Voice of Experience: Ida Liu, Head of the Fashion, Retail and Consumer Group, Citi Private Bank

1001144416[1]by Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Ida Liu creates wealth management strategies for ultra high net worth individuals in her role as Head of the Fashion, Retail and Consumer Group at Citi Private Bank. From high finance to high fashion and back, her career path is a testament to following your passions and to keeping in touch with your contacts.

Born in California and raised in a Mandarin-speaking home by her Chinese parents, Liu said, “My father really is an inspiration to me. He instilled in me from a very young age a work ethic and the ability to work really hard, not give up. I saw him start a business and the can-do attitude and work ethic were instilled in me at a very young age, and still inspire me everyday.”

Liu graduated from Wellesley College with a dual major in Psychology and Chinese Studies, with a concentration in Economics and a passion for fashion. “I was one of six corporate buying interns at Neiman Marcus during my junior summer while at college and was offered a job to be an assistant buyer out of college but decided to take the investment banking route [after acing the on-campus interviews]. At the time, I thought that it would be easier for me to go into investment banking and then into fashion rather than the other way around.”
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Beyond Skills and Smarts: Thriving in the New Economy

Contributed by Liz Cornish, Leadership Coach and Keynote SpeakeriStock_000007832712XSmall

It’s been a tough and frustrating year for financial professionals. Watching other smart, motivated people lose their jobs is sobering. Increased regulation is forcing many institutions that were playing by the rules to endure shrinking margins and panicked customers. It’s like being grounded because your sibling broke curfew. As the economy shifts and uncertainty prevails, what should women in finance do to ensure their own future?

First, congratulate yourself. You’re a motivated woman in the right industry. Sure, there will be changes and disruption, but finance is here to stay. As Patty Vantuhl of Bank of America noted, “There will always be a financial world. Names and players will change. But people will always need a way to store, access, invest, leverage and keep track of their money.” If you were in the newspaper publishing business, this would be a very different article.

So you’re in the right place, right career. Now what? What will it take to thrive in the new economy?
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Ask-A-Career Coach: Is It Possible To Over-Prepare For An Interview?

jobsearchContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart™

In just this past week, several of my clients have sounded tired during our interview practice. I even got a very detailed response that was related to, but not quite exactly on point to what I had asked. These are hardworking jobseekers who I know are diligently working through the coaching assignments. Is it possible to over-prepare for interviews?

Most jobseekers don’t prepare enough. So don’t use this column as permission to slack off your search. You still need to research the company, industry and specific individuals you will be meeting. You still need to stay abreast of current events and be able to engage in timely discussions. You still need to have the 3-4 key message points that will present you in the best light and position you appropriately for the specific job at hand. So there is much work to do, and over-preparation is a rare problem. Read more

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Do Women Create Their Own Glass Ceilings?

By Liz O’Donnell (Boston)Looking up through the glass ceiling

A study from the University of New Mexico Anderson School of Management that shows women managers are three times more likely to underrate their bosses’ opinions of them has led to a flurry of articles and blog posts asking “Do women create their own glass ceilings?”.

The study looked at 251 female and male managers from a variety of industries nationwide. It asked the managers to rate themselves on leadership, communication ability, initiative, self-awareness, self-control, empathy, bond-building, teamwork, conflict management and trustworthiness. It also asked participants to predict how others would rate them and then compared the results with actual ratings from supervisors, peers and staff.

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Voice of Experience: Jan Floyd-Douglass

JAFD_March_2009[1]By Elizabeth Harrin (London)

“I’ve always been a cold contactor,” says Jan Floyd-Douglass, when I ask her how she landed her top city jobs at Zurich and Barclays. “I find it’s much better to circumnavigate all the job ads.”

Jan started out with two job offers on the table: Lloyds and Citicorp and back in the ’70s took the lower paid role because Citi created “a hum” inside of her. It turned out to be a good choice. Over her fourteen years with Citi, she had seven different roles, ultimately ending up as Resident Vice President for mortgage sales.

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In Case You Missed It: Business News Round-up

Contributed by Martin Mitchell of the Corporate Training Group.Martin Mitchel of CTG

The eurozone emerged from recession in the third quarter. U.S. senator Chris Dodd proposed consolidating the four agencies that inspect banks into a single regulator. The London Stock Exchange suffers an embarrassing technical outage. These are but a few highlights of important market events that we’ve gathered to help you start the week well informed.

