The Great Distraction

Times are tough. People are losing jobs, losing homes, and losing heart. While we at The Pink Agenda haven’t yet come up with a plan to get the economy back on track, we know that any stimulus package

of ours would include a seriously spectacular party.

Having said that, we hope you’ll join us for The Great Distraction on Wednesday, February 25, an evening of entertainment and escapism.

Get ready for some fantastic food, great drinks, amazing music, and lots of good karma. The donation is $20 and, thanks to our sponsors, we’re offering complimentary Pink Agenda cocktails until 9:00 p.m. and a chance to win a weekend stay in a suite at the Hotel Rivington. Because, let’s face it, we could all use a little break from reality.

Please be sure to RSVP by February 18 and include your company affiliation. There will be a strict door policy, and RSVPs are not only encouraged but required.

See you on the 25th.

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Ask-A-Recruiter: Personal Performance Reviews

istock_000005168521xsmall1.jpgContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

Last week I wrote about how to maximize your company review process. This week’s piece is for those employees at companies that do not have a formal review process. Furthermore, I coached a mid-career researcher last week who felt adrift in her career. When we actually itemized where she was and what she needed to do, she felt energized and inspired (and much more confident). Effective reviews accomplish three main things: measuring progress; setting goals; and defining an action plan. Whatever your job situation — if you work for yourself, are an employee or are in between jobs — give yourself a personal performance review.

Read more

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Leading Women MASS: Fire Up Your Job Search Workshop

Feeling confident in the way you approach your job search is essential to a successful job transition. In this difficulty economy, it may be time to redirect your current strategies and put winning techniques to work. This workshop will address the do’s and don’ts of writing a resume, key networking tools, starting a new career, pursuing entrepreneurship and much more.

seating is limited and advance registration is required. Register here

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Wall Street … Or What?

“Wall Street…Or What?” is a 5-session program for Wall Street women who have reached the Vice President level or above, and are looking for help as they plan their next career move. To ensure that all participants are coming at the question of “what’s next” with current perspectives, returning professionals must have left the investment world within the last three years.

This workshop will be a combination of high-level support group and structured executive coaching-giving like-minded women the opportunity to explore options and gain job search momentum and accountability through collective resources, ideas and perspectives.

Each session will be led by Sharon Dauk, an executive coach who trained at the highly regarded Columbia University coaching program. Sharon is one of you: she has nearly 20 years of diverse professional experience as an investor, board member, financial advisor and business executive with a variety of small to mid-sized companies. An alumna of both the Smith Barney and Morgan Stanley corporate finance departments, she earned an MBA from Cornell. A major focus of her coaching practice is working with professionals transitioning both into and out of the financial services industry. Learn more about Sharon at www.sharondauk.com.

Workshop sessions will be held on five consecutive Tuesday nights, beginning on February 24th, 6:30 to 8:30pm. The other workshop dates are March 3rd, 10th, 17th and 24th. As you consider if you would like to participate, be sure that you are available on all five dates: there are no partial fees or refunds if you are unable to attend on one or more dates.

For further information please contact Kathryn Sollmann.

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WEC NY Presented Panel on Corporate Boards

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Contributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart

On Tuesday, February 10th in New York City, the Women’s Executive Circle of New York presented “Tips For Landing That Boardroom Post: An Insider’s View.” The panel to encourage and inform women on how to get on corporate boards featured:

  • Ted Jadick, Heidrick & Struggles Managing Partner and search recruiter for many top Fortune 500 corporate boards
  • Yvonne Jackson, President of Beecher Jackson and board member of several non-profit and corporate boards
  • Nancy Newcomb, a retired senior executive of Citigroup and board member of several non-profit and corporate boards

The panel was moderated by Nicole Sebastian, Heidrick & Struggles, an associate in the Corporate Boards practice group. Read more

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School Visiting Professorial Fellow Lecture – Why So Slow? The Advancement of Women

Speakers

  • School Visiting Professorial Fellow, Professor Virginia Valian
  • Chaired by the Dean, Professor Sir Roderick Floud

DescriptionWomen are conspicuous by their relative absence at the most prominent levels of science, medicine, business, law, and academia. Women are sparsely represented on the editorial boards of leading journals and on the steering committees of professional organizations. Women are thinly represented among full professors at major universities. Why?

Valian’s explanation of women’s slow advancement in the professions details how and why women are disadvantaged and men advantaged – even though all the participants sincerely hold egalitarian and meritocratic attitudes. Valian reviews experimental data that demonstrate that gender schemas produce subtle overvaluations of men and undervaluations of women, by both men and women. As a result of many small examples of differential valuation, men are able to accumulate advantage more quickly than women.

Valian includes remedies, what institutions and individuals can do to achieve genuinely fair organizations that make full use of everyone’s talents.

The Lecture will be followed by a drink reception.

To view the poster, please click here.

