Women in Public Service Project

IMF Director Christine Lagarde, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, United Nations Administrator Helen Clark, activist Gloria Steinem and other prominent women leaders from 37 countries who serve their communities joined Hillary Clinton in Washington yesterday to launch the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program.

The new initiative, created in conjunction with Seven Sisters colleges including Barnard in New York City, Bryn Mawr near Philadelphia and Wellesley in Massachusetts will work to develop women leaders in a series of exchanges and leadership programs. colleges.

The initiative reflects a core concept of Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state — that people, their families and communities, and countries do better when women are active participants in public life.

New York Times Company CEO Resigns

NYTimes CEO Janet Robinson will leave her post as CEO of The New York Times Company on Dec. 31. The Times made the surprise announcement yesterday. Times Company chairman and publisher Arthur Sulzberger will serve as acting CEO until Robinson is replaced.

Media watchers considered the newspaper empire to have stabilized its financial fortunes after navigating the tough waters that have challenged all print media as part of the digital revolution. WWD writes:

If there was one particularly touchy point among the Times newsroom and Robinson, it was her annual compensation. Even though the Times cut 100 newsroom positions in 2008, Robinson wound up taking home $5.58 million. The following year, the Times cut another 100 jobs and her total compensation ballooned to $6.2 million. It won’t warm the hearts of many Times staffers to read a Securities and Exchange Commission filing released on Thursday as she broke the news of her retirement: She will be paid $4.5 million next year for “consulting services” — close to her base salary for 2010.

The New York Times is the nation’s second-largest newspaper in digital subscriptions, following The Wall Street Journal. The newspaper ranks third after WSJ and USA Today in Monday to Friday print subscriptions. It is the largest in Sunday subscriptions, with 1.65 million customers receiving the Sunday print edition, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Fair Trade Cotton Scandal

Clarisse Kambire, 13, a child laborer, left, and fellow child laborers pick fair-trade organic cotton during the day’s harvest in a field near Benvar, Burkina Faso, in November. via Bloomberg

Fashionista tipped us off to Bloomberg’s Victoria’s Secret Revealed in Child Picking Burkina Faso Cotton. Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in February that Victoria’s Secret is expected to get most of this season’s Burkina Faso organic harvest of fair trade cotton according to Helvetas Swiss Intercooperation, who commissioned a 2008 study known by its French initials UNPCBsuggesting that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of children were vulnerable to exploitation on organic and fair-trade farms.

It appears that the intention of VS were positive in wanting to promote fair trade cotton. The company denies that it ever read or knew about the report and has only aimed to support sustainable cotton materials and female African farmers. The company has withdrawn it prior “good for women and good for the children who depend on them” booklet that accompanied its white thong covered with blue and lavender daisies.

The Bloomberg read is an excellent one, reflecting an ongoing investigative commitment to the issue of child exploitation — now in the fair trade sector.

Bloomberg writes that the explosive growth of fair-trade growers has created new forms of child exploitation in developing countries.

Women at Work

Bloomberg is now on our daily news beat, with yet another winning read from Sept 2011, Harvard Business Review’s Vineet Nayer’sHow Women Can Flourish in the Workplace.

When I asked last week if women were dissatisfied enough to force change in the corporate world, my post triggered off a global debate. Many participants, thankfully, focused on what we can do to increase the number of women leaders and managers in business rather than diagnosing the causes, which are all too well known.

I’d like to return to the conversation by reiterating my fundamental belief that the corporate world has largely failed women, an argument that I’ve made earlier here and in other public forums.

Women on the Move

Jill Beraud Former Victoria’s Secret marketing executive Jill Beraud will leave her position as global chief marketing officer of PepsiCo to lead technology-based beauty business Living Proof.

Andrea Jung, Avon’s long-time CEO Andrea Jung will become chairman of the global, direct-selling beauty company. In the search for her successor as CEO, one name keeps popping up: Mindy Grossman, CEO of HSN. WWD reports that Grossman, who also worked at Nike Inc. and Polo Jeans Co. was not available for comment.

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TED Ads Worth Spreading

We’re only two weeks away from the December 31 deadline for Ads Worth Spreading – TED’s initiative to recognize and reward innovation, ingenuity and intelligence in advertising. Please remember to enter before the holidays are here, as good intentions to submit your incredible work might give way to celebrations and vacations.
As a holiday bonus, we’ve got great news! Five agencies who enter the Ads Worth Spreading initiative will be randomly selected for a visit from TED. Our team will curate a special session for your agency, staged in the first half of 2012. These agency visits are designed to spark deeper conversations between TED and the global marketing community.