Female Supremacy Articles - Page 2

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Four years ago, Beers seemed an unlikely corporate revivalist. The longtime head of Tatham RSCG, a one-office ad firm in Chicago, she moved into a New York company with 270 offices around the world and famously inbred management. Ogilvy & Mather used to be the class act of Madison Avenue. Then in 1989 it was acquired in a hostile takeover by Britain's WPP Group. When Beers arrived, key Ogilvy veterans had quit. Clients were pulling major accounts. "A lot of people thought Charlotte should have her head examined for going to Ogilvy," says WPP chief executive Martin Sorrell. "And most people thought I was crazy to hire her."

Sorrell, who pays Beers $1.5 million a year plus stock options, acquired a CEO many thought was mercurial, flighty, and disorganized. Instead of talking profits, Beers preached "passion"--the essence, she said, of resurrecting Ogilvy & Mather. She had one big idea to sell to clients: "brand stewardship." Insiders considered it pretentious shtick about the emotional bond between a product and its consumer. Even David Ogilvy, the 85-year-old Scot who founded the agency in 1948, was a skeptic. "I had to shepherd the idea because our own people were unconvinced," says Beers, adding, "I think consensus is a poor substitute for leadership."