Susan Arnold

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today that another top woman in corporate America is stepping down. Susan Arnold, President of Procter & Gamble’s global business unit announced that she will leave after spending nearly three decades at P&G.

This is particularly discouraging. Currently, only 13 of the Fortune 500 CEOs are women –less than 3%. Women hold only 15.4% of corporate management jobs in the Fortune 500 Companies. This is also trending lower — down from 17.4% a couple of years back.

Why did Susan leave? Well, quite simply, she read the tea leaves. She was one of the two names mentioned at P&G to succeed current Chief Executive A.G. Lafley. Susan did try to boost her own chances as reported by in the WSJ article:

Over the past several months it appeared that Ms. Arnold had been looking outside P&G to heighten her professional profile. In 2008, she joined the board of McDonald’s Corp., following her appointment as a Walt Disney Co. director the year before.

But, Susan apparently did see the writing on the wall, and decided to leave with grace rather than be passed over:

“There was a most clear push of momentum to Bob McDonald that the company was trying to signal to the Street,” said Sanford Bernstein’s Mr. Dibadj. “Even at the analyst day [in December], Susan Arnold took a step back and did a sustainability presentation,” he said. Mr. McDonald, by contrast, gave a broad overview of the company’s plans to expand and cut costs.

Women simply do not have the support networks in place at major corporations to push them to the highest position.  All of our Fortune 500 companies (and most of our large companies period) have established networks of men that help promote other men — the fraternity of leadership. Same goes for our government and academia.

So for all those women who think we have come so far that we don’t need to vote based on gender, think again!