Tracy Gary will be hosting a book signing breakfast about helping women and girls through charitiable giving. The event is for Financial Women’s Associaition members, reservations are required. Attendee’s will recieve a free copy of Ms. Gary’s book Inspired Philanthropy along with their continental breakfast. More information can be found here.
In a job interview, could there be any other four words in the English language so terrifying, fraught with meaning, and just plain paralyzing?
When asked this question, it’s no wonder that most people tend to freeze up, get nervous, and then overcompensate by talking too much. But that’s exactly the scenario that could cost you an opportunity, according to Joann Lublin’s recent article in the Wall Street Journal.
Lublin’s article is very helpful in suggesting ways that an interviewee can avoid the “over talking” syndrome, including rehearsing short statements about how your background matches the job, making sure you understand what is being asked, and keeping an eye on the interviewer’s body language.
Reading Lublin’s article reinforced my belief that a little preparation before an interview goes a long way, not only in helping you put your best face forward, but also in helping you relax and let your true self and your best qualities shine through. End result? Hopefully, you make a great impression on the company you want to join and they make you an offer you can’t refuse.
Contributed by Kathryn Nilsson Reichert
Hooray for Paula Radcliffe! “I definitely feel stronger after my pregnancy,” the champion marathon runner said, after she sprinted to victory in the final stages of last Sunday’s gruelling 26.2 mile race.
Paula’s fought her way back from bitter failure (Athens Olympics 2004, when stomach problems felled her) and injury (spinal stress fractures and a foot injury in 2006), and she only gave birth to her daughter Isla in January of this year. “I never thought having a baby would be the end of my career,” she grinned as she cuddled Isla after the finish line. She’s a world-beater and a woman of inspiration.
I didn’t think that running a marathon after raising four children would be the re-start of my career, either. However, I ran the New York Marathon in 2000 – in rather more than double Paula’s time of 2:23:09. I ran the race to prove to myself that you aren’t washed up past your mid-thirties, and the law of unintended consequences meant that apart from developing some calf muscles that a body builder would envy, I unexpectedly fell into a new career.
Third Annual PINK Conference Series
In 2007, PINK will host its 3rd annual conference series featuring six high-impact events in cities across the US. These powerful events bring together a few select influential business leaders – who just happen to be women. Attendees can bring friends, clients, mentors or employees to enjoy an inspiring two-hour lunch with America’s most influential women and:
• DISCOVER Life/Balance Solutions
• BUILD Career Success Strategies
• LEARN Valuable Business Lessons
For more specific details on the PINK conference series visit www.pinkmagazine.com
Click here to register: https://www.signup4.net/public/ap.aspx?EID=DCCO10E&OID=130
In this second installment of The Glass Hammer “Best Of … Series,” we build on our popular piece about the Best Work Flats to bring you an advanced segment: the Best Work High Heels. This category is substantially trickier than flats, because flats are (almost) always comfy, while heels rarely are. Thus, these three styles are winners because they rate high in both the style and comfort categories.
Here, we feature basic black, as that’s the most useful color for a pump, but the styles here come in a range of colors and textures.
- The Carma Pump – Cole Haan – $275
This Cole Haan shoe is designed with Nike Air technology, including hidden air pockets in the soles and special cushioning in the heels. While you probably couldn’t play a decent game of basketball in them, they certainly hold up to a full day running around the office. These shoes have the added benefit of coming in low, medium and high heels, so you can adjust to your comfort level. This shoe also comes in black, brown, navy, taupe and patent. We also like the sexier, sleeker cousin to the Carma, this season’s Fiona, which gets a slightly higher style and slightly lower comfort rating.
“Women can’t win.” This is one of the conclusions reached by Lisa Belkin, a writer for the New York Times, in her recent article “The Feminine Critique.” After reading the article, you may well agree, particularly when you consider her analysis about how differently men and women are viewed in the workplace, even when behaving in similar ways.
In the article, Ms. Belkin cites several examples from research studies, including this nugget of wisdom: when a woman gets angry, she is perceived to have lost stature and control. When a man gets angry, he is considered to have gained stature and control. Belkin is right on target by asking what women should do with this, and all the other information floating around about how we are viewed differently than men in the workplace. She wonders if women really need to transform themselves in order to succeed, and if so, into what?
