Indra K. Nooyi. Marissa Mayer. Ellen J. Kullman. Irene B. Rosenfeld. Meg Whitman. Mary T. Barra.
What do these women have in common? They are the chief executives of some of the nation’s largest companies: PepsiCo, Yahoo, DuPont, Mondelez, Hewlett-Packard and General Motors. But they also share something else. In recent years their companies have been targeted by activist investors and other vocal shareholders seeking to make changes.
Is that a coincidence?
While women have made strides in cracking the glass ceiling, they still account for a small fraction of chief executives at public companies. Only 23 women lead companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. Yet at least a quarter of them have fallen into the cross hairs of activist investors.
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A version of this article appears in print on 02/10/2015, on page B1 of the NewYork edition with the headline: The Women of the S.& P. 500, and Investor Activism.
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