For executive women, it can be lonely at the top

More women are advancing to the C-suite, but being at the top doesn't necessarily mean women are heard.

"It's no longer about whether we have our own voices; it's about whether the institutions we belong to hear us," Amy Schulman, senior vice president and general counsel of Pfizer asserted last Tuesday when she was honored by Legal Momentum, an organization that aims to advance women's equality, at its annual Aiming High luncheon.

Taking the stage at the Hilton Hotel in New York, where she was one of five honorees, Schulman told an audience of about 800 that there's still a perception gap between men and women in her workplace. When she and others at Pfizer informally polled executives about whether men or women held more leadership roles, the men thought there were many more women in high positions than there actually are. The women thought the inverse--and they were right.

In addition, "men thought being female was an advantage," while some women felt that they aren't always clearly heard. "It's lonely and crazy-making to speak and not to be heard," said Schulman, who before joining Pfizer last year was a partner at DLA Piper and in charge of some of the firm's most complicated cases.

Schulman credited some of her career success to women who climbed the corporate ladder before her and didn't "leave their personalities at the door."

The event's other honorees included Paula Pretlow, senior vice president of Capital Guardian Trust; Debra Cafaro, chairman, president and CEO of Ventas; Carol Lavin Bernick, executive chairman of Alberto Culver; and Margaret Maxwell Zagel, national managing principal , risk, regulatory and legal affairs and general counsel of Grant Thornton. They had many people to thank for helping them get to the top, including parents, mentors, colleagues and in one case, the daughters of colleagues.

Cafaro credited her working-class parents for instilling in her the belief that she could do whatever she wanted. They scrimped so she could attend Notre Dame University and then law school. Since taking charge of Ventas, a health care real estate investment trust, she has grown the business into a diversified portfolio of over 500 health care and senior housing assets.

Pretlow noted that "as the second eldest of five children raised by a single mother ... the statistics would say my chances for rising significantly were fairly slim." She beat the odds by winning scholarships and grants so she could attend Northwestern University and earn and M.B.A. from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Business -- and then by seeking mentors.

But she realized early on that she had to "reach out and allow others to get to know me." By then she was working for executives who "saw my potential and pushed and challenged me," she said.

In her current job at Capital Guardian, she hasn't forgotten how "lost and helpless" she felt early in her career, and she sets aside time to mentor younger employees and business school students.

Grant Thornton's Zagel credited some of her success not only to supportive bosses but also to their daughters. She never knew them personally but believes they helped their fathers see that women should be hired to do important work.

Alberto Culver's Bernick had her parents to thank for paving the way.

In 1974, right after she graduated from college, she followed her mother and father into the consumer products company they had founded together. Today, she is executive chairman of the company which makes brands such as Nexxus, Mrs. Dash and Static Guard, and she places a high value on what employees value most beyond work--their families and their commitments to their churches and communities.