On Your Bookshelf: Glass Ceilings & 100-Hour Couples

BooksBy Andrea Newell (Grand Rapids, Michigan)

If you are a professional woman with children, you have faced the decision about whether to keep working or stay at home. No matter which route you chose to take, most likely the bulk of household responsibilities still fall on your shoulders, and you have begun the inevitable balancing act of work and family.

There are endless articles, books and discussion about work/life balance. But those of us who are currently trying to walk that tightrope know – there is no balance. Something has to give, and more often than not, the woman is the one who gives.

In their book Glass Ceilings & 100 Hour Couples – What the Opt-Out Phenomenon Can Teach Us About Work and Family, authors (and working mothers) Karine Moe and Dianna Shandy highlight the growing trend of highly educated women who walk away from their rising star careers in order to focus on family.

I admit that it sounds nice. On days when I am in my car, taking my kids to daycare before going to work, I see other mothers waiting for the bus with their children and pushing strollers around the neighborhood and I sigh, thinking the grass is greener in the neighbor’s lawn. But I also know the reality – I’ve stayed home with three small kids for 12 hours at a time, and it’s no picnic. Stay at home moms work hard, too. So, what, then, is the answer? Through numerous interviews, research, and surveys, Moe and Shandy paint a picture of the road not taken for women on both sides of this decision. One constant that remained through all conversations, data, and feedback, is the 100-hour couples – the norm rather than the exception in America today – are most poised to fall off the tightrope and report the highest levels of stress.

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New Catalyst Report: Senior Women 3 Times More Likely to Lose Job than Senior Men

srwomanBy Elisabeth Grant (Washington, D.C.)

Everyone has been hit by the current state of the economy, but are women in senior leadership positions being hit harder?

A new Catalyst report says yes, three times harder.

The report, titled “Opportunity or Setback? High Potential Women and Men During Economic Crisis,” showed a striking difference for women executives when compared to men in the same positions. From those surveyed for the study, three times more women at the executive level, at 19%, had lost their jobs when their companies downsized or closed, as compared to executive men, of which only 6% had lost their jobs. Interestingly, for both women and men beneath the executive level job loss was exactly the same, at 11%. 

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Voice of Experience: Robin Ross, Managing Director, Interest Rate Products, CME Group

Ross_3525-1By Jessica Titlebaum (Chicago)

“As soon as I walked onto the trading floor they had me hook, line and sinker,” said Robin Ross, Managing Director of Interest Rate products at CME Group. “You could almost taste what was going on in the markets.”

Originally from Little Rock, Arkansas, Ross learned about Municipal Bonds from her father. When his eyesight deteriorated, she would read call features for the bonds from the books her dad brought home. She joined her father’s firm during her senior year of college and the company sponsored her to take the NASD Series 7 Test. At the time, she was the youngest woman to pass the test.

“There were no women in the municipal bond business in Little Rock,” said Ross. “Men thought it was cute that I wanted to sell bonds.”

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Ask-A-Career Coach: Getting Back Into the Career Game

jobsearchContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart™

In the past three weeks, I’ve had three questions about career re-entry:
I had a high-level sales job but took seven years off to focus on family. I’ve done some non-profit volunteer work. How do I get back to for-profit and paid?
I sold my company and have been consulting part-time since. How do I ramp back up to a full-time career?
I retired but want to come back. How do I start?

Career re-entry is similar to career change in that you are moving into a substantially different circumstance from where you are now. In the case of career changes, sometimes you change the industry: the stay at home mom in the above example is moving from education where she has done most of her volunteer work to luxury goods where her target re-entry will be. Sometimes you change the function: the company founder went from CEO to consultant and wants to go into investments. Sometimes you change the geography: the retiree is coming back to a similar position but is launching a national search and open to relocation.

In all cases, you want to clearly demonstrate how your value translates from one circumstance to the next. Read more

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Cautious Optimism at the FWA’s Economic Forum II: The American Worker

cautious optimismBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Last night the Financial Women’s Association of New York held the second of its Economic Panel series: The American Worker. Moderated by Patti Domm, Executive News Editor of CNBC, Panelists included Richard B. Hoey, Chief Economist at BNY Mellon and The Dreyfus Corporation, Joseph A. LaVorgna, Managing Director and Chief US Economist, Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc., and Edward F. Keon, Managing Director and Portfolio Manager, Quantitative Management Associates (QMA).

The discussion focused on the state of the economy and unemployment as the Untied States exits the recent recession. LaVorgna started the evening asking for a show of hands – how many in the audience were worried about a “double dip” recession, as defined by the economy “rolling back” within a twelve month period following a recession. More than half the audience raised their hands.

LaVorgna had some positive information though – only three times, he said, since 1884 has a double dip occurred – the most recent in the 1980-81 cycle. In fact, all three panelists expressed doubt that the recession would see a double dip. Hoey said, for example, that the 1980 recession is inherently different than the recent economic downturn. He explained that the reason for the 1980-81 double dip was anti-inflationary policy by then-Fed chief Paul Volcker – an intentional double dip.

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Do Millennial Women Truly Have It All?

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genYoptimisticBy Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

It seems as if young working women not only feel as if they can have it all, but a shockingly high percentage reports that they do have it all. According to recent research by Accenture, young professional women ages 22-35 – otherwise known as “millennial women” – believe they will have rewarding careers in equal balance with fulfilling personal lives, despite a rough economy and corporate structures that are still lacking in their understanding of women’s dual obligations in the workplace and at home.

