‘experience’.
What about Jo-ann Olsovsky CHIEF Information Officer at BNSF? In any case, the post outlines that fewer women have an interest in working in the industry as opposed to financial services for example. Therefore, just based on numbers there will be fewer in executive management positions. All this hand-wringing about how every entity has to reflect the percentage of ethnicity and gender in the country, no matter what, is tiresome.
There’s a gender gap yes the racial gap is never discussed Asian Latino black how many of them hold executive positions prob 1 percent
ignorant headline
I agree with Jim Norton. Diversity for the sake of diversity is wrong. A person’s qualifications should be the determining factor no matter their nationality.
Kwesi, I am a black male
Experience trumps diversity every time. What a ridiculous waste of space on News Wire.
Here’s a question, do women even want to be CEO or even c suite in a railroad? Equal rights is fine but if women don’t want to do it, don’t claim men are keeping them down.
This argument applies to many other things as well.
Yikes! Here’s a hot potato.
Hiring the best person for the job is more important that diversity. But then taking a swat at EHH is getting to be a religion.
Some railroad have take political correctness to the point that they are becoming Taggart Transcontinental.
The primary question should be, “Is the new officer as qualified as the previous officer?”
Well said, Mr. St. John. My own daughter is a rules-qualified Trainman (Trainwoman!) on a nearby tourist RR, but sadly not interested in pursuing the “real thing”. I doubt she’d get a fair shake if she wanted to.
As the father of daughters I am appalled in this day and age that the value of women in the workplace has not changed much. Hunter Harrison is the Trump of railroading and his base is hedge fund creepers and asset raiding scum.
And the truckers are laughing all the way to the bank…
CEO changes mean executive changes, particularly when the new CEO comes from outside the company. CEOs like to work with their ‘team’ and often try to drag them along when they change jobs. New executives in a company sometimes take measures to ensure that people from the old team don’t stay around because of fear that the incumbents will have better connections in the organization and some ability to scuttle change and projects they don’t like. This stuff happens all the time – the fact the executives are women is the only reason for the story.
The two executives in the article will be heavily compensated for accepting termination. They seem to have excellent credentials so they will probably have new jobs as soon as they want them – inside or outside the rail industry. Sometimes ‘termination for convenience’* by the old employer is exactly what is needed for a capable executive’s career to advance.
*Termination for convenience is the opposite of termination for cause. Termination for convenience is used when a company doesn’t have a legally acceptable reason for termination but wants someone to leave the company anyway.