Belkin also gleans some practical advice from the research cited in her article, and quotes a psychology professor who believes that the research can help by letting women know that “they are acting in ways they might not even be aware of, and that is harming them and they can change.”
Global warming and the pollution of the planet are creating a fundamental challenge to the achievement of sustainable development for the majority of the world’s inhabitants. In response to this challenge, politicians are developing and implementing policies to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and to foster environmentally safe business solutions. Fascinating new investment opportunities are being created as a result of these efforts. Participants will discuss the opportunities as well as risks, of investing in this rapidly evolving space.
Registration begins at 5:15 pm.
Begins promptly at 6:00 pm.
Networking and cocktails before and after the panel.
Admission is free, but there is a $25 charge if you register and do not attend, even if you cancel in advance. No-show proceeds are donated to this year’s philanthropy beneficiary, iMentor. www.imentor.org.
To RSVP: https://www.100womeninhedgefunds.org/pages/event_registration.php
This posting is one in a series of our Expert Answers, where a thorny problem is posed in the form of a question, for one of our Glass Hammer resident experts to answer and explain the issue to our readers. Caroline Doran, an employment law specialist with Rooks Rider Solicitors in London, has been providing legal advice to people working in banks and financial institutions since 2000.
Dear Caroline,
I am Head of a Cash Trading Equity Desk and have four people in my team. We are a friendly team. I overhead one team member, Michael, say “Good morning Ginger” to Gail (which I assume was a reference to the color of her hair rather than her dancing skills per Fred and Ginger) and then making an aside to her later on about her being a “carrot top”.
Gail describes herself as being strawberry blonde, but her hair is really quite red or as we would say colloquially in Britain “ginger.” Gail is a very profitable member of the team and is no shrinking violet.
The only thing that concerns me is that I read in an English paper recently that “Gingerism” is now discrimination. I don’t want either to lose Gail or Michael. I especially do not want to end up giving Gail a huge stack of cash as I know that people can get six or seven figure sums in compensation for discrimination.
What should I do?
Nazaretta
This is a story of two women. In New York, a successful young woman in finance spends her days at a major investment bank structuring billion dollar loans to finance telecom deals. In Calcutta, a poor young woman who spends her days as a street sweeper takes out a $50 loan to buy enough supplies to open a grocery stand, and in doing so, builds a business that can feed her family of four.
What do these two women have in common? They are both involved in microfinance lending. The woman in Calcutta took out a loan from the SEWA Bank of India, which specializes in providing small loans to the poorest women. The woman in New York used her skills and knowledge of global financial markets and the economics of structuring debt to volunteer for a micro-credit lending organization in Ghana, where she spent her vacation advising local women’s cooperatives about the benefits of microfinance.
What is microfinance lending? The practice was pioneered in Bangladesh by Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank and author of the recent book “Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty.” The micro-finance lending model works by providing small loans without collateral to poor people, most of whom are women. In order to increase repayment of loans, institutions like the Grameen bank facilitate voluntary formation of small groups of five people to provide mutual, morally binding group guarantees in lieu of the collateral required by conventional banks. In this way, women who would not otherwise have access to credit can engage in income-generating activities, business ownership and entrepreneurship. This simple but powerful model has spread around the world, and has provided millions of dollars of capital to the poorest of the poor, in addition to providing auxiliary services including job and financial training, literacy classes, and empowerment workshops for women.
With the Women on Wall Street (WOWS) conference still fresh in my head, I started thinking about the professional metamorphosis I have made in the past year. One marker of this change is a Meet the Press event that a respectable Chicago newspaper coordinates annually. Last year I walked in wearing a suit to camouflage my anxiety of mingling with the financial industry big wigs. I was a wallflower. I didn’t bother anyone or make a fool of myself, but I didn’t make any contacts either.
Last year’s event took place around the time that the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) announced they would be acquiring the Chicago Board of Trade. Craig Donahue, the Chief Executive Officer of the CME, was the featured guest at the event. I would never have recognized him if it wasn’t for his entourage. People gathered around him and he spoke for about 15 minutes. I can’t tell you what it was about since I didn’t speak his language. I took sips of my drink, laughed when everyone else did and clapped when he was finished.