Investing

Will Trump CEO Advisors Have Trouble With Female Customers?

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: January 23, 2017 6:40 am

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 3:39 pm

The formation of the president’s Strategic and Policy Forum was a fairly quiet affair, at least as measured against scores of other actions taken by President Donald Trump. Its 16 members have joined to help President Trump make decisions about job creation, a critical issue for any president. They also can lobby Trump, presumably, more than CEOs who do not have this sort of relationship to the president. And not all the group’s members are CEOs. However, those who are have opened themselves to the risk of alienating female customers.

To be fair to the president’s Strategic and Policy Forum members, who first meet at the White House in two weeks, they could not possibly have seen the day that hundreds of thousands of women would have gathered for protests against many of the Trump policies. Of course, each of those protesters is a consumer as well. It is not unusual for groups with views different from the heads of companies to press their issues against these corporations by boycotting sales of its products or services. It is an oft-used tactic to put pressure on companies to change policies or marketing messages.

The two members of the Strategic and Policy Forum who may be most exposed are the female chief executives: General Motors Co.’s (NYSE: GM) Mary Barra and International Business Machines Corp.’s (NYSE: IBM) Ginni Rometty. GM sells hundreds of thousands of cars in the United States. IBM’s exposure is less because most of its customers are corporations and institutions. IBM’s risk is along the lines of reputation and less about revenue.

Of the other CEOs who are members of the forum, several run businesses that have a great deal of consumer exposure. This includes Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM), which has tens of thousands of retail customers. Bob Iger, the CEO of Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS), has just as much at stake. The potential trouble could also extent to Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) CEO Doug McMillon, head of the largest employer in the United States, which is also the largest American retailer.

It does not matter what political views the individual members of the forum have. They are the public faces of institutions that cater to women who can chose to buy goods and services elsewhere. Helping a sitting president may advance a company’s agenda, but presently it goes along with a substantial risk to sales.