New York–In the April 2008 issue of Condé Nast Portfolio, Harriet Rubin reports that, after years of progress, women’s gains in the workplace have come to a baffling halt (“Power: The Surprising News About Gender in the Office,” p. 92). “While women have made huge professional gains in the past three decades, progress now appears to have slowed or stalled. In some cases, it’s even backsliding. Key indicators such as pay, board seats, and corporate-officer posts all reflect a leveling off or drop in recent years,” Rubin writes. The numbers speak for themselves: The gap between men’s and women’s earnings narrowed steadily during the 1980s, but since then, gains seem to have been followed by a drop every couple of years. Women still hold only 14.8 percent of all Fortune 500 board seats. That number increased steadily between 1995 and 2005 but has remained essentially flat for the past three years. And the number of female corporate officers at Fortune 500 companies has dropped in each of the past three years. Carly Fiorina, the former C.E.O. of Hewlett-Packard, tells Rubin, “The reason I wouldn’t deal with gender when I became C.E.O. of H.P. is that I believed in a meritocracy where gender isn’t the issue. I wanted to play by the same rules. Look, I’m not an idiot. There are clearly things that are different for men and women in leadership. But I believe you have to be the change you seek.” Rubin found that the reasons behind the stagnation are tricky; some people she spoke to suggested that because of all the overt signs of progress—Hillary Clinton’s candidacy, a female speaker of the House, female Fortune 500 C.E.O.’s—the barriers women face today are subtler and therefore harder to overcome. “Basically,” she writes, “the popular perception is that women have made it, so there’s nothing to discuss.”

“Wall Street’s Most Powerful Woman” (p. 98). Staff writer Sheelah Kolhatkar profiles Erin Callan, Lehman Brothers’ new chief financial officer and the first woman ever to serve on the firm’s 15-member executive committee. Callan led some of the financial world’s most important initial public offerings in recent years, including those of the Blackstone Group and Fortress Investment Group. “In the wake of her impressive rise—coupled with shakeups at other Wall Street banks—Callan, 42, may have won a high-stakes game of last-woman-standing. She is possibly the only female now in line to run a major financial institution,” Kolhatkar writes, noting that the C.F.O.’s office may be as far as Callan gets, as no woman has ever been named the C.E.O. of a Wall Street firm.

Also in the April issue:

“The Betrayal of Judge Radhi” (p. 132). Contributing editor Christopher S. Stewart profiles Judge Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, formerly the top cop for corruption and fraud in Iraq, who exposed how millions of American tax dollars were being diverted and used to bolster militia groups. Before he fled Iraq for the U.S., Radhi was head of Iraq’s Commission on Public Integrity, where he policed the country’s government and investigated its biggest cases of bribery and financial chicanery. Set up and partly paid for by the U.S., the agency was Iraq’s F.B.I. Stuart Bowen, the U.S. special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, described Radhi as his most reliable partner in Iraq. “Billions of dollars were being wasted or stolen outright in Iraq, including $8.8 billion that went unaccounted for in 2003 and 2004,” Stewart writes. “Radhi was supposed to track down the criminals, stanch the hemorrhaging of money, and put an end to the corruption that was dubbed the ‘second insurgency’ by Bowen and considered a principal source of funding for the terrorist groups that the U.S. military was trying to crush.” Stewart explains that the U.S. invested $169 million in 2005 and 2006 through U.S. capacity-building programs meant to help train ministry officials but that the militias had infiltrated most, if not all, of these ministries. Chris King, a former adviser to the judge at the State Department, says, “I went to the Justice Department guys and said, ‘You are funding and training death squads. You can’t say no one told you. I told you. You are funding death squads.’ I have no doubt that U.S. reconstruction cash is funding militias.” Stewart describes how the U.S. did not intervene when those death squads eventually targeted Radhi, forcing him to flee to the U.S., where officials then distanced themselves from him. “Documents detailing Iraqi corruption were retroactively classified…. According to people involved in his case, the administration didn’t know what to do with a man who was painting a negative picture of its efforts in Iraq, where it wanted people to believe that the situation was improving,” Stewart reports. Radhi, who went from partner to pariah, now awaits asylum in Virginia. “Judge Radhi went where angels feared to tread and thought he would be protected, but he wasn’t,” explains Ali Allawi, a former Iraqi finance minister. “The U.S. decided to abandon him once his gangbusting began to affect a large number of people who were U.S. allies—all the ministers and top-level Iraqi players. He was a very courageous man, but he went after too many friends of the U.S., and that got him in trouble.”

