Happy Holidays from The Glass Hammer

By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

As the end of the year approaches, The Glass Hammer will be taking an editorial break for the holidays. We will return Wednesday, January 2 with new articles to inform, empower, and inspire you for the year ahead.

In the meantime, we hope that you will also take brief pause to reflect on the year gone by. What did you hope to achieve in 2012? What did you successfully accomplish? What new strategies did you learn for career advancement this year that you hope to leverage or amplify in 2013?

Please share your successes and challenges in the comments space below – we would love to catalogue how you have advanced in 2012!

Role Models

This year we spent a lot of time discussing role models. And we have many to choose from. For example, in 2012, we saw more women climb to the C-suite in the US than ever before. In the Fortune 500, there are now 19 women CEOs, representing almost 4 percent. (And on January 1, Marillyn Hewson will take over as CEO of Lockheed Martin for a total of 20.)

10. Meg Whitman – Hewlett-Packard
19. Virginia Rometty – IBM
28. Patricia Woertz – Archer Daniels Midland
41. Indra Nooyi – PepsiCo
50. Irene Rosenfeld – Mondelez International
72. Ellen Kullman – DuPont
125. Carol Meyrowitz – TJX
127. Ursula Burns – Xerox
234. Sheri McCoy – Avon Products
250. Deanna Mulligan – Guardian Life Ins. Of America
266. Debra Reed – Sempra Energy
334. Denise Morrison – Campbell Soup
390. Ilene Gordon – Ingredion
396. Heather Bresch – Mylan
451. Kathleen Mazzarella – Graybar Electric
464. Maggie Wilderotter – Frontier Communications
465. Gracia Martore – Gannett
483. Marissa Mayer – Yahoo
499. Beth Mooney – Key Corp

Each of these women can provide inspiration. In fact, what may be so inspiring about this list is that the women on it are so different from one another. That indicates that there are many paths to the top. But what is the right path for you? This is where mentors – and sponsors – can help you. And being a mentor or a sponsor can help you as well – inspiration for advancement can come from many places, including the junior people you encourage. Who will you draw inspiration from for the future?

The Year Ahead

For 2013, The Glass Hammer has a few new projects coming your way. We have a number of events planned, new research, and more, including leadership training courses developed by our Founder and CEO Nicki Gilmour.

We are also embarking on a new study on women in technology roles. We hope to find out how women at the junior or mid level of their career in tech feel about leadership, and how senior people can help them get to the next level. (If you’re a junior or mid-level woman in technology in the corporate space, please help us by taking our 10-minute confidential and anonymous survey: http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/1105884/The-Glass-Hammer-Women-in-Technology-Survey.)

Finally, as always, our goal is to provide our readers with the encouragement and advice that will help you achieve the success you are striving for. If there are any topics you would like to see us explore for 2013, please include them in the space below, or contact me at melissa@theglasshammer.com.