Financial Times lists Nokia's Sari Baldauf as most influential female executive in Europe (added Friday, 16.30)

Sari Baldauf

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Sari Baldauf, the head of Nokia Networks and a member of the Nokia Group Executive Board since 1994, has been placed at the top of the pile in a Financial Times survey of the 25 most influential women in European companies.
      The newspaper’s panel of five laid particular emphasis on the position of the women in their respective corporate hierarchies, the breadth and scope of the company or unit being led, and the size of the company itself.
      Friday’s FT also carries an extensive personal interview with Baldauf, in which she considers the question of why it is that the number of women dwindles as one climbs higher up the corporate ladder.
     
Baldauf says she believes that in future the share of women among senior executives and in boardroom photos will increase. She also wonders, however, whether women are always willing to take up the opportunity to move from middle management to the executive floors when it is offered.
      She notes that women think longer and harder than men about the realities of balancing work and private life. Baldauf also observes that the external pressures exerted by society’s expectations often cause people to adopt roles and to conform, rather than fulfilling their own priorities: "I think those kind of pressures at times are heavier on men than on women, and quite honestly I think from this angle women have more freedom of choice", comments Baldauf.


Links:
  Financial Times interview with Sari Baldauf
  Nokia Group Executive Board

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