W(H)AM! Microfinance and the Leadership Challenge

worldinherhands.JPGby Kathryn Nilsson Reichert (New York City)

Founded in 2003, Women Advancing Microfinance International (WAM) is an international organization based in Washington, D.C. and with branches around the world whose mission is to “advance and support women working in microfinance through education, training, and by promoting leadership opportunities.” They also seek to promote the providing of financial services to the poor and economic opportunities to women worldwide.

A recent WAM event in New York City – “Promoting Women’s Leadership in Microfinance: Lessons from the US Financial Sector” – focused on leadership roles in microfinance and how lessons learned by women working in U.S. financial services firms translate to the microfinance field.

Two distinguished women speakers sparked a lively discussion by describing their experiences as leaders and the steps that financial services organizations take to identify and promote women leaders. The speakers were Linda Descano, CFA®, President and COO of Women & Co. at Citi and Rebecca Patterson, Managing Director, FX and commodities at JP Morgan Chase.

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Chicago’s Futures and Options Expo 2008

chicago.jpgBy Jessica Titlebaum (Chicago)

The Futures Industry Association organized their annual Futures and Options Expo in Chicago on November 10th – 12th, bringing together the most influential people from the derivatives industry, from senior staff at brokerage firms and exchanges to pension fund managers, CTAs, CPOs, and individual investors. According to the FIA website, over 4000 people from more than 30 countries attended.

The two-day event kicked off on that Monday evening at an opening reception held in the preserved and reconstructed Chicago Stock Exchange Trading Room, located at the Art Institute. Over the following days, participants attended a variety of sessions to discuss industry trends, hear expert views on key issues, improve trading skills and learn about new products, systems and practices.

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Managing Email Overload

emailinbox.jpgby Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

A strategic planning executive starts her day by opening her inbox and sorting all of her emails alphabetically. She answers messages from her boss first, followed by emails from the company’s management team and then she responds to everyone else in the organization. The whole process usually takes the first two hours of her day.

A former vice president in a technology firm, used to spend her day running from one client meeting to the next. “I was never at my desk,” she says, “but I felt compelled to answer every email I received within twenty-four hours.” She spent most of her evenings answering emails until 10 or 11 at night.

These two women could save time and increase their productivity if they knew a little secret about email: You don’t have to clean out your inbox.

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Ask-A-Recruiter: Career To-Do List For The Holidays

istock_000005168521xsmall1.jpgContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

Is it okay to just take a break from my job search during the holidays? I assume people really aren’t hiring right now anyway.

Holiday time may involve more personal activities and fewer job interviews, but there are still many things you can do right now through early into the new year to keep momentum in your job search strong:

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Top 100 Companies for Working Mothers

workingmom.jpgBy Heather Chapman (New York City)

While finding a ‘good’ job—one that you enjoy, with livable hours and health insurance—can be difficult for a single woman, it can be even more difficult for working women who have to factor in their children. Juggling a job and its requirements with the responsibilities that come as being a parent can be extremely frustrating, especially when it feels like you have to shortchange one to fulfill the other. While not every company recognizes the need to offer benefits like flextime, telecommuting, on-site childcare, and paid parental leave, the number that do is growing every year. Here is a list of the best of the best – the Top 100 Companies, as featured in the October 2008 issue of Working Mother.

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The Glass Hammer Wins “Blog of the Year” Award!

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nickispeaking.jpgby Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Outstanding businesswomen and women-run companies were honored at the 2008 Stevie Awards for Women in Business awards dinner, which took place at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square on November 14th.

The 2008 Stevie Awards for Women in Business is an international competition recognizing the accomplishments of outstanding women executives, business owners, and the organizations they run. The awards are produced by the creators of the prestigious American Business Awards. From the more than 1,200 entries from organizations large and small across in a diversity of industries, awards were handed out to outstanding women in 50 categories including Best Company, Best Product, Best Mentor, Best Executive, and “Women Helping Women”.

The Stevie Awards for Women in Business are governed by a Board of Distinguished Judges and Advisors that features many leading women entrepreneurs and luminaries in business. Members of the Awards’ Board selected Stevie winners from among the finalists. Finalists were chosen by business professionals worldwide during the preliminary judging period.

We are proud to announce that The Glass Hammer took home the “Blog of the Year” title (and the very hefty statue that came with it). Nicki Gilmour, founder and CEO of TGH, who accepted the award on behalf of The Glass Hammer team, said later of the honor:

“We are very proud of theglasshammer.com as we truly believe that we can help women navigate the obstacles to get to the corner office and have a great work-life balance. We aim to inform, empower and inspire women and our readership grows every week so we are happy to be formally recognized as a ‘must read’ blog on the internet.

