Article in the Swedish Bulletin
A boost for Sweden's best and brightest
The Female Economist of the Year at the Stockholm School of Economics is a unique annual scholarship initiated by Barbro Ehnbom and Friends who include fiery spirits like Peter Wallenberg, Tore Wretman and even Sean Connery.
TEXT: PATRICIA BRENNAN RICKNELL PHOTO: CATARINA OSTRŠM
The Female Economist scholarship
recognises academic excellence and
outstanding ambition, and ultimately aims
to increase the number of talented female
executives at Swedish corporations and
on their boards by supporting young
Swedish business women.
Offered in cooperation with a host
company and a number of sponsors, it
provides a two-year tailored working
experience in Sweden and the US,
mainly within the pharmaceutical
industry.
Ehnbom was one of the first female
executives in the US pharmaceutical
industry, most recently at Smith Kline,
and a top analyst in Wall Street, followed
by several years as an investment banker
focusing on the healthcare industry.
Today, she is founder and president of
Du Haan Groupe, Inc, an investment
advisory company. She also has taught
business law and ethics at the Stockholm
School of Economics, and she is an active
board member of the Swedish-American
Chamber of Commerce.
In her executive experience, Ehnbom
has always been astonished by how few
women she has encountered in executive
positions and on company boards.
This is why she gathered together her
friends and associates and established the
scholarship. Ehnbom herself graduated
from SSE in 1967, so it made sense to her
to give something back to the school.
“I wanted to do something for my
alma mater that had given me so much
over the years in terms of friendship and
business contacts,” she says.
“I had a birthday and asked my friends
to send a contribution to the school,
which then lay the foundation for the
scholarship and also the important layer
of Barbro’s Friends.”
Initially, Ehnbom considered a
scholarship for women in the middle of
their careers, a period that she considers
potentially perilous for many women,
but then decided instead to focus on the
needs of young women for role models
and industry contacts at the beginning of
their careers.
“I don’t think there are necessarily
bigger obstacles for young women than
for young men to get executive positions
initially,” she explains.
“The differences can be seen later
when it comes to promoting from within
or applying for bigger jobs in other
corporations,” she continues.
According to Ehnbom, there are also
cultural differences between countries,
such as the US and Sweden, that make it
more difficult for women to make it to
the top.
“For example, it seems easier for
women in America to be promoted
than for women in Sweden. In many
American industries you are evaluated on
your capacity and ideas, rather than who
you are,” she explains.
Ehnbom underlines the importance of
effective networking to women, which
is why talented and ambitious female
students who do not win the Female
Economist of the Year are invited to join
Ehnbom’s own network of promising
young women called Barbro’s Best and
Brightest, or BBB, where members work
to encourage and motivate each other in
their careers.
Within the network, Ehnbom
functions as a mentor and role model for
future women leaders. Members also gain
access to Ehnbom’s Friends, her own
private network of some 600 contacts
from her career in Sweden and the US.
When it comes to helping these
talented female executives onto company
boards, Ehnbom says that “big business
is still a boys network, and they’d like to
keep it that way.”
Her own thinking on quotas for public
boards has done a 180 degree turn,
and she now feels that Sweden should
not assign another committee to look
into the matter, but rather should take
legislative action.
She mentions Norway, where
mandatory gender quotas have resulted
in more equal representation of women
on boards of directors. The legislation,
which was passed in 2003, stipulates that
female directors must make up at least
40 percent of the boards of directors of
stock companies.
“Forty years of investigating the
situation in Sweden has not made any
difference,” she says.
“Introducing mandatory quotas will”