CEO speaks on diversity at Laclede and adapting to STL as a transplant

In 2011, the Laclede Group Inc. hired Suzanne Sitherwood, a transplant from Atlanta, as its president and CEO. Now Sitherwood is leading a St. Louis Regional Chamber team to grow this region’s economy by promoting diversity and immigration.

Prior to joining Laclede, Sitherwood was president of Atlanta Gas Light, Chattanooga Gas Light and Florida City Gas. She has 32 years of expertise in engineering, interstate pipeline relationships, gas control and management.

The St. Louis American spoke with Sitherwood about her experience in St. Louis and best practices in inclusion. 

St. Louis American: What are some “best practices” for diversity and inclusion you could point to at Laclede if your board was driving you to show a commitment?(The Laclede Group Board of Directors includes two African Americans: Arnold W. Donald, president and CEO of Carnival Corporation, and Brenda D. Newberry, CEO of Nesher, LLC.)

Suzanne Sitherwood: It’s important to understand our employee base. What do we look like as a population? You can look at an aggregate number – for example, the number of women to men – and say, “That’s a nice number, I feel really good about that.” But then you keep digging into the operation.

I run a large field operation here at the gas company, which is mostly men, and you have a call center, which is mostly women. When you aggregate all that together, would you consider us to be diverse? Are we really doing the best of best practices? I would admit to you, “No.” I could find other examples for minorities.

You really need to dig in the data and make sure you’re diverse on a macro level and reflective of the community. And at a more senior level, make sure there’s representation from an affinity group perspective. I don’t think employees generally feel that they can be inspired if there are not individuals at a more senior level that they can relate to. 

Our Leadership Council is made up of me, the COO, the CFO, chief integration and innovation officer, general counsel and our chief administrative officer. There are six of us, and there are two females and one African American (Mark C. Darrell, senior vice president, general counsel and chief compliance officer).

It starts there, because that’s the most senior level. We still have work to

do, but I would say if you compare us to other companies’ top six, to have two women and one minority in the top six, that’s solid.

St. Louis American: Women are often included with minorities in the “disadvantaged” category of business enterprise. How has your gender posed a “disadvantage” in your business career?

Suzanne Sitherwood: When I entered this field more than 30 years ago, it was a male-dominated industry in the energy sector and utilities, specifically. At that time, the industry hired mostly engineers, who were mostly men. As a female engineer, that was rare to begin with.

I didn’t think of my advantages and disadvantages as a woman. It was more, what are my strengths and what are my weaknesses in terms of my competencies levels and technical skills? If you think, “If I’m female, can I be successful here?” then your psychology can be that you automatically think you’re disadvantaged, rather than looking at your competencies levels and technical capacity. 

St. Louis American: Executives are by profession travelers. How do you see the status of the St. Louis airport as a factor in business vitality and executive satisfaction/retention?

Suzanne Sitherwood: As the region’s economic development grows, it needs a vital airport to support it. The city and executive director clearly understand that. What’s important to travelers is the service, flight schedule, flight options and competitive nature of prices.

I came from Atlanta, which has the busiest airport in the world. It takes a long time to park and get to your gate – and that’s time. Time is important to professionals. So having an airport that has the ability to provide great service and competitive flights in price and flight schedules and more direct flights – those are the things that matter and should be the right aspirations.

St. Louis American: You are on the board of the Regional Chamber, which has a number of stated new objectives, including encouraging immigration. I’d be interested to hear about how that objective might be pursued strategically.

Suzanne Sitherwood: I’ve spend a fair amount of time with Joe Reagan, president and CEO of the St. Louis Regional Chamber. As a result of our conversations, he’s asked me to chair the Economic Development Group with the St. Louis Regional Chamber. In our conversations, we talked about, not just how you welcome people once they’re here, but how you invite people to the region.

There’s a lot already going on, so it’s not necessarily me reinventing. We are looking at different startups and venture capital, and people are doing that now. It’s a bit of working with those organizations and reaching out on a global basis, inviting them to come visit us.  It’s an exciting time. From a city’s perspective, it’s got a lot of things going right.

St. Louis American: We are very interested in hearing about how executive transplants adapt to our region. What kind of place are you finding this to live and work?

Suzanne Sitherwood: I found it to be an extremely easy move and the people of St. Louis to be hospitable and generous. You can feel that on all levels, here professionally at the company as well as in the community. And that’s extremely embracing, especially for me. I moved here solo. My son is in Atlanta and my better half, Carl, is in Atlanta. My mother, brother and extended family and friends are mostly in Atlanta. So being embraced in that way, in terms of hospitality and support, has made it much easier than I expected. Kudos to the city and the region.