Elizabeth Schneider, Managing Director, Citisoft

Elizabeth Schneider_CitisoftBy Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

“Education is continuous. The day I stop learning is the day I’ll die,” said Elizabeth Schneider, the managing director at Citisoft.

She credits her mother for instilling this value in her. “My mother was the oldest of nine children in a very poor family. My mother, who barely spoke English at the time, took on the role of trying to educate herself and raise her brothers and sisters in a very tough time right during the Depression. She realized that if you look at education as a lifestyle and more than academic you will grow and learn things that will propel you forward much more quickly than just classroom learning. From an early age, my siblings and I were involved in learning in all forms: drama, dance, community service, sports, and travel.”

After graduating from McGill University with a Bachelor of Science, Schneider entered into the evening MBA program at Babson College. And shortly thereafter, she got her first break at Fidelity Investments in entry level fund accounting. “[The man] who hired me took a chance and hired me [even though I had no experience working with securities].” Schneider continued, “Unlike today, there wasn’t anywhere in the academic world that focused on trading operations. At the time, the only way you learned this was through experience. [My boss] gave me the opportunity to get in there and learn.”

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Building Diversity: The AXA Equitable Connection

iStock_000009443536XSmallBy Elizabeth Harrin (London)

Would you attend a summit called ‘Finding Your Passion and Living Your Purpose’? Plenty of female employees at AXA Equitable did. “We thought that women at AXA would benefit from working together to create opportunities to do more – for themselves and for the company,” says Barbara Goodstein, Executive Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at AXA Equitable Life Insurance Company. “We wanted to do something to help create a community for women at AXA. We also feel that given the financial crisis around us, this is the ideal time to connect the women in the company and create a community to support and enable each other.”

This event was the launch of The AXA Equitable Connection – the company’s new women’s programme. Approximately 63 percent of the total AXA Equitable employee population is female, and the company realised that women’s financial needs are different. “Women live longer, they often have been less involved in managing the family finances, and women historically have earned 80% of what men earn for similar jobs,” says Goodstein. “So there is a real need for financial education and support. We want to be the first company women think of when they are looking for financial information and guidance; we want to be the first company women consider when they are interested in pursuing a career in financial services.”

Through The AXA Equitable Connection female employees and financial professionals are building a community through which they can draw from their collective strength, insight and experience to enhance career growth and opportunities. The plans is that AXA Equitable will foster this community through events, mentoring relationships, employee resource groups and networking.

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35 Under 35: Laura Bissell, Managing Director, Okapi Partners

By Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)LABFullPhoto[1]

“You have to set goals—even if they are little goals—to achieve something. Every day set a goal,” said Laura Bissell, Managing Director of Okapi Partners. She spent her childhood watching her mother, a well-known interior designer in Boston, do just that, growing her fledgling business into a booming one. “My mother started it out of her home and built it into a thriving company. It took her a lot of hard work and blood, sweat and tears but she knew what she wanted and worked for what she wanted. That is where a lot of my ambition comes from.”

Bissell started her career with Globix, an internet service provider, in the “heyday of the technology sector.” There she underwent four months of intensive training in many different technologies, a background she would have the opportunity to use later in her career.

When it was time to move on, she “fell into” the little-known industry in which she would ultimately make her name: the proxy solicitation industry. “I wanted to be in the financial realm because I’ve always been mathematically-minded. I was networking through people I knew from both Colgate University and [her high school] Andover and found Georgeson Shareholder, a well-known name in the proxy solicitation business. I started there from the bottom up,first working as a project manger in the mutual funds area doing the day-to-day grunt work of proxy solicitation business, like talking to the vendors and really just doing the math.”

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Working Mother Top Companies List: The Success Stories in Big Law

working motherBy Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

Four law firms made the Working Mother magazine Top 100 companies this year. Considering the legal profession’s reputation, this is encouraging news.

Washington, D.C.-based Arnold & Porter is on the list for the tenth time, and the sixth consecutive year. Says Managing Partner, Richard M. Alexander, “Working mothers are a vital part of our work force. Our goal is to have programs and benefits in place to enable them to balance their professional life with the needs of raising a family.”

The firm was recognized specifically for its unique on ramping/off ramping policies. The practice lets lawyers leave for up to three years and encourages them to keep in touch via development opportunities. Arnold & Porter also offers generous flexibility and child care at its Washington headquarters and close to its Manhattan office. And, particularly relevant this winter as the H1N1 virus is expected to cause turmoil for working parents, Arnold & Palmer lets employees take six paid weeks of leave. Their strategy is clearly paying off. Forty percent of the firm’s managers, 50 percent of its top earners, and 32 percent of its directors are women.

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Voice of Experience: Virginia Gambale, Managing Partner of Azimuth Partners LLC

Virginia_GambaleBy Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

A career in music requires discipline, years of study, and a desire to perform. Trained early as a classical pianist, Virginia Gambale was well on her way. “My first ‘job’ [as a child] was to take apart a complex Fugue. I had to concentrate for hours at a time, and practice 10 hours a day . [As a result,] I was more mature and focused than any other kid in my grade.”

“I always had a left and right brain battling for dominance,” said Gambale, “so although I was always very strong in math and science, I was planning to pursue a career in music.” She studied at the Hartt Conservatory in Connecticut and spent most of her days in the City studying with the faculty from the New York schools.

Gambale continued, “But when I went to see a musician friend’s debut performance, I said to him that his life was set.” His response to her—‘you don’t understand. I live on Avenue A, bathroom is down the hall and I eat brown rice 3 times a day. Nothing about my life will change’—“hit me like a ton of bricks,” said Gambale. She decided that was not going to be her reality. She said, “I had always been a very independent child and had never wanted to have anyone support me. So independence and the ability to take care of myself was a driving factor.”

