Fortune - The Fortune 500's latest female CEO

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July 22, 2020

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! A slew of famous names bring a women’s soccer team to southern California, RBG’s law school classmates had interesting careers of their own, and Tapestry gets a new CEO, the 36th female Fortune 500 chief executive. Have a wonderful Wednesday.

– 36. The Black Lives Matter protests in recent months have put a glaring spotlight on the underrepresentation of Black executives at the top of Fortune 500 companies. As of yesterday morning, there were five. As of today, there are four, after Tapestry CEO Jide Zeitlin stepped down.

Tapestry, the parent company of luxury brands like Coach and Kate Spade, said his departure was due to unspecified “personal reasons.” Later, the Wall Street Journal reported that the company’s board had launched an investigation into Zeitlin’s personal behavior after a woman accused him of posing as a photographer in 2007 to lure her into a romantic relationship. In a statement to the WSJ , Zeitlin admitted to photographing and engaging in a relationship with the woman, saying, “I felt compelled to resign today because I do not want to create a distraction for Tapestry, a company I care deeply about.”

Zeitlin’s departure is reminiscent of the height of the #MeToo movement when male executives lost their jobs amid claims of sexual misconduct and abuse of power. The case also recalls that moment in the not-so-distant past in that a female executive will replace him, at least on an interim basis.

Joanne Crevoiserat, Tapestry’s CFO since early 2019, is its new CEO. The circumstances of Zeitlin’s exit will color the management shake-up, but her appointment is worth acknowledging in its own right.

My colleague Phil Wahba writes that Crevoiserat is a respected former operations chief at Abercrombie & Fitch. She joined Abercrombie in 2014 as CFO before assuming the COO job in 2017. Before Abercrombie, she held senior management roles at Kohl’s and Walmart.

Tapestry’s management change yesterday also saw director Susan Kropf take over for Zeitlin as board chair and Andrea Shaw Resnick, Tapestry’s global head of investor relations and corporate communications, replace Crevoiserat as interim CFO.

Crevoiserat’s new role gives the Fortune 500 36 female CEOs, one off the record high reached earlier this year. While we cheer the uptick of that number, it remains woefully low and continues to come with a giant caveat, highlighted by the effect of Zeitlin’s troubled departure on racial diversity among this powerful group of chief executives: none of the 36 women are Black.

Claire Zillman
claire.zillman@fortune.com
@clairezillman

Today’s Broadsheet was curated by Emma Hinchliffe.

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

- Score! A National Women's Soccer League team will arrive in southern California in 2022 thanks to an unusual group of owners: actors Natalie Portman, Eva Longoria, and Jennifer Garner; soccer stars Mia Hamm and Abby Wambach; venture capitalist Kara Nortman; and 2-year-old Olympia Ohanian, listed as an owner alongside her parents Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian. Guardian

- They've got plans for this. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer both have op-eds in the NYT this week, Warren with her current plan to fight the coronavirus crisis and Whitmer with a plea for a nationwide mask mandate, or to "mask up, America."

- The gender gap. The equity-management startup Carta is known for its report about the gender gap in startup equity, conducted with the investment collective #Angels. Now, Carta's former VP of marketing Emily Kramer, who shepherded that research, has sued her former employer for gender discrimination. Carta has declined to comment. Bloomberg

- Forerunner fund. Kirsten Green's Forerunner Ventures raised a new $500 million fund, closed during the pandemic. That's a 39% increase from the $360 million the firm raised in 2018. Fortune

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: The Walt Disney Company "cut ties" with ABC News SVP of talent relations and business affairs Barbara Fedida after an investigation into racist remarks she made at work.

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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

- Reviewing reviews. Facebook will now tie workforce diversity to performance reviews for its executives. Chief diversity officer Maxine Williams says the new rule affects VPs responsible for units of a certain, unspecified size. CNBC

- Class of '59. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is, of course, the best-known member the Harvard Law class of 1959 (even if she technically graduated from Columbia). But what about the other nine women in her class, who were memorably depicted in On the Basis of Sex, the movie about Ginsburg's life? Learn their stories, from Judge Carol Brosnahan who has sat on the bench for 40 years to the classmate who dropped out, only to return to law school two decades later. Slate

- A Merkelous recovery. German Chancellor Angela Merkel led the EU to a coronavirus recovery deal issuing $860 million of joint debt to member states. "We have come up with a response to the biggest crisis the EU has faced," Merkel says. Fortune

- Not a game. The video game company Ubisoft is accused of mishandling or ignoring widespread allegations of sexual harassment within the family-run business. "Ubisoft has fallen short in its obligation to guarantee a safe and inclusive workplace environment for its employees," the company said in a statement. Bloomberg

ON MY RADAR

Michigan judge denies release of teenage girl who was jailed after not doing homework NBC News

Republican congressman accosts AOC on her way to work The Cut

Joe Biden says four African American women are under consideration as his running mate Washington Post

Greta Thunberg gives €1m award money to climate groups Guardian