Women who run their own businesses are still a minority in the UK. Over the
past decade, the number of entrepreneurs has grown but the proportion of
women has remained about a third, according to Susan Vinnicombe, director of
the Centre for Women Leaders at Cranfield School of Management. "There's
potential for many more — the United States has far more than we do,"
she says. "But the US culture is very different: entrepreneurs have
higher status. Female entrepreneurs are seen as valued members of corporate
boards."
Her message was reinforced last week when the Equality and Human Rights
Commission reported that fewer women were reaching positions of power in
many professions. "We always speak of a glass ceiling, " said
Nicola Brewer, the commission's chief executive. "These figures reveal
that in some cases it appears to be made of reinforced concrete."
Sharon Gulden is one American who has brought the can-do attitude to the UK.
Born in the "cowboy backwoods" of Oregon, she completed her
business studies in Holland and moved to the UK in the 1980s. In 1991 she
and David Mitchell co-founded the relocation company Phoenix ARC. Profitable
after three years, Phoenix has grown to become one of the largest
independent relocation management companies in the world (its larger
competitors are offshoots of multinationals, and most other independents are
small). Last year turnover was £19m.
"I've never seen myself as a woman in business — just as a business
person," Gulden says. But Vinnicombe questions whether it is possible
to ignore the gender issue, especially when it comes to raising investment
finance. Gulden's own experience backs this up. "I've been in meetings
where men won't look at me," she says. "I will be presenting the
company accounts and they will turn to David and ask him a question about
the P&L."
Mitchell underlines the point: "We enter a meeting, and I get the
handshake first. I think they see Sharon as my secretary or a bit of glamour
I've brought along — and this is 2008." Phoenix, based in
Basingstoke, has 40 full-time staff and hundreds of stringers. It manages
relocation for large companies on an outsourced basis, usually working in
partnership with HR departments. Its services cover just about every facet
of staff relocation.
"You might need to sell your house and find a new one, your partner might
need help finding a new job, and you might have issues around getting your
mother or father into a nursing home," Gulden explains. Beyond the real
estate and removal aspects, Phoenix will help with visas, lawyers, work
permits and schools. "Each set of relocations brings individual
problems. "For an oil company we brought a group of workers from
Kazakhstan to the UK," says Gulden.
"It was a big cultural shift for them. We also had one client with
Texas-based employees. In Texas, your house will be as big as Buckingham
Palace and have a five-car garage. With £200,000 to spend in London, it was
difficult to settle them. "We try to act as a poultice, drawing the
anger and frustration of the employee on to us so it doesn't go to the
company — we are like a customer complaints department."
Not surprisingly, it can sometimes be stressful for Phoenix employees. "We
have a corner where staff can scream or kick the pinball machine," says
Mitchell, whose alter ego Dame Kitty regularly takes to the stage in the
Bournemouth cabaret restaurant the pair own. "One of the keys to our
success is the brilliant people we've got — and we try to do a lot as a
team. We go bowling to relieve the tension."
Gulden and Mitchell are confident that corporate relocation is well placed to
resist recessionary pressures. "If the economy is booming, a lot of
companies will be investing in new businesses, plants and offices and moving
their managers," says Mitchell. "If it is in decline, they will be
looking maybe to close a number of plants and to relocate people to
different positions as they wait for the economy to change." Finding
clever ways to shift property is key to survival, he says, and part-exchange
is their current initiative. The next challenge for Gulden and Mitchell is
an internet project that packages their corporate relocation knowledge and
makes it available to consumers. The portal is due to be launched later in
the autumn.