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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 U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer’s pre-budget report includes a 50% levy on bank bonuses of more than £25,000. Barack Obama plans to utilise the $200bn of unused Tarp funds to boost job creation. Japan announced a Y7,200bn stimulus package to help the country’s economic recovery. These are but a few highlights of important market events that we’ve gathered to help you start the week well informed.

Economic Backdrop

  • U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Alastair Darling presented his pre-budget report. The government is projecting borrowings of £178bn in the current 2009/10 year, then £176bn in 2010/11 and £140bn in 2011/12. Thereafter it will fall to reach around £82bn in 2014/15. The pre-budget report also included a one-off 50% levy on bank bonuses of more than £25,000 that will only apply until 5 April 2010.
  • Spain became the latest sovereign issuer to come under scrutiny as Standard & Poor’s revised its outlook from ‘stable’ to ‘negative’. Spain’s long-term outlook is currently AA+.
  • Barack Obama plans to utilise the $200bn of unused funds from the troubled asset relief programme (Tarp) by boosting resources for job creation.
  • The U.K. economy grew by 0.2% in the three months to November according to the National Institute for Economic and Social Research. This followed a contraction of 0.3% in the three months to October.
  • Japan announced a Y7,200bn ($80bn) stimulus package to help the country’s fragile economic recovery.
  • The German government looks set to pass an €8.5bn package of tax cuts to stimulate demand.

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Work-Life Balance Retreats for Women

relaxed business womanBy Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

It’s an unfortunate fact that there are certain things in life that must be re-taught after years of plugging away at work, giving all of ourselves to our employers and families, and going months without a serious break of any kind.

Sometimes we must re-learn how to take care of ourselves, how to make time for ourselves, how to become rested, centered, and refocused. Providing women with the platform and tools necessary to make these things happen has recently become a top priority for Martha Simpson and Jo Adams, whose UK-based LadyLeader Retreats are currently making a big splash in their native Scotland.

Both Simpson and Adams are life coaches who, after meeting over a cup of coffee at a networking event, decided to move forward with Simpson’s plan of creating a personal and professional development program specifically geared towards women.

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The Walker Report: What’s Next for Corporate Governance in the UK?

By Elizabeth Harrin (London)Business people work colleagues

Earlier this year Sir David Walker was asked by the UK Government to examine corporate governance in the banking industry. His consultative report was released in July and caused a stir with its far-reaching recommendations about the role of non-executive directors, the establishment of board risk committees and remuneration. There was a lot of chatter in the news about the fact that the Government was not going to adopt these recommendations. Were they too unpopular? Too wide-ranging? Too complicated? Probably a bit of all of those.

However, the final Walker report has just been issued and on 26 November the UK Government announced that they would “move quickly” to implement the necessary reforms.

What started out as a report into the state of banking was extended to cover other financial institutions, where the recommendations were applicable. It was an extensive study of what could be better, including how financial incentives for board members impact the propensity to manage risk effectively, the balance of skills, experience and independence required on boards and whether the UK approach is consistent with international practice. The overarching message throughout the report is one of poor governance practices, and Sir David is clear about the lack of control. “Serious deficiencies in prudential oversight and financial regulation in the period before the [economic] crisis were accompanied by major governance failures within banks,” he writes. “These contributed materially to excessive risk taking and to the breadth and depth of the crisis.”

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Voice of Experience: Dr. Sherry Cooper, Executive Vice-President and Global Economic Strategist of BMO Financial Group and Chief Economist of BMO Capital Markets

CooperBy Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Dr. Sherry Cooper, Executive Vice-President and Global Economic Strategist of BMO Financial Group, was destined for the world of finance. An entrepreneur from an early age, Dr. Cooper said, “When I was 12, I spent the summer babysitting. But I didn’t just watch one child. I would gather all the children from up and down the street and take them into my backyard and watch them. At $50 per child, I made quite a bit of money that summer.” One of her role models was her great aunt, who was a “hotshot in mortgage finance” long before it was even a possibility for most women.

But despite the early attraction to finance, it took some time before she embraced it as a career path. Dr. Cooper marveled, “I always assumed that I would just get married and be a homemaker. Until I got to Goucher College, it never occurred to me that I would have a career for the rest of my life.”

She graduated first in her class with a dual degree in economics and math, and then continued on to the University of Pittsburgh for a Ph.D. in economics. Although Dr. Cooper wasn’t interested in academia, she still didn’t see any future in a financial institution. “I grew up in a time when there were very few women in banking or finance so it never occurred to me as a possibility.”

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Managing Men

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woman managerBy Liz O’Donnell (Boston)

The Institute of Leadership and Management, a UK-based organization that helps companies improve standards of leadership as well as individual and team performance, recently released a research report titled, “Index of Leadership Trust 2009.”

The report looked at six areas by which leadership is measured: ability, understanding, fairness, openness, integrity and consistency and asked respondents to assign importance to each of them. The Institute then examined the results based on the size of the organizations, the length of time in leadership, and the age and gender of managers and subordinates. The report revealed that, “Ageism and sexism are largely and reassuringly absent from the findings of this research. The most significant trend to emerge is that employees show slightly more trust in managers ‘in their own image’ – that is, of the same sex and similar age to themselves.”

While sexism doesn’t play an obvious role in managers building trust, the findings do underscore one of the key challenges in advancing women to the C-suite. Many believe that businesses “hunker down” in difficult times, like the recession and jobless recovery, and tap the resources that walk, talk and look like them. So even though more women are now reporting to work than men are, with so few women still at the top of businesses, the men already in power will typically turn to other men to make key decisions and fill critical roles.

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