The Millennial Women Workplace Success Index marked the results of an online study taken by 1,000 millennial women currently employed full-time in the U.S. According to the index, 94 percent believe they will achieve a work/life balance and even more astonishing, almost half (46 percent) of the women surveyed believe their work life and personal life are in equal balance.

Accenture’s U.S. Human Capital and Diversity Managing Director Lamae Allen deJongh was extremely surprised by the index’s findings- as were many, but she does not believe that the statistics are the result of naiveté on behalf of young or inexperienced women. “I think the results speak to the high degree of confidence of millennial women,” deJongh said. “And because of their confidence, their work/life balance goals are realistic. Having a satisfying professional life and a gratifying personal life is important to them; it exemplifies the fact that they believe they can have it all.”

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Voice of Experience: Diane Garnick, Investment Strategist, Invesco

Diane GarnickBy Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Called the “Princess of Perseverance” by many who know her, Diane Garnick brings her positive attitude to everything she does. “When people ask me what I am doing right now,” says Invesco‘s Investment Strategist, “I tell them I am in wild pursuit of lifelong dream to provide financial security for as many people as possible.” She added, “My greatest accomplishment is when clients who are senior people—the sophisticated investors—call me and ask ‘can you please explain this to me?’. That is the best feeling in the world because if I help them and they do a better job managing pension assets, every single person who worked, and is relying on that money for their retirement, will do better.”

It would be an understatement to refer to Garnick’s beginnings as humble. “We were very poor,” she said. “There were many times we didn’t have enough food to eat, many times we didn’t have hot water or heat, and other times that the house would be locked by the bank.”

Garnick remembered, “Someone gave us a very small black and white TV that if we adjusted the antennae just right we could get PBS. On Friday nights [while I watched the Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser program on PBS], I would think to myself, ‘wow these people who understand Wall Street…their kids are the luckiest kids in the world because those kids probably always have food. They never worry about whether there is going to be heat.’” She would ask herself, “Could you imagine being one of those kids?’” She vowed that, if she made it through those tough times, she would make sure that her kids—and children everywhere—would never suffer the way she and her siblings did.

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Microfinance in Haiti – One Woman’s Story

Photo by Kelly Atlas-Bache

Photo by Kelly Atlas-Bache

Contributed by Heather Balke

In March 2009, I boarded a plane destined for Port-au-Prince, Haiti. I wasn’t sure what was ahead, but I knew it was going to be a learning opportunity and an adventure. A month earlier I signed up to go to Haiti on a microfinance delegation with Fonkoze USA, to see first-hand the programs and activities of Fonkoze, Haiti’s largest rural microfinance institution.

My experience began with peering out a jeep window as we left the Port-au-Prince airport. I saw the most glaring urban poverty, ramshackle buildings half erected and children chasing pigs in the street. As we meandered up the hill towards Fonkoze headquarters, I viewed what I considered to be a garbage dump next to homes on the main road. I did a double take when I saw a woman defecating in that dump in broad daylight, and in plain view.

That evening at the historic Hotel Olaffson, Anne Hastings, the Director of Fonkoze, told the story on how she built Fonkoze from a vision of Father Joseph Philippe, Fonkoze’s founder. In the early 1990’s, when a hard-fought democratic system was taking hold in Haiti, Father Joseph knew in his heart that political democracy would mean little without what he called, “economic democracy.”

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Is There a Woman in the House?

10 Downing StreetBy Cleo Thompson (London), founder of The Gender Blog

Lee Chalmers is a woman on a mission – and that mission is to transform the face of leadership and, more crucially, to change what gets recognised as leadership – in both business and British politics. London based, she runs an executive coaching business Authentic Living, working with men and women to help them live their lives with purpose, in an authentic style. Her clients include major global companies in financial services, banking, oil and gas and she has worked all over the world with a variety of different cultures and leadership styles.

Chalmers’ crossover from business to politics came in the summer of 2008, when she realised that many of the issues impacting women and leadership styles which she saw in the corporate world were mirrored in UK politics. Despite constituting 51% of the population, British women still hold only 11% of directorships in business boardrooms, 19.3% of seats in the Houses of Parliament – and there has only ever been one female inhabitant (Margaret Thatcher) of 10 Downing Street, the official residence of the British Prime Minister.

Together with writer Indra Adnan, an exponent of the concepts of soft power and balanced leadership, Chalmers founded the Downing Street Project in 2009. Chalmers and Adnan were inspired by Marie Wilson’s US-based work and progress with the White House Project and thought that the UK needed a similar organisation and political intervention.

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Women and the Boardroom: Practice effective networking at all levels of your career to be on track for the boardroom

Nicki HeadshotBy Nicki Gilmour, Founder and CEO of theglasshammer.com

We know that boards have not been historically women-friendly and the numbers of women on corporate boards are still incredibility low despite the strong correlation between diversity of thought and company performance. Specifically, when there is a critical mass of women board members (which is quoted as 3 female seats at the table) a tipping point is created for a successful attempt at inclusion with the desired benefit of breaking groupthink.

Many senior women have made it to the top of their department, and even make it into the executive management team. But they find themselves at a loss because they just haven’t built the network they need to take them from being a respected professional to recognized expert to a formal director of a company on a corporate board.

“No women can be chosen for a job, promotion, a nomination for public office, a seat on a board of directors, a slot in a training program unless women are in the pool of finalists” states Linda Tarr-Whelan in her book Women lead the Way.

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