Inside Avon's makeover fail

• McCoy's makeover fail. Fortune's Phil Wahba digs into the story behind the ouster of Avon CEO Sheri McCoy, who, as we reported yesterday, will step down in March.

As Phil notes, her departure is not exactly a surprise; under her tenure, the company's sales and stock price have plummeted. While she inherited plenty of problems from her predecessor, Andrea Jung, her repeated turnaround efforts flopped—and unhappy activist investors Barington Capital Group LP and partner NuOrion Partners AG did not let anyone forget it.

Phil identifies four of McCoy's most crucial missteps: She was late to e-commerce, failed to stop the shrinking of the company's iconic "Avon lady" salesforce, refused to exit or revamp in the U.S, and didn't recognize the strength of the growing Hispanic market.

McCoy's successor has not yet been identified, but news of her departure adds to what was already shaping up to be a bad couple months for female Fortune 500 chiefs. When the 2017 Fortune 500 list came out in June, it contained a record 32 women CEOs. Since then, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer lost her job, and we learned that Staples will go private, taking CEO Shira Goodman out of contention. Earlier this week, Mondelez CEO Irene Rosenfeld announced that she will step down, and now McCoy. Is it just a cruel summer for the women of the Fortune 500—or a sign of things to come? Fortune

• Pump in a dump? While employers have a legal obligation to provide nursing moms with "the space necessary to allow her to express milk in private and to have the time to do that," the reality of what that actually means for working mothers is all over the map. In this WaPo story, women from around the country share their experiences pumping at work. Washington Post

• The David dilemma. A new report on FTSE 100 CEOs underscores the blatant gender imbalance in the number of female versus male chiefs at U.K.'s largest public companies. The report, based on fiscal year 2016, makes a point of mentioning that there were actually more men named David—eight—and men named Steve or Stephen—seven—among the top CEOs than there were female chief executives—six. Fortune

• The skinny on Weight Watchers. A month into her new role as CEO of Weight Watchers, Mindy Grossman led her first earnings call for the company last night. This story checks in on expectations for the company under her leadership, noting that investors hope "she can pull off a transformation similar to the one she led as CEO of HSN Inc., the television shopping channel that she turned into a digital company." WSJ

• Another one down. Greylock Partners COO Tom Frangione stepped down after the firm learned that he'd had an inappropriate relationship with an employee. While no additional details have come out thus far, it's worth noting that Greylock partner Reid Hoffman responded to the recent wave of VC sexual harassment allegations by authoring a "Decency Pledge." The Information

• The WNBA gets live. NBA Live 18, the latest edition of the popular EA Sports video game series, will include all 12 WNBA teams, marking the first time in the history of the game that WNBA players will be featured. ESPN

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Karen Miller Pensiero has been appointed managing editor of the Wall Street Journal. Karen Hughes was named to the board of Parsley Energy.

• Not a good look. On the heels of news that former Gawker editor Choire Sicha has been named editor of the New York Times' Styles section, HuffPo's Emily Peck asks why a woman has not been chosen to run the section since the 70s. Huffington Post

• The (men's) pill. A male birth control pill could be a multibillion-dollar business. So, given how close researchers have come, why doesn't one exist yet? Bloomberg

• Ivana TM. As Ivana Trump prepares for the October release of her new book about raising her children, she's seeking approval from trademark officials to safeguard her name for books, celebrity promotion services, TV and radio shows, and film production. Bloomberg

• Tune in! NBC announced a new initiative to help work toward gender parity among scripted series directors across the network. Spearheaded by NBC president Jennifer Salke and director Lesli Linka Glatter, it will give "10 female directors the opportunity to shadow up to three episodes of an NBC series, culminating in an in-season commitment to direct at least one episode of the series she shadows." The Hollywood Reporter

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