Female Supremacy Articles - Page 2

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Charlotte Beers is known for sweeping theatrically into client meetings. Even before hellos are exchanged, she'll drawl to the group, "Now, you're gonna give us this business today, aren't you?" To most men, she's beguiling. Sears CEO Arthur Martinez, an Ogilvy client, says, "I think a lot of male-female business relationships get stilted. What I like so much about Charlotte is that you can have fun with her." Beers's former colleague BBDO International President Jean-Michel Goudard says, "Charlotte, more than anyone in this business, wants to seduce. There's something deep about Charlotte, and also frivolous. She is a woman, a woman, a woman."

It is the women, the women, the women who knock her style. Some say she sets feminism back years. "The criticism really ticks me off," says Beers, who comes across in an interview as intimate, incisive, tough, funny, and a decade younger than her 61 years. A cowboy's daughter from southeast Texas, she first learned to dazzle the crowd when she was in her 20s, teaching algebra to oil-patch engineers. Beers reckons that Southern charm is simply smart business. "Yes, I call CEOs 'honey,' but to me, that's wry Texas humor," she says. "I'm likely to say the most outrageous thing in the room--to liven things up."