What glass ceiling!
A mother of four (with one VERY understanding husband) has just been made boss of Britain’s third biggest company...
AS A student at Oxford, she was a talented performer in drama productions. Now, three decades later, Emma Walmsley is set to become the City’s leading lady as boss of drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline.
The mother of four will be the first female chief executive of the £80 billion company and the most powerful woman in British business.
Glaxo is the third biggest company in the FTSE 100 and has a global workforce of more than 100,000. It operates in 150 countries and makes a huge number of pharmaceutical products, from HIV drugs and diabetes treatments, to such household brands as Sensodyne toothpaste and Horlicks malt drink.
Her promotion is the reward for her stellar performance at the healthcare division, doubling sales of Sensodyne to £1billion. She was the only woman on a shortlist drawn up by headhunters before triumphing over her male rivals, thought to have included Abbas Hussain, the brother of former England cricket captain Nasser Hussain.
Ms Walmsley said yesterday: ‘I’ve never primarily defined myself by gender. I don’t think of myself as a woman in business, I think of myself as a business person.
‘We all have a responsibility to be role models to inspire our daughters to stay ambitious, to aim high and to dream big. I was lucky enough to be supported through four maternity leaves, which also made a big difference and has taught me to remember to support young talent.’
Her appointment was hailed as a watershed moment in the battle to shatter the glass ceiling that stops many women reaching the top in business and beyond, particularly after having children.
It is thought that the 47-year-old will earn a basic salary similar to the £1.1million earned by outgoing CEO Sir Andrew Witty (though his remuneration package last year was topped up with other elements to £6.7 million).
MS WALMSLEy joined Glaxo only six years ago and much of her success must be down to the support of her husband of 21 years, Cambridge-educated entrepreneur David Owen, 52. She says that he helped her to overcome self-doubt and says taking the post was ‘the second best decision I have made — after marrying David’.
Before joining Glaxo, she worked for French beauty giant L’Oreal, becoming head of its Chinese consumer business in Shanghai.
While in China, her husband set up a new business, but stepped back from the venture when the family returned here so his wife could take the Glaxo job.
She publicly thanked him for helping her overcome worries over her ability to combine a career with being a wife and mother.
Ms Walmsley feared that taking the Glaxo job would be unfair on her husband, whose career had taken second place to hers.
‘I spent a week persuading myself I would be insane to do it,’ she said, adding she asked herself: ‘Am I really qualified? Why should my career take precedence again? How could a mum and a wife take on something so big?’
She accepted after David ‘gently reminded me that every time I’d taken a new role, I had constantly told him it was too big for me and then managed fine’.
She initially led Glaxo’s consumer healthcare division, which — with Panadol and Voltarol pain relief gel — would be big enough on its own to join the elite FTSE 100 index.
The couple live with their three sons and daughter in a £3.7million house in South-West London.
‘I know my children are fine with us doing our best as parents,’ Ms Walmsley has said.
‘They are proud of their mum and though she is on a plane a lot, she makes as many school plays, matches and parent evenings as she can.’
Friends say she manages to juggle work and family — and even practise yoga — thanks to her ‘amazing stamina’ and by being ‘supremely well-organised’, but in an admission that will strike a chord with many working mothers, she admits: ‘There is never enough sleep.’
Born in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, into a naval family (her father is Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Walmsley), she grew up in Kent.
She was educated at the £30,000a-year St Swithun’s boarding school in Winchester before studying classics and modern languages at Christ Church, Oxford.
Contemporaries remember her as a gifted amateur actress and singer, as well as being ‘incredibly clever’.
‘She is as sharp as a tack and extremely analytical,’ one has said.
‘Everyone always thought she would do great things with her sheer intelligence and drive.’ Noticeably, as she ascended the career ladder, her workmanlike mousy-brown hairdo upgraded to a highlighted blonde power-bob.
Her once scrubbed complexion is now discreetly made up and unflattering spectacles have been replaced with sophisticated tortoiseshell frames.
YESTERDAy, she appeared in a video on Glaxo’s website to discuss her new job and wore a peach coloured shift dress and threestranded gold necklace with matching earrings — the picture of executive chic.
Ms Walmsley’s self-doubt was clearly a thing of the past, as yesterday she declared herself to be ‘extremely competitive’.
She may need to hold on to her resolve as she faces shareholders in the future.
Some vocal investors have called for Glaxo to be split up, something analysts said was less likely following an appointment from within the company.
Meanwhile, City observers who praised the promotion of a woman were highlighting the fact that Glaxo is chaired by Sir Philip Hampton, who is a well-known campaigner for corporate feminism and has made no secret of his desire to put more women in Britain’s boardrooms.
Ms Walmsley has become the seventh woman to currently lead a FTSE 100 company, joining Alison Cooper at Imperial Brands, Moya Greene at Royal Mail, Carolyn McCall at easyJet, Liv Garfield at Severn Trent, Veronique Laury at Kingfisher and Alison Brittain at Whitbread.
However, hard-headed City analysts rejected any suggestion that a pro-women agenda influenced her appointment.
‘The best candidate was selected irrespective of gender for a company of Glaxo’s size would never, ever, indulge in tokenism,’ said one.