Consumer Goods & Services
The umbrella sector we’re calling Consumer Goods & Services includes these sectors from Fortune Magazine’s methodology in 2022: Apparel, Food & Drug Stores, Food, Beverage & Tobacco, Household Products, Hotels Restaurants & Leisure, and Retailing.
Overall, this huge area of the Fortune 1000 encompasses 188 companies that touch each of our lives daily, whether we work at one of these corporations or not. Just 19 of them are headed by women – 10.1% in total. To dimensionalize this, we’re detailing these six sub-sectors:
Apparel
What will you wear today? The Apparel companies in the Fortune 500 are Nike, VF Corp, Phillips-Van Heusen, Hanes and Ralph Lauren.
We walk a lot of miles in their shoes, but none of the Apparel companies has a female CEO.
(0 out of 5 = 0%)
Food & Drug Stores
The Food & Drug Stores on your way home from work include Walgreen’s, Kroger, Albertsons, Publix, RiteAid, and Sprouts Farmers Markets. Though women and men now shop in nearly equal numbers (51% women/49% men), the Hartman Group’s research in 2018 indicates that women are still 76% of “primary shoppers” at grocery and drug stores and spend more than men in these stores.
Two of the Food & Drug Stores in the Fortune 500 – Walgreens Boots Alliance and Rite Aid -- have a female CEO.
(2 out of 6 = 33.3%)
Food Beverage & Tobacco
From Pepsi and Coke, Kraft and ADM and Campbell Soup, to Philip Morris, Molson Coors and Hershey, the Food Beverage & Tobacco category contributes 26 companies to the Fortune 500.
And Food Beverage & Tobacco contributes two female CEOs: Beth Ford of Land O’ Lakes (#219) and Michele Buck of Hershey (#370), the company’s first female CEO and President since 2017.
(2 out of 26 = 7.7%)
Household Products
Clean your house, take great care of your skin, have a great night’s sleep, sit comfortably, sit by the fireplace, go for a hike, engage in some DIY home repair or build a new house, and get toys for the kids. The Household Products sub-sector of Consumer Goods of the Fortune 500 includes Proctor & Gamble (#43), Kimberly-Clark, Colgate Palmolive, Clorox, Estee Lauder, Stanley Black & Decker, Mohawk Industries (flooring), and of course, Hasbro (#494) for the big and little kids among us.
Just two companies of the 12 in Household Products are headed by women: Coty (#426) CEO Sue Nabi and Clorox (#427) CEO Linda Rendle.
(2 out of 12 = 16.7%)
Hotels, Restaurants and Leisure
Hungry? The 7 mega-corporations of Fortune’s Hotels, Restaurants and Leisure sub-sector of Consumer Goods & Services has you covered. Start with a Starbucks in the morning, and join friends later at Cracker Barrel, Olive Garden or Longhorn (all Darden Brands), Texas Roadhouse or Cheesecake Factory. Pick up take-out at Taco Bell, KFC or Pizza Hut (Yum Brands) or Chipotle Mexican Grill.
While you’re enjoying your takeout, consider this: Just one of these mega-restaurant companies has a female CEOs: Yum China Holdings is the group that operates favorite American fast-food chains, such as Taco Bell and KFC, in China, and is headed by Joey Wat, 51, who was previously President and COO of Yum China (#363), and has been on the Board since 2017. Yum China’s overall workforce is 60% female.
(1 out of 7 = 14.2%)
Mihailo Milovanovic, Getty Images
Retail
The Retail area of Consumer includes the 45 stores we, the powerful American consumer, frequent every day. This group encompasses the largest of the Fortune 100 – Walmart at #1 and Amazon at #2– and all the names of our favorite places to shop – both in person and online. Go to a big box store -- Costco or Target, Home Depot or Lowe’s, or TJMaxx; or a favorite department store -- Dillard’s, Macy’s, Nordstorm and Kohl’s. Save some money at Dollar General or Dollar Tree or Big Lots.
Claim your personal style with duds from Foot Locker or Gap. Find your make up at Ulta Beauty, the company that helped propel Kylie Jenner to status of youngest self-made billionaire of all time.
Buy some new wheels with CarMax, AutoNation, Lithia Motors, Penske Auto Group, Group 1 Automotive, Asbury Automotive Group, or Carvana. Or fix your old car with AutoZone or Advance Auto Parts. Only need one for the weekend? Just rent a car from Avis. Or take a road trip in your new RV from Camping World Holdings.
Or just stay home. Spruce up your home with items from Wayfair or Bed Bath & Beyond. Get a full entertainment center at Best Buy or cookware at Williams Sonoma.
This is a promising area for top women. Of the 45 Retail giants, 6 are headed by women. At 13.3% female CEOs, this is still far from the Power Percentage, but higher than the 8.1% female CEOs in the Fortune 500 overall.
(6 out of 45 = 13.3%)
Fortune Feature Editor Kristen Bellstrom highlights female CEOs in the Consumer sector who are relatively new to the job, such as Corie Barry of Best Buy (#66), with a start date of June 1st, 2019, while Laura Alber, CEO of Williams-Sonoma (#425) since 2010, is the longest-serving female CEO on the list.
Fortune Feature Editor Kristen Bellstrom highlights female CEOs in the Consumer sector who are relatively new to the job, such as Corie Barry of Best Buy (#66), with a start date of June 1st, 2019, while Laura Alber, CEO of Williams-Sonoma (#425) since 2010, is the longest-serving female CEO on the list.
What will it take for women to get into the Power Percentage of Consumer Goods & Services in America?