The 59-year-old is a member of the Board of Management responsible for procurement at Porsche.
Dusseldorf Barbara Frenkel has done what no Porsche employee has done before: She is the first woman on the seven-strong executive board that is currently preparing the planned IPO of the sports car manufacturer – and also the only one.
The 59-year-old Franconian, who worked for various automotive suppliers before joining Porsche in 2001, knows what it’s like to work with men in particular.
She enjoys it, says Frenkel, when other women are in meetings, it enriches the culture of discussion. “When women talk, you notice that they are listening carefully, that you are paying more attention. Perhaps also because women speak more quietly at one point or another. That has something to do with the dynamics of the conversation.”
At Porsche, the proportion of women in the entire workforce and also on the first and second management levels below the Executive Board is around 15 percent. Frenkel wants to “definitely jump over 20 percent in the next few years”.
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In order to attract more women, it is important that women show themselves in the job – not only at Porsche, but in general. Because: “What is visible appears attainable.”
Visibility is also worthwhile for the women themselves, says Frenkel: “If you want to pursue a career in a company, then of course, in addition to the basic requirement that you are good at your job and perform well, you also need to know them. And if you are one of the few women in a male-dominated environment, then you are visible. That’s a big advantage.”
And she advises women to be braver, for example in innovation projects or in crisis situations, to raise their hands and say: “I want to make my contribution.”
Frenkel can understand that some men are frustrated because they supposedly didn’t get a job because a woman got it. “It’s still like that for us women,” she says. After all, there is still an imbalance.
This is also the case on the customer side. Significantly more men buy Porsche cars than women. In Germany and also in southern Europe, Porsche has “the greatest need to catch up,” says Frenkel. Unlike in China, “there we have a very high proportion of women”. It also has something to do with a color.
Porsche sells the Taycan, the brand’s first purely electric vehicle, in China mainly in the color “Frozen Berry”, which Frenkel says is an “old pink tone, slightly metallic”. The typical cliché, one might think.
Frenkel disagrees. That is a very German point of view. “It’s like this in China: I want to be seen. I want to draw attention. And it’s a totally hip, hip color.”
More: You can hear the previous episode of Handelsblatt Rethink Work here