Professor Flora Podington, renown business pioneer and professor, died at her home on Wednesday. She was 91.
Raised on a farm, Flora Podington entered college as an agronomic student but discovered a passion for business and became the first woman in the state to receive a graduate degree in business. She went on to hold several important positions in agribusiness but concluded the chances of being allowed to run a company in such a male dominated industry were low and focused on gaining experience in manufacturing. Although successful at several companies, a position as CEO remained elusive.
Eventually, she began submitting resumes for positions using just her first initial and was hired as CEO for manufacturer, Royal Mattress. The founders of the company had been searching without success for someone to take over operations for several years. When they interviewed Podington, they were skeptical, but open to the idea since they had run the company as a husband and wife team, and they were impressed by the candidate. As Professor Podington would later tell all her freshman business students on the first day of class, the hiring team at Royal devised a test. They asked her to provide an analysis of their annual report, planting a small error on page 20. She asked if she could sleep on it. When she returned the next morning, not only had she found the planted error on page 20, but several other real errors the accounting department had missed. She was hired on the spot.
Podington ran the company for 20 years, expanding into retail. When she left to accept a teaching position, Royal Mattress was the largest manufacturer and retailer of mattresses in the country.
As a business professor, Podington became well known for developing the “Pod Theory” of team management. She is survived by her daughter, Beatrice (61), 3 grandchildren, and 8 great-grandchildren.
Flora Podington 1928-2019
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