Voice of Experience: Linda Descano, COO of Citi’s Women & Co

businesswomen.jpgFor our Voices of Experience series, The Glass Hammer interviewed Linda Descano and asked her about her experience in financial services and her advice for young women in finance.

Linda Descano, CFA, is President and Chief Operating Officer of Women & Co., a division of Citi that provides women with educational resources for navigating life transitions and planning their financial future. Prior to joining Women & Co. in 2003, Linda was a Director and Portfolio Manager in Citi’s Private Portfolio Group, where she co-managed customized investment portfolios for individuals and institutions and oversaw the firm’s socially responsible investment program. Before that, she served as Senior Vice President and Director of Environmental Affairs for Salomon Inc., which she joined in 1994 Linda holds a B.A. from Temple University in geology.

Linda is also a sought-after public speaker. She has spoken on personal finance and investment topics at major conferences for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), United Nations Development Program, Environmental Bankers Association, and Cambridge University, among others. For two years, Linda chaired the steering committee of the United Nations Financial Institutions Initiative on the Environment. She has received a Human Rights Leadership Award from Church Women United and an Environmental Leadership Award from the United Nations Environment Program, North America. She is a member of the New York Society of Security Analysts, Financial Communications Society, Corporate Advisory Council of the Center for Environmental Leadership in Business, and the Financial Literacy Committee of Dress for Success in New York.

In honor of her grandmothers, Nina Gaspari Pennachietti and Anna Fortunato Descano, Linda recently endowed the National Organization of Italian American Women with the Nina Anna Scholarship, a needs-based scholarship for an Italian-American woman pursuing higher education.

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Dynamic Women In Business Conference

The Dynamic Women in Business conference is a powerful forum for women to learn, share, and inspire one another.

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Part 3: Passions — Ascent of Kilimanjaro

akilimanjaro.jpgFor those of you who don’t know me, I am a cat-like creature at heart. Happiest curled up by a warm fire, with a good book, a glass of decent red wine at my elbow, and some music playing. I don’t do wet, I don’t do cold, and I usually avoid energetic.

So it surprised even me when, a couple of years back, I volunteered for a nine-day hike through dripping rainforests and freezing valleys culminating in an ascent on the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

The climax of the trek was a night climb from a camp high up the mountain, which required over seven hours of phenomenal effort to reach the top of Africa’s highest mountain, at 19,344 feet (a shade shy of 6,000m). This was achieved at temperatures below 0°F, in swirling mist and snow.

I signed up to climb Kili for charity, thinking Tanzania in December would top off my tan, and the exercise would help with pre-holiday weight loss. Even better, I could do a good deed and raise funds for my favorite charity at the same time. Win-win all around, really.

Ours was an eight-man team with the world of finance well represented: a trader from Morgan Stanley, a desk assistant from Deutsche, and an IT expert from Bank of New York. The others included a liver surgeon from Liverpool, an HR specialist from Switzerland, a financial adviser from Marlow and a guy who did something for GE but I didn’t ever quite understand what. And me.

Kili is a marvel – you encounter all kinds of weather and terrain, from rainforest to savannah to frozen slopes. All have their pros and cons – rainforests are, naturally, very wet, and you squish along through mud with wet gear and boots; the cold at the top bites into your very bones, and the high altitude makes many hikers ill.

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Top African American Women in Business …Other than Oprah

When you think of successful African American women, unless you have been living in a media-free cave for the last 20 years, Oprah springs to mind. While we acknowledge and admire the accomplishments of the talk show host, media mogul and self-made billionaire, it’s a shame that many of us are not equally familiar with other black women who have made a big impact on the world of business. Here we briefly profile ten fantastically accomplished African American women in finance and business. If you don’t know their names yet, you should!

