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AGENDA
THE CORNER OFFICE
If Mayer herself were a glass product, it would be a mirror, in which the employee sees a reflection of his or her own potential. “I see opportunities,” she says. “I see poten- tial. It’s exciting to make things happen, to develop product, to develop business, to develop people. I’m energized by it.”
Mayer is sitting in a small meeting room off the lobby, which has the dim pizzazz of a nightclub. She is soft-spoken, with an open, honest face. There is no power suit or fancy manicure, no attempt to cover the gray. She telegraphs a supreme confidence in who she is and what she can do. Unlike her predecessor, she’s not a scientist, but she is a quick study and “incredibly intelligent,”
law for more than 40 years) from Modesto, California, Mayer originally wanted to “save the world.” Her parents had been active with Sister Cities International, a nonprofit that creates partnerships between the US and international communities through means such as student exchanges. As a teen, she spent summers in Colombia and Argentina; while studying history at Stanford University, she also traveled through Europe, Turkey, and Nepal. A self-described “global person,” she earned a master’s degree in International Affairs from Johns Hopkins and a job with the US Treasury as an international econo- mist working on third-world development. But after realizing that the private sector, not
first woman boss. “She is very aggressive,” says Lingafelter. “What I mean is, she’s not afraid to stretch people. She helped us open our minds to what’s possible. If we were developing one new product, she would say, ‘Why can’t we do five?’ Her vision and her scope were broad.”
Yet she was also pinpoint-specific when it came to product design. Soon after she arrived, Mayer had Moen fixtures installed in her shower at home. As Lingafelter recalls, “She said, ‘Have you guys ever showered with these products we devel- oped?’ We said ‘No.’” Mayer summoned the executives from Engineering and Product Marketing to her home and had them take turns using the shower (they wore swim- suits). Afterward, they stood around her master bathroom and discussed how to improve the faucets.
When reminded of this, Mayer chuckles. “I wanted them to get close to the product,” she explains. “Be the consumer. How does it feel? How easy is it to operate? How else are you supposed to know whether it’s better than the competition? You’ve got to know your product, live with it.”
Mayer helped turn Moen into the market leader before leaving to help her husband run a photography business. After two years, with college tuition for three kids looming, she jumped to Rexnord, a $1 billion global manufacturer of industrial power transmis- sion components. Having promised the girls they’d stay in Cleveland through high school, she commuted to Milwaukee for two years. She brought her consumer experience to bearings and transmissions (mining com- panies were a primary client), restructuring the global corporate marketing and Rexnord brand groups, boosting revenue and imple- menting a rewards program, all while work- ing with a tough-minded executive suite. “She was involved in some very heavy-duty meetings at Rexnord, and she was always the calm one,” recalls Mrotek. “That’s just her demeanor.”
Mayer’s calm-under-fire competence came in handy at Rexnord. A year into her tenure, a massive gas-leak explosion at its Milwaukee factory killed three employees and injured more than 40 others. Mayer switched into full crisis-management mode, dealing the press and local media. “I’m so sorry it happened, but I was so glad I was there. It was terrible. I felt really good about the values and how we handled it, the com- mitment to the employees.”
In 2007, once her girls were in college, Mayer relocated again, to the Seattle area, where she was vice president and general manager for Global Marketing and Product
“She was usually the smartest person in the room, but she doesn’t beat you over the head with it. She asks questions and probes and pushes you.”
says David Lingafelter, president of Moen. “She was usually the smartest person in the room, but she doesn’t beat you over the head with it. She asks questions and probes and pushes you.”
“My mom is a huge role model for me,” says middle daughter Meridian, 24, an account executive for the WNBA’s Seattle Storm. “She really sets the bar high. She’s always told me that as long as the incentives and motives behind what you’re doing are right, the following steps will fall into place. I look up to her with all I do.”
To Mayer, hard work, professionalism, and talent are not chromosome-specific attri- butes. She would be appalled to find herself in a binder full of women. “I do my work and don’t really get involved in gender politics, because that’s not the work. But I do think that women and men are different. They have different styles, and, for a while, women tried to be like men. Luckily, I never had to do that. I did to some degree because I manage a lot of men, and we have to speak their language, but ultimately it’s about respecting diversity. With a global company, it’s just as important to respect other cul- tures, other languages, other styles.”
Mayer was exposed to other cultures and languages from an early age. A law- yer’s daughter (her father practiced civil
the government, was the answer to third- world problems, she “became a capitalist” and went to Wharton, where she met her husband, Douglas.
At Kohler, she worked closely with Herb Kohler, the company’s legendary owner, whom she calls “an incredible consumer marketer.” This was 1983, the dawn of the enlightenment in product design, when com- panies realized that maybe their goods ought to fit the end-user: women. Mayer recalls trying out a whirlpool tub that was so big “I was submarining. A woman just ended up floating.” Her solution: small footrests that allowed a smaller person to support herself in the tub. Herb Kohler rewarded her ingenuity: “He was gender-neutral,” she recalls. “He promoted me every two years, right past men.”
During her nine years at Kohler, Mayer and Douglas traded off staying home with their three young daughters. By the time she left, in 1996, she was director of Corporate Planning and Development. Mayer and her family relocated to Charlotte, North Carolina, for John Deere Consumer Products, but decamped a year later for Moen, the Cleveland-based faucet maker. David Lingafelter was director of Product Marketing when Mayer came on as senior vice president of Marketing; she was his
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