“Murdoch vs. The Times” (p. 53). In his debut column on the media, contributing editor Howell Raines argues that while hedge funds are circling The New York Times, it is Rupert Murdoch who may actually force a sale of the Gray Lady. Raines recalls an encounter with Murdoch in 2002 at a retreat for top editors of The Times, when he asked Murdoch his opinion of the new lifestyle section Escapes. “Murdoch allowed that Escapes was all right as an attempt to thwart The Journal’s targeting of young professional women…. Then he added some advice about how to conduct a newspaper war: ‘You ought to hit them where they live,’ he said of The Journal. ‘Go after hard business news and beat them on their strength.’ ” One Murdoch associate tells Raines, “[Murdoch] once said to me about The Times, ‘I’d love to buy it to close it.’ ” Raines writes, “I believe the first part of that quote is true, the latter part a joke.”

“Search Mission” (p. 100). Senior writer Russ Mitchell sits down with Google C.E.O. Eric Schmidt, who candidly discusses the threat of a Microsoft takeover of Yahoo, his future plans for Google, a possible sale of The New York Times, and his much younger colleagues Sergey Brin and Larry Page. On buying The Times, Schmidt responds “I’m not aware of a proposal for us to buy The New York Times, but I’d never rule anything out.”
 
“Coach on the Edge” (p. 104). Nancy Hass profiles the brand that defined accessible luxury and how it is discovering the downside of mass versus class. “Lew Frankfort, 62, the C.E.O. who transformed New York-based Coach from a stolid purveyor of leather goods into one of the hottest companies and highest-earning brands of the past decade, is aware that the rules are changing—and not entirely in his favor,” Hass writes. While Coach may have expanded rapidly during the past decade, sustaining that growth in a slowing economy will prove difficult, Hass reports. Frankfort reveals, for the first time, that Coach could make a huge strategic acquisition. “People have come to us to look at things like Bally, but that doesn’t interest me—too small. Maybe Tiffany or Armani,” he says. His dream deal: a merger with Ralph Lauren. “The coming together of two quintessentially American superbrands, both up from nothing,” Frankfort says. “Now wouldn’t that be something to say you had been a part of?”

“It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” (p. 110). Senior writer Jesse Eisinger reports on the No-Consequences Economy, in which money managers who lose billions never seem to get punished. Eisinger asks why, in a wretched year for Wall Street, so few people (including Bob Nardelli and Stan O’Neal) are paying the price.

“The Economy of Fear” (p. 58). Contributing editor John Cassidy says that this recession is going to hit particularly hard and last longer than you think. From Citigroup to Harry Macklowe to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cassidy reports that the list of the credit crunch’s victims grows by the day. So how bad will it get? “In economics, as in quantum physics, nothing is certain, but falling housing prices and slumping consumer confidence point to a deep recession that could last for two or three years. Psychology is critical in economics, and right now it is battered,” Cassidy writes. “Until we get through this period, it might be worth keeping in mind the words of another famous economist, Adam Smith, who said that in every great nation, ‘there is a lot of ruin.’ ”

“Sex and the City: The Smackdown” (p. 82). With the film of HBO’s hit series Sex and the City set to reach movie theaters in May, Megan Angelo checks up on how the cast and crew have stacked up financially since the show ended.

“How to Value It: The Chicago Cubs” (p. 70). Contributing editor Duff McDonald does a back-of-the-napkin analysis of how much investors might be willing to pay for Chicago’s beloved underdogs. Ever since Sam Zell, whose Tribune Co. owns the team, said he’d sell the Cubs, boardrooms and locker rooms have been abuzz. McDonald consults numerous experts and analysts to calculate a possible sale price of $650 million.

Online:
The April issue of the magazine, plus additional content including advice on how to make a startup business into a full-fledged success, an interactive business vocabulary quiz, and an inside look at the Miami art scene and how the city’s real estate bust is actually helping.

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