Winning the Stevie Women in Business Award for Blog of the Year is an achievement for all involved in theglasshammer.com. This is a reflection of teamwork and the sharing of experiences of all the women in the financial markets, law firms, and big business.

The Glass Hammer would like to take this opportunity to thank PricewaterhouseCoopers and Goldman Sachs for being founding sponsors as without progressive firms like these actually making changes in the workplace we would be writing about some mythical universe – an imagined utopia – instead of the reality of equality in the workplace which thankfully exists in some companies.”

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Voice of Experience: Cleo Thompson, Head of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Gender Advisory Council

Cleo_Thompson_Oct_07_blog_.jpgby Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

With a background in IT and project management, it may surprise some that Cleo Thompson, the head of PwC’s Gender Advisory Council, is the company’s global go-to person for gender diversity. But her personal philosophy may explain it:

“Don’t pigeonhole yourself. Don’t think you are restricted by what you studied. If you are flexible, there are lots of ways to use your skills to make a sideways move, especially within a large organization like PwC.” She added, “I’ve never yet had a job in PwC that someone has done before –I’ve either applied for a newly-created role or I’ve convinced management to craft the position for me.” She advised that she prefers to “drag myself up and bring someone along with me – many of the people I have recruited and trained within PwC have been promoted and gone onto great things.”

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In Case You Missed It: Weekend Round-up

martin.jpgContributed by Martin Mitchell of the Corporate Training Group

In case you were too busy enjoying your weekend to have kept up with the news, contributor Martin Mitchell has again been kind enough to gather some important market events from this past weekend (and week) so that you can start this week well informed:

Saturday, November 15th
Mergers and Acquisitions

  • Franco-Belgian bank Dexia agreed to sell its monoline insurer, Financial Security Assurance. The sale to Assured Guaranty, a Bermuda-based insurer, will see Dexia receive $361m in cash, plus 44.6m of shares in Assured Guaranty worth around $350m. The bank will book at net loss on the sale of €1.5bn.

Financial Institutions

  • Fund manager RAB Capital has abandoned plans to build a retail mutual fund business and is closing about a third of its funds to streamline its business. The changes come as a result of assets under management shrinking on the back of poor performance and clients withdrawing money. Assets under management peaked at $7.2bn in 2007 and are expected to be about $2bn at the year end.
  • Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is planning to cut about 3,000 jobs in its investment banking division. The bank has already cut 7,000 jobs in the investment banking division as a result of the integration of ABN Amro.
  • The administrators of Lehman Brothers European operations told a creditors’ meeting that they are unlikely to get all of their money back, and that returning the funds could take years. The administrators said that assets currently outweigh liabilities by around $17bn, however if asset values fall, or liabilities increase this could quickly disappear. Fees to administrators will also be a significant factor – they are currently accruing at £4m per week.

Credit

  • Freddie Mac, the mortgage financier that has been nationalised by the US government, has asked for a further lifeline of $13.8bn after suffering a $23.5bn quarterly loss. The loss was primarily due to large credit-related writedowns.

Other

  • At the G-20 Summit, the leaders of the nations agreed to take ‘whatever further actions are necessary’ to tackle the financial crisis and restore global growth at an emergency summit in Washington. The guiding principles to which they committed include strengthening transparency and accountability through requiring proper disclosure, improving oversight, promoting integrity in financial markets by preventing market manipulation and fraud, reinforcing international cooperation, and reforming international financial institutions.
  • Pakistani and IMF have agreed on a financial stabilization package for Pakistan worth $7.6 billion loan, $4 million of which will be delivered this year, with the rest to be disbursed during 2009.

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Being Female is a Pre-Existing Condition: The Health Insurance Disparity

healthinsurance.jpgby Zoe Cruz (New York City)

Despite earning fewer cents on each dollar men earn, we women pay more for many of our daily products and services, from haircuts to dry cleaning to socks. But, according to an article recently published in the New York Times, women are also paying another penalty – a significantly higher premium for the same insurance coverage than men.

In the individual insurance market, a woman who is of the same age and has the same occupation is, in some cases, being charged almost 50% more than her male counterpart who is of the same age and occupation. Why is this? Insurers claim that the higher premiums are necessary because women during childbearing years tend to avail themselves more of healthcare benefits. The insurance companies point to an increased cost to insure women not only for childbearing costs but also because women are more likely than men to get checkups, see doctors when they are sick, and actually take the medicine they are prescribed.

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How to Survive the Offsite Meeting

conference.jpgby Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

When news of AIG’s $440,000 executive retreat hit the press just days after the federal bailout, the corporate boondoggle became an endangered species. But corporations will still continue to schedule “working” offsite meetings for their top managers.

The offsite retreat is usually a mix of work and team building sessions. Companies plan these events to strengthen teams, build mission statements or hold strategic planning sessions.

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