  1. Ursula Burns, President of Xerox. As a Fortune 500 company, Xerox has a great track record of promoting women executives to the highest management positions. Next in line after CEO Anne Mulcahy, Burns has driven efforts to improve the line of products offered by Xerox and supported R&D of new technologies, including Xerox’s new emulsion aggregate toner plant in upstate New York. Under her leadership, Xerox grew by 20% in 2007. Burns was named to her position in April 2007, and also holds a seat on the Board of Directors. Burns joined Xerox as a summer intern in 1980, and worked her way up at Xerox after obtaining a B.S. from Polytechnic Institute of New York and a Master’s in Engineering from Columbia. She also serves on the boards of American Express Corp., Boston Scientific Corp., CASA – The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, National Academy Foundation, National Association of Manufacturers, and the University of Rochester.
  2. Susan Chapman, Global Head of Operations, Citigroup Realty Services. Chapman manages the day-today operations for Citigroup Realty in 96 countries. She holds the No. 2 spot in the business unit, and is responsible for overseeing mergers and acquisitions, retail branch development, real estate administration, strategic projects and global business relationship management.Chapman sits on the Dean’s Advisory Board for the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business, where she received her MBA in 1998. She was named to Black Enterprise magazine’s Hot List for up and coming businesspeople under 40.
  3. Edith Cooper, Head of North American Hedge Fund Distribution, Fixed Income, Currencies & Commodities, Goldman Sachs. Cooper was promoted to managing director in 1998, after only 2 years at Goldman Sachs, and made partner in 2000. In London, she co-led the company’s commodity business for Europe and Asia, and in 2004, she co-headed the company’s global clearing and execution in the equity division. Cooper headed the company’s global futures business before rising to her current position. Before working at Goldman, Cooper worked at Banker’s Trust. Cooper graduated from Harvard College and received her MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Business. Read more
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Facebook: The Employer in YourSpace

Contributed by Rebecca Chong

The social networking website Facebook has become an increasingly popular way to resolve the time consuming and financially intensive burden of socialising, and brings it straight to the monitors of the internet generation, including at work. Indeed, many employees whose companies do not restrict access to the internet while away the days surfing the web, posting pictures to their Facebook accounts and reconnecting with friends in the virtual world.

Employers are now divided between embracing this new opportunity for marketing on a global scale (even princess of pop Kylie Minogue has launched ‘KylieKonnect’ a social networking site), and a cautiousness bred from the early ages of the blog; which led to media horror stories of employees flaunting their right to free speech and publishing derogatory pieces about their employers for the world to see.

The line for the employer to draw depends on business objectives; but for every successful business, evaluating how to tailor employment practices for the changes brought on by the growing impact of online social networking is vital to development.

A free subscription to socialize for the employee may come at a heavy price to employers. A recent study by Peninsula found that companies in the UK lose £132 million a day in lost productivity to employees wasting valuable time on Facebook. The ease with which a lot of employees are able to browse the net inevitably gives rise to temptation to do so during work hours and for lengthy periods that would be impossible to expend on most other extra curricular activities. Only last month, Neath Port Talbot Council dismissed three of their employees for spending too much of their working day dealing on the auction site eBay.

Time wasters are not the only concern. Facebook and its kin enable employees to disseminate confidential information easily, albeit unwittingly. Through personal profiles which may include job details, they make themselves vulnerable to being targeted by unscrupulous ‘cyber sharks’, or by competing businesses hoping to learn from the eyes and ears of the opposition.

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Spotlight on Leadership: Hillary Clinton

In the presidential election playing out in primaries across America, front-runner Hillary Clinton has the best chance of becoming president of any woman to date. Though The Glass Hammer typically confines its discussion to issues that deal directly with women in finance and law, Senator Clinton’s leadership style and the role of gender in presidential politics has been a hot button topic among all of the professional women we know.

Last night’s debate in South Carolina demonstrated that race and gender issues have dominated the Democratic debates in recent days. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton sought to de-emphasize race and gender and focus on their qualifications. However, all of the Democratic candidates, including John Edwards, recognized the importance of appealing to African-American and female voters. One of the highlights of the debate occurred when Senator Clinton, in an effort to transcend divisive race and gender issues, quoted Frederick Douglas, who ran the slogan on the masthead of his newspaper The North Star that “right has no sex and truth has no color.” More than 150 years later, are voters finally ready to accept that?

