Pioneering Latinas break barriers and keep going

November 14, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

McClatchy Newspapers

MIAMI

In the 1980s the American Club, founded in Havana in 1901 and transplanted to the penthouse of the Royal Trust Tower in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood, became a haven for Cuban-American men who rose to powerful positions in government and business to network among themselves and with their Anglo male counterparts.

In the camaraderie forged by Chivas on the rocks and after-lunch cafecitos and cigars, alliances were formed, deals made, promotions promised.

“We knew we had to be a part of that scene to get anywhere, so we started showing up for lunch,” remembers Aida Levitan, a prominent Miami businesswoman and one of the trailblazing advertising and marketing mavens — among them, Maria Elena Torano and the late Tere Zubizarreta — who cracked codes and integrated male-dominated South Florida business institutions.

Hispanic women have come a long way from the days when they only accompanied their husbands to social affairs, raised funds for charity and lunched with the girls.

But at the rank of CEO, president, or on boards of directors of corporate America — and in high appointed government posts such as public administration — Hispanic women are missing.

“We’ve come a long way, but I still think we have a long way to go,” Levitan said.

“Look at the upper echelons of salaries and CEOs; you’ll see almost no representation of Hispanic women,” Levitan added. “Look at Burger King: Who are among the top five officials? Not Hispanic women. Look at American Airlines: Sure, they’re based in Dallas, but boy, do they do a lot of business in this community, and where are the Hispanic women” in the corporate headquarters and board of directors?

Nationally, the picture is not any rosier: Only 2.6 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, and they hold about 15 percent of the board seats.

In Fortune 500 companies, 3.1 percent of board seats were held by Hispanics — that’s 172 of more than 5,000 seats. Of that number, only 44 seats were held by Latinas, less than 1 percent.

“Some of these women held more than one seat so some serve on two or three different boards,” said Cristina Lopez, president of the National Hispana Leadership Institute in Washington. “When you count actual numbers of women, only 20 to 25 Latinas are on [Fortune 500] corporate boards.”

There are no Latina CEOs in Fortune 500 companies, a scenario unlikely to change in the short term. “They’re not in the pipeline for this to change any time soon,” Lopez said.

To address the underrepresentation of Latinas, the 23-year-old National Hispana Leadership Institute — founded by the Miami duo of Torano, a Cuban-American business owner and presidential appointee, and Raquel Cohen, a Peruvian-American psychiatrist who was in the first class of women at Harvard Medical School — has developed a series of training and development programs specially tailored to Hispanic women.

“Women can do anything they want to do, but I know that there are tremendous barriers,” Cohen said. “It’s the barriers that need to be changed, not the women. To get through the barriers, they need the skills.”

The institute’s programs take into account the particular needs of Hispanic women such as commitment to family — which hasn’t changed despite their increasing presence in the work force — and gives them access to top-notch training opportunities.

The organization’s executive leadership program, the most well-known and competitive, is broken down into four separate, weeklong segments to limit the time away from the home base. Candidates must have at least 10 years of professional experience and have a track record of leadership in their community.

The first week is spent in California undergoing “introspective” self-assessment activities such as taking a strength-finder test. The second week focuses on public leadership and takes place at the Kennedy School at Harvard University. For the third, the women choose a week at one of the three campuses of the Center for Creative Leadership — North Carolina, San Diego or Denver — where they interact with executives from corporate America. The last week is spent in Washington, immersed in public policy issues and meeting government officials and members of Congress.

Another program for emerging professionals, ages 17 to 22, is aimed at helping Hispanic women begin careers in nonprofit organizations, which are expected to generate 500,000 to 800,000 jobs in the next 15 years with the retirement of baby boomers who have held those jobs.

Another program targeted at women aged 24 to 34 seeks to increase the number of Latinas in leadership roles in nonprofit organizations by exposing them to management and leadership training.

“There is tremendous opportunity in nonprofits, but we need to build the pipeline,” Lopez said.

The goal of all the programs is to “make our women aware of what could be achieved if they dare look beyond their current realities,” Torano said.