Author Bio

Janet Pucino

Not In The Club: An Executive Woman's Journey Through the Biased World of Business

Excerpts

"Classrooms? Check. Boardrooms? Not so much. Women make up the majority of higher education students today – more than 60 percent of business school graduates are female – and they’re well-represented in the workforce. Still, they remain conspicuously absent from boardrooms and C-suites. Pucino uses her own career trajectory to take a compelling look at the office roles women take on, and are put in, and how to ensure that smart, savvy women get invited into “the Club.”

− Fiona Williams, Partner, Deloitte & Touche LLP

This book looks at the impact of The Club’s culture from a woman’s perspective. At the core, this is a personal reflection of my 30-year journey in information technology (IT) management across various industries, with the goal of raising awareness regarding the distinct experiences of women in the workplace as they advance toward executive positions. I hope to call attention to the behaviors and organizational cultures that continue to hinder women’s progress toward leadership positions, and to illustrate the need for inclusion and parity in our society and organizations whether corporate, governmental, or non-profit in structure. Corporate and societal changes need to occur now. Although I spent most of my management career in IT in large organizations, my experiences and conclusions about those experiences are applicable to every discipline and every type of organization — large and small.

Over the course of my management career, I have been enlightened by many female and male colleagues as well as friends along the way. I have referenced their stories as a way to further define The Club’s attributes and affects. Undoubtedly, I’ve been a salmon swimming upstream for three decades. However, my experiences in the workplace were not as unique as I thought them to be, as my colleague’s parallel experiences illustrate, and as the U.S. labor and gender research now shows...........

     Biologically women are different from men. No surprises there. But women are treated differently from men in the work place for reasons that extend beyond their biological differences. I wish to use my experiences and those of my colleagues to encourage women to look beyond themselves when confronted by puzzling behaviors from their male counterparts. I also hope that this book helps women in several ways – preparing them for the professional challenges they may encounter, guiding them through barriers and challenging behaviors, and encouraging them to feel confident about asking for the critical elements of success, namely the financial and structural elements that are vital to their career advancement and personal lives.........

   Other alternatives and actions must be considered to address the largely untapped intellectual capital of women in the labor pool, which impacts their ability to contribute to the GDP and economic growth in the U.S. I offer insights into the many ways that situational contexts (how men and women are socially presented and perceived) and gender biases affect decision making in the workplace, and I provide organizational prescriptions to prevent patterns of behavior that foster negative aspects of Club behavior. I believe that anyone, regardless of gender or uniqueness, will recognize their context and status with The Club at their workplace. I hope that my experiences will help the readers of this book forge a successful career, as they have for me and many of my colleagues.