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Women Lawyers May Be At Risk During the Recession

law.JPGby Anna Collins, Esq. (Portland, Maine)

On February 12, 2009, just a few days before Valentine’s Day, the legal industry experienced what some have labeled “Black Thursday” – more than 700 jobs were cut at major law firms that day with another 400 confirmed the next day by Am Law Daily. Anyone who still doubts the legal profession is feeling the recession, can glance at the sobering layoff statistics committed to keeping a focus on those who are “in, or refugees from BigLaw.”

So, who exactly are the refugees? As the New York Times reported earlier this month, 82 percent of the job losses in the overall labor market have been experienced by men, who are heavily represented in impacted industries like manufacturing and construction. In order to determine whether a similar trend is developing in law, we chatted with several experts in the employment and human resources field. Their observations highlight the possibility that women lawyers may actually be the ones more at risk during the recession.At first glance, the layoffs in the legal field mirror those in the overall labor market.

Read more

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Mover and Shaker: Maria Weaver Watson, Director of Strategic Marketing, Interactive One

MWeaverWatsonphoto3_1_.jpegby Anna Collins, Esq. (Portland, Maine)

As Director of Strategic Marketing at Interactive One, Maria Weaver Watson is responsible for leading all consumer and trade marketing and public relations for a company that provides the #1 online platform for a broad swath of the African American community. Watson is also the great-great grand daughter of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who has continued her family legacy by giving back to the community through an active involvement on boards and organizations including Standup for Kids, iMentor and Council of Urban Professionals.

Watson’s work at Interactive One, which serves more than 9 million users, is delicately connected to her community involvement. In fact, these two aspects of Watson’s accomplished life are openly inter-related. When Watson considered joining Interactive One, she found herself attracted to the company’s mission to serve the African American community through online content and social media. Today, she feels very strongly about her role at Interactive One, explaining “I’m actually making a difference to the community, and that is personally rewarding.”

Read more

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In Case You Missed It: News Round-Up

martin.jpgContributed by Martin Mitchell of the Corporate Training Group

In case you were too busy to have kept up with all the news, contributor Martin Mitchell has gathered some important market events from last week to help you start this week well informed:

Mergers and Acquisition

  • Two of the five consortia considering bids for London’s Gatwick airport have dropped out – the Gatwick Future Partnership led by Babcock & Brown’s European Infrastructure Fund and Deutsche Bank’s RREEF infrastructure fund, and the consortium made up of 3i’s infrastructure arm and two Canadian pension schemes have both pulled out. The three groups still in the bidding are Global Infrastructure Partners (including Credit Suisse and General Electric), Lysander Gatwick Investment (including Citi Infrastructure Investors) and Manchester Airport Group. Bids are expected to exceed £1.65bn.
  • Chinese group Minmetals has unveiled a friendly A$2.6bn takeover offer for Australian miner Oz Minerals.
  • BG Group has increased its cash bid for Pure Energy Resources, the Australian gas company and made it unconditional, indicating it is prepared to accept a minority stake. The bid values Pure at £450m, against a competing bid from Arrow Energy of Australia that mixes cash and shares and is worth around £398m.
  • US media company Liberty Media has agreed to invest up to $530m for 40% of Sirius XM, a US satellite radio company.
  • Japanese beer company Kirin is spending in excess of $1.2bn buying a 49% stake in the Philippines’ largest brewer San Miguel Corp.

Read more

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Businesswomen in India

iStock_000002848681XSmall_1_.jpgBy Deb Katula (Chicago)

Four Indian women are listed among the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women – two are in government, one is a self-made biotech powerhouse, and the other, Indra Nooyi, is the US-based CEO of Pepsico. Conspicuously missing are the women of India’s corporate sector.

In 1991, in an effort to combat widespread poverty, India undertook serious economic reforms, eschewing market controls and opening its economy to the world. The resulting multinational corporation mass entry into the market allowed women to enter and excel in non-traditional (i.e., not teaching or nursing), corporate professions and in banking and IT in particular.

While significant progress has been made for women in the Indian corporate world, there is a long way to go. According to a Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) source, only a handful of women sit on the boards of the 4,864 companies listed: currently only 4.9% of the 12,741 directors on the boards of these companies are women and, out of the top 100 companies listed on the BSE, only 34.7% of the directors are women.

As in most other countries, one reason for the comparatively low number of women at the top of corporations is the difficulty balancing work obligations with home obligations. In India, this is a particularly challenging issue as women are still primarily responsible for children and the home (including their in-law’s home life), whether or not they work outside the home.

The good news is that there are a handful of successful Indian businesswomen – women like Naina Lal Kidwai, Chief Executive Officer of The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation India branches; Hewlett Packard’s Managing Director Neelam Dhawan; and Jayashree Vallal from Cisco Systems, among others. These are the women who are paving the way for a new generation of businesswomen, breaking free of traditional roles and cracking India’s corporate glass ceiling.

Opportunities for training and mentoring by these successful businesswomen will pave the way into the next decade, inspiring the next generation of young women. The role of women in top positions will continue to increase as their input and ideas are tapped to ensure the continued success of India’s economic future.

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