Are you a Family CEO?

Taken from 26 November 2012 by Liz Hull at Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2238439/Housewife-No-Im-familys-chief-executive-90-middle-aged-women-control-paying-bills.html

Are you a Family CEO?

A UK survey has found women control family finances, something most UK Nigerian women did not need a survey to work out (look up Proverbs 31 for insight).

This newspaper article is dubbing these women as the "Family CEO", or "Domestic CEO".

They say being called a housewife is not an accurate description of what they do, their roles being more closely linked to a director in a company. I presume this makes the husband the shareholder who wants to see a return on his investment and the children may double up as employee owners.

93% of those who were not the main breadwinners made all or most of the financial decisions.
These include tasks such as:
- Ensuring bills payment,
- Making sure there was no debt/cashflow problems
- Budgeting and monitoring expenses

Decision making, of the women questioned:
90% decided the furniture purchases
92% decided the large appliance purchases i.e. TVs, computers etc
85% decided the  family holidays
66% decided the  family car.

So do you fancy yourself a Family CEO? If so you better learn the jargon from Daily Mail (I especially like the last one, lol):



Natasha Galstaun's story:

Natasha Galstaun, 43, likens running a home, to heading a multinational and believes it deserves respect.

Natasha Galstaun, says of her husband, “He pays the mortgage but I look after everything else, from the bills, to childcare, to any DIY. I book all our holidays and social life and cook from scratch every night.

“We’re also selling our house, so I’m looking for a new project to do up — a total wreck, ideally. I impose deadlines on my day, to make sure I have spare time. I’m always on the go. By the end of the day I’m frazzled.”

Galstaun, who lives in Surrey, quit her job as an interior designer to be a more hands-on parent to Sacha, 4, and Felix, 2. She sees herself more as a “domestic chief executive officer”.

As domestic CEO's mums now take on a number of roles equivalent to:
- head accountant,
- chief administration expert,
- financial adviser,
- school liaison officer,
- executive decision maker,
- travel agent,
- party planner,
- cook,
- nurse,
- cleaner,
- decorator

The term “Housewife” for some no longer covers the JD!!

KEY SKILLS NEEDED TO SUCCESSFULLY RUN A HOUSEHOLD?
As there is so much to do the greatest skill needed is organisation.
Other important skills include:
- Leadership,
- Motivation
- Management

Sounds like a CEO right? Hence the term Family CEO.

What makes a housewife a domestic CEO?

One word mostly: Money.

Instead of an allowance, a domestic CEO has unrestricted access to all household finances.
PURCHASES: Crucially, she also has sophisticated budgeting technology i.e. instead of buying an appliance from a favourite store it means spending days reading different price comparison websites and reviews before buying either from store or online.

CASHFLOW: If cashflow turns negative, CEO turns CFO (chief financial officer) suggesting cutbacks.

“‘I feel it’s my responsibility to make sure we get the best deals on energy bills and TV, so I spend a lot of time researching those,” says Galstaun. “My mother didn’t hold the purse strings, whereas I have free access to all the money. I have to be on top of the budgets to make sure we can do the things we want to. In a sense I’m financial director as well as everything else.”

FAMILY TRAVEL AGENT: See LateRooms, Lastminute.com, TripAdvisor and Sky- scanner for bargains. Chauffeur for children (and sometimes husband is also a newly added skill.

HUMAN RESOURCES: Arranging playdates is the child form of team-building exercises! If the family has the surplus cash she may employ staff to carry out chores and childcare. However, tutors for exam time are a bare necessity.

"The CEO may also have to deal with mergers (new stepchildren), hostile takeover bids (attempts by other women to seduce her husband) or the increasingly eccentric demands of long-term board members (elderly parents)."

“Women now feel they have to employ the management skills they used in their high-flying careers at home,” says Tanith Carey, a domestic CEO and author of How to Be an ‘Amazing Mum’ When You Just Don’t Have the Time. “For many women who give up successful jobs, raising children and running the household becomes their second career.

“Their role becomes to reflect the family’s success with the most perfect homes, dinner parties and children. Their appearance must be immaculate, since they are the ‘image’ of the firm. Many women I know talk openly about the importance — and stress — of being seen to run an efficient, flagship household, as a reflection of the family unit’s success.”

Children, of course, are the domestic CEO’s most high-profile and thrilling corporate project — and one where the competition with rival family firms can be especially fierce.

“There’s a high expectation even when they’re very young,” says Galstaun. “You have to send them to rugby, music, ballet, theatre. We’ve even been talking about sending our children to Spanish classes. It can be quite nauseating how parents big up their own kids, as a kind of reflected glory.”

"In a world saturated by marketing, it is almost as if parents have come to see their family as a brand (take a bow, Beckhams). “Parenthood has become a form of product development”, says Carey, “in which parents believe the more work they invest in a child, the more of a success their offspring will be.”

Even the queen agrees! "When Kate Winslet recently told the Queen she preferred motherhood to her day job, the Queen replied: “Yes, it’s the best job.”

But does this title help or harm women in this position by telling them: "as a domestic CEO, you are contractually obliged to sort everything and everyone out?"

Read more: http://pandce.proboards.com/thread/95034/times-london-call-sahm-ceo#ixzz2NzVr61Mt



Tell me how you think your role as wife and/or mother resembles that of a CEO! What do you need help with, what do you excel in?

Sincerely Yours

Ella