Economic Backdrop

  • The eurozone emerged from recession with third quarter GDP figures showing a 0.45% expansion for the zone as a whole. Within the zone, Germany grew 0.7% and Italy grew 0.6% whilst France disappointed with just 0.3% growth.
  • The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco anticipates the U.S. facing a slow and protracted L-shaped recovery with only a gradual upward tilt.
  • The Bank of England has upgraded its forecasts for U.K. growth over the next two years. The Bank is forecasting growth of 2.1% for 2010 (up from 1.9%) and 4% in 2011 (up from 3%). However, optimistic figures were counter-balanced by pessimistic rhetoric – such as that the ‘small movements in quarterly growth rates will not alter the extent of the challenges now facing the economy, such is the scale of the fall in output over the past 18 months.’ Read more
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Retaining Technical Talent

By Liz O’Donnell (Boston)Businesswoman

According to a recent report by the Anita Borg Institute (ABI) for Women in Technology, “Retaining a Diverse Technical Pipeline During and After a Recession,” top talent is at risk of disengagement during a recession and should be considered a high flight risk when the recovery starts. Dr. Caroline Simard, vice president of research and executive programs for the Anita Borg Institute and author of the study, cautions that while companies undergo cost-cutting measures to weather a downturn in the economy, they should protect the practices that support a healthy work/life balance. Otherwise, they may experience a spike in turnover when the economy improves.

It makes sense. Often the “survivors” of layoffs are burdened with more work and no extra pay, if not reduced pay, as employers cut staff in order to maintain profitability. The team that remains can experience significant stress from bigger workloads and longer hours. And at the same time that job demands increase, benefits and perks often disappear. While no more free coffee may be disappointing, no more flex time can put pressure on an employee trying to manage childcare, elder care or health issues as well as a career. And the loss of professional development programs such as training and mentoring can lead to cynicism and disengagement from once motivated employees. Simard says these conditions create “a perfect storm” and increase the likelihood that talent will leave once they get the chance.

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Pay Czar Cuts Comp: Can Women Help Correction?

By Liz O’Donnell (Boston)Paid cash

The recent announcement that pay czar Kenneth Feinberg would cut executive compensation for the 25 most highly paid employees at seven Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) recipients (AIG, Bank of America, Citigroup, General Motors Co., GMAC Inc., Chrysler Group LLC and Chrysler Financial) drew strong opinions from Wall Street observers. Most industry insiders feel strongly in favor or against the move. Many believe it demonstrates an over confidence in government. This from a recent op-ed in The New York Times by David Brooks:

“Examples of this overconfidence abound. But let us pick just one: the effort to cap financial compensation…the Obama administration has decided it should take control of compensation reform. Nobody seriously believes high pay caused the financial meltdown; it was bubblicious groupthink. But cutting executive pay just polls so well.”

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Voice of Experience: Stephanie Hauge, President, Financial Women’s Association

hauge_stephanie72_06[1]by Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

“Gender diversification represents a range of approaches to risk analysis and problem solving. All of that is part of the equation of getting better decisions made in a company; it isn’t just to dress up the boardroom or the C-suite with females. If there had been different perspectives and different experiences among the leadership and decision-makers [of the companies that were at the center of the financial meltdown], I believe it could have had a very different outcome.” said Stephanie Hauge, president of the Financial Women’s Association.

Hauge started her own financial career at a pharma company in New Jersey. Working as a marketing customer service representative while attending night school at Seton Hall—first for her B.A. in Accounting and then her M.B.A. in Finance—she saw firsthand the importance of gender diversity and the challenges women face in the workplace.

“I was one of just a few women in the accounting department. A senior accountant at the time, I ended up filling in for my boss when he was not doing his job. When he was eventually let go, there was a lot of external and internal support for me to be moved up into his position. But, [some months later when I still hadn’t been promoted and/or gotten a pay raise], I went to the head of the department to ask why, since I was already doing the job. The department head actually said to me, ‘If I promote you into this position, then all those guys I play golf with will work for a woman and I can’t do that to them.’ Although after some further conversation, I was officially appointed into the position, that incident made me question whether or not I would want to continue there, but it also was a seminal moment in terms of my focus on helping other women. ”

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The end of the road for women’s networks?

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By Elizabeth Harrin (London)Group Disscussion

“About 30 years worth of effort has gone into promoting more women into senior leadership,” says Avivah Wittenberg-Cox. “We have to stop bringing groups of women together to talk about what we know is going wrong.”

Traditionally, women’s networks have been the ‘answer’ to the issue of getting more women into senior positions. Networks provide the opportunity to, well, network, and to meet and listen to senior women who then become role models. After all, if your after-dinner speaker made it to the top, why can’t you? But according to the women on the podium at a recent event hosted by Morgan Stanley, women’s networks are an outdated concept that do more harm than good.

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