In a much discussed article in the New York Times last week, Gloria Steinem, women’s movement leader and founder of Ms. Magazine, advocated persuasively on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency. In her article, entitled “Why Women are Never Frontrunners,” she raises some troubling questions about the way in which gender and race are perceived as characteristics of a leader. When comparing Senator Clinton to Senator Obama, she writes, “what worries me is that he is seen as unifying by his race while she is seen as divisive by her sex.” She goes on to note the disparity between the media’s criticism of Senator Clinton for “playing the gender card,” where Senator Obama is seen as unifying by referring to the civil rights movement.

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Happy Martin Luther King Day!

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In celebration of Martin Luther King Day here in the U.S., the Glass Hammer will not be publishing today. That gives you more time to go along with today’s theme, “A day on, not a day off,” and do something to commemorate or demonstrate for civil rights.

In the future, The Glass Hammer will be publishing some articles on the outstanding accomplishments of women of color, and the unique challenges still faced by minority women in the workplace. If you are interested in seeing more coverage of this area, please write in and tell us what you think!

Additionally, The Glass Hammer is now following a new editorial calendar, which looks like this:

Mondays– Voice of Experience interviews- we interview women who have broken the glass ceiling and have made it to the top. What advice do they have for our readers? Mondays are also a chance for us to interview outstanding human beings who contribute to society greatly (as well as being excellent in their careers!). Look out for these articles under Spotlight on People.

Tuesdays– Work/life issues. How to have it all. We also cover Returner Programs on Tuesdays- so if you are looking to off-ramp or perhaps return after a career break, then watch this space!

Wednesdays– Career advice on to “how to” get to the next level. Expert answers from career coaches, lawyers, peers and mentors.

Thursdays– Industry news. We get deep into the functions of different parts of the sellside and buyside. We cover industry events.

Fridays- Fridays is when we can all have a little fun. Tune in for some hilarious true life tales from our writers and readers about what its like to work in financial services. We also cover ” passions” and we would love to hear what you live to do on the weekends! Evolved People have interesting lives.

As always, we love feedback. Write to our editor at erin@theglasshammer.com to let us know what you love, hate, or can’t get enough of.

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When a Woman Cries …

What is it about a few tears, or just a misty eye at a poignant public moment that spurs a media frenzy and possibly a turning point in the presidential election?

Tuesday night, January 8, was the night of the New Hampshire presidential primary. As the election results were coming in, I stepped out after work to meet two women friends for a burger and beer. One of the main topics of conversation – along with year-end bonuses and spring vacation plans – was Hillary Clinton tearing up at a campaign event a few days beforehand. My friends said they easily understood how stress, lack of sleep and frustration in a high stakes situation could lead a person to shed a few tears. One friend remarked, “She’s human – it’s normal.” But as the three of us were leaving the restaurant, we passed a group of men laughing, and overheard them making fun of Hillary’s emotional moment on the campaign trail.

Some people felt that the moment showed a more human side of Senator Clinton, and demonstrated how much she cared about her country and the American people, while others thought that her tears seemed insincere. No matter what side of last week’s debate you were on, you’ll have plenty of company, as everyone weighed in on this subject via every media outlet imaginable. Here at the Glass Hammer, this media scrutiny brought to mind another issue we’ve covered: how the same behavior in women and men can be perceived differently. (See “Can Women Win” from November 8, 2007)

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Movers and Shakers: East Coast Round-Up

The summer may be the time when things tend to slow down, but for women in the top industries, things have been heating up. Here are some of the women who’ve recently made their way along the executive path:

Financial Services

Suzanne B. Schiavelli was hired as a principal in specialty finance to Bank of America. The only woman in this class of nine new hires, she will serve as a senior member of the equity research platform at Bank of America. According to the Bank of America announcement, Ms. Schiavelli joins from Morgan Stanley where she most recently covered emerging specialty finance stocks. Prior to Morgan Stanley, she worked as an investment banker in the financial institutions group at Lehman Brothers. Ms. Schiavelli received a bachelor of arts in economics from Providence College and a master’s degree in business administration from The Stern School at NYU.

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Meet the Managers

Investment Week has joined forces with HSBC Investments to present a panel of top fund managers in front of an audience of intermediaries and discretionary advisers.

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