Voice of Experience: Colette Taylor, Managing Director and COO of Americas Institutional at Russell Investments

By Gigi DeVault (Munich)

A well-stocked kitchen cabinet is more than a reassuring comfort; it can get you through some hard times. If you ask Colette Taylor, Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer of Americas Institutional at Russell Investments and founding president of Russell’s Women’s Network, about her “kitchen cabinet,” she will not talk to you about shelves lined with orderly packages of staples and foodstuffs. Referring instead to Harvard professor Bill George‘s cabinet concept, she will tell you about a cabinet of advisors on whom she can lean for support in difficult times—times like those from which executives across the globe are emerging and through which they are leading their firms. In 2009, Taylor’s own personal board of directors, made up of coworkers, professional coaches, family members and friends, created a platform on which she could strip away distractions, get back to basics, and focus on relationships.

Getting back to basics can mean becoming leaner as an organization. This can be bad news for a program that receives corporate support, such as mentorship programs. As Taylor says, “A formal mentoring program can get lost because it can be considered less of a priority. But mentoring is always going on whether there is a formal program or not; people continue to reach out.” To get the most benefit from a mentoring program, she might remind you to look into your own kitchen cabinet. “One of the things that I have learned is that mentoring can have two facets—one for developing specific skill sets focused on the ‘professional,’ and one for work/life balance. Sometimes those are two different mentors because they are such different conversations. There is tremendous value in hearing from a diverse set of perspectives. This can uncover something you have never thought about—an idea from left field.” And that maverick perspective may be just what is needed. “I’ve been both a mentor and a mentee. I enjoy being on both sides; when you are a mentor, you are getting mentored at the same time. If you are really open to the mentoring relationship—really listening— it can change you.”

Relationships – Career Pivot Points

Strong relationships have been a pivot point for Taylor throughout her career. Before coming onboard at Russell, Taylor worked for BNY Mellon (formerly Russell/Mellon Analytical Services) as manager of a client service unit. “I’ve chosen to take my career in different directions and as a result my career path has not been one that follows a straight line. Looking back, I have found this has given me a wide set of skills,” she said.

To have a shot at opportunities that help grow skills and follow a career path that is to a large degree of one’s own design, Taylor suggests that a woman may need to be more directive than what feels comfortable. “One of the challenges for women is that it is not always our first nature to ‘manage up.’ It is a paradigm shift to think that you might need to manage your boss in some respects.” That Taylor has successfully spoken up and owned her fate is evidenced by her career trajectory to Russell’s upper echelon.

Service Leadership – Going the Extra Mile, Uphill

“Something that is very important to me is servant leadership – it is about “serving” those who you are leading.” For Taylor, servant leadership extends to time outside the workplace and she acknowledges that having the time and energy to volunteer in the community “changes throughout your life. I probably could not have fit in some of my most recent activities until a few years ago, as my kids became more independent.”

In any career, “there will be tradeoffs,” Taylor admits. “I feel it’s important to be clear about those tradeoffs and confirm those choices – or not. On a personal level, always make sure that what you are spending 10 or 12 hours a day on is feeding your passion. Focus on what contributes to you and then how you can turn that around to benefit an organization. Each woman will have a different answer today and possibly a different answer one, three or five years from now.”

“My belief in servant leadership is why I raised my hand to head the Women’s Network at Russell.” As in most firms today, Russell’s employee talent is viewed as the firm’s most important asset, and one of the biggest priorities going forward in the industry is talent retention. “We have some of the best women in the industry with strong skill sets, top-notch communications abilities, and excellent leadership skills.” As founding president of Russell’s Women’s Network, Taylor works to bring career-broadening strategies to the group’s members and to help ensure that the firm’s talent retention strategies sustain a healthy focus on diversity.

Diversity – Engineering for Strength, Flexibility, & Performance

Taylor recognizes that diverse perspectives secure a support network, deepen a mentoring relationship, and strengthen a corporation by serving as an avenue for developing and retaining talent. When a bridge is engineered to create a strong, sustainable structure that spans a gap, it may employ angular trusses—triangles whose sides are oriented at odds and in different planes. The question becomes: Crossing this bridge, do we get efficaciously to the other side? “It is not about accommodations, it is about diversity being a strategic business strategy for organizations,” she explained.

A recently released report by McKinsey & Company argues that companies where women are most strongly represented at board or top-management levels are also the companies with the best organizational and financial performance. Taylor says, “The message in these studies is that diversity adds value for the clients and thus the organization.”

“Studies have shown successful organizations reap the economic benefits of diversity,” she says, “because they tap into the unique skills sets of the varying people sitting around the table. Diversity and inclusion efforts, of which the Women’s Network is one, have helped Russell to capture the hearts and minds of associates .”

The business advantages that can be achieved when a firm attends to greater diversity in their ranks, coupled with the branding benefit of being a socially progressive company, write a clear business case for women. Taylor and the members of the Women’s Network at Russell may add their own narrative to that business case. You can be sure copies will be at the table when members of their “kitchen cabinets” take their respective places.

Women are now the majority of the workforce and a significant economic force as consumers. Organizations that learn how to best tap into the hearts and minds of women as employees and consumers will be light years ahead of the pack—by all measures.