6 Ways Transparency Can Boost Women in Leadership in the Financial Services

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iStock_000006074898XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

This month the Financial News released the results of its fourth annual survey of women in the financial services. One of the most surprising findings was that 90% of the women surveyed want banks to be required by the government to provide greater transparency on compensation data.

The research, which surveyed 200 of the most senior leaders at twenty investment banks and corporate and investment banking divisions, showed that women represent only 8% of leaders in the industry.

The fact that almost all of them named compensation transparency as a policy of key importance is revealing. Even the most senior women in the financial services feel the wage gap is a hindrance to recruiting and retaining the best and brightest female employees – that is, half of the best potential workforce.

But based on the research, compensation isn’t the only area where transparency could be useful. Shining some sunlight in other areas of the workplace could benefit both women and the firms that need to employ them.

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Voice of Experience: Laura Liswood, Secretary General, Council of World Woman Leaders, and Senior Advisor, Goldman Sachs

lauraliswoodBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“Try to speak out – have a voice,” advised Laura Liswood. “Claim your accomplishments, and ask for and know what you want.”

Liswood, now Secretary General of the Council of Women World Leaders and a Senior Advisor at Goldman Sachs, has built her career around improving diversity and bringing women leaders into light.

Making powerful women more visible, she explained, will help change presumptions around what a leader should look like.

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Ask-a-Recruiter: How to Get Back on Track After a Career Break

seekingBy Traci K.

How can you get your resume to the top of the stack when you’ve taken a break from your career to care for children or aging parents?

You’re punctual, smart, determined, qualified. You’ve had great experience and have at least 3 years of tenure in every position you’ve held. You’re a hard-worker, a fast learner and above all, you excel at anything you put your mind to. Oh, I almost forgot, you interview fantastically too. Wow, you sound great! You’re currently job hunting, so if all this is true, why haven’t you received any job offers?

Did I mention you left the workforce six years ago to be a stay-at-home mother?

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Op-Ed: Playing in the Big Leagues Instead of the “Special” League

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CarolRothContributed by Carol Roth

The glass ceiling has gone digital. Even though we are in a new age of information and engagement, there is still the old boys’ network in place. When you think of the top thought leaders, authors, and influencers, the names that are bantered about are more often than not male. There a very few women in the top spots or being given the credit they deserve when it comes to business—except for in “special” women’s lists and women-only groups.

“Top Women in Social Media” lists, “Top Women Authors” lists, women’s conferences, and women’s networking groups are creating, as marketing and advertising executive Margie Clayman calls it, a “league of our own.” These are supposed to help recognize women’s achievements, develop leadership skills, or create networking and business development opportunities. However, this special treatment actually is having a negative effect on our progress.

The league of our own further segregates women instead of integrating us alongside our male peers and coworkers. How? Gender segregation in business organizations makes it less likely for us women to secure top spots, because we are being isolated from those making the decisions at the top. If we aren’t working and playing alongside men, we aren’t going to benefit from mentoring opportunities. We aren’t going to be top of mind when someone is considering filling a C-suite position or scouting for a conference speaker. We aren’t going to be the first call to get the “big deal,” because we are hanging out with other women who are primarily in the same position—and not the decision makers.

Moreover, putting us in a league of our own makes us seem like a special interest group. We aren’t. We would be horrified by a men’s-only networking group. Why put ourselves at a distance by doing the same thing as women? I don’t want to be a female entrepreneur. I want to be an entrepreneur with the same opportunities as anyone else, regardless of my anatomy.

Let’s focus on integration instead of segregation!

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Why Senior Allies Must Support LGBT Inclusiveness on Wall Street

Business colleagues clapping her hand while at a seminarBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

In a recent Harvard Business Review blog post, Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Karen Sumberg, and Lauren Leader-Chivee explained “What ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Really Costs.” According to Hewlett, et al., “Closeted employees are less likely to deliver the energy, enthusiasm and innovative spirit companies require to be competitive in today’s market. Only 21% of closeted LGBTs trust their employer, compared to 47% who are out.”

The Glass Hammer and our sister site Evolved Employer advocate for work around building inclusive cultures that enable and motivate women to perform at the top of their game. This means actively recruiting and advancing women, as well as working to move beyond the unseen bias that keeps diverse people out of the corner office. But building an inclusive culture is not only about women – it also means supporting individuals from other minority groups as well.

It’s not hard to understand that building a culture that is welcoming and supportive of women means building a culture that is welcoming and supportive of everyone. As Hewlett revealed in her article, just as we’ve seen “the business-case for women,” there is also the business-case for LGBT. Getting beyond siloed approaches to diversity will benefit everyone – shareholders included. Perhaps we should call it the business-case for inclusion.

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Voice of Experience: Cynthia Urda Kassis, Partner and Co-Head of Project Development & Finance Practice, Shearman & Sterling LLP

Urda Kassis CBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

It would be fair to say that Cynthia Urda Kassis, a Partner and Co-Head of the Project Development and Finance Practice at Shearman & Sterling LLP, is a bit of a globetrotter. In her work, which involves arranging financing for infrastructure projects all over the world, Urda Kassis sometimes participates on site visits to see first-hand the fruits of her labors.

“Young lawyers are always very excited about the chance to travel around the world,” she explained.
“In my work, it’s very important to learn about different legal systems – for example, what they prioritize and what structuring flexibility they allow.”

“And it is very interesting to travel – you get to see a lot of places. But it’s not typical sightseeing. I see a lot of offices, conference rooms, and airports – you don’t get to go on a lot of safaris.”

In a career that has made her one of the most highly sought-after project finance attorneys in the US, Urda Kassis tries to never lose sight of what attracted her to the law in the first place.

“The law is very diverse,” she explains. “There are a multitude of different subjects and practice areas within the law. I tell young lawyers all the time: find the area of law that really excites you and piques your interest.”

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Movers and Shakers: Clare Porter, Senior Vice President, Technology Solutions, SunGard

clareporterBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Clare Porter’s career has taken her from engineering to manufacturing, to operations, to marketing, and now, as SunGard‘s Senior Vice President of Technology Solutions, she is enjoying her role as a change agent at a $5 billion technology company.

“Right now we have to be brave,” she said. We have to keep our heads above the status quo and have a vision of where we’re going to go.”

She continued, “What makes me so excited about this industry is that in a five-year time horizon, it will be fundamentally different, because of the people coming into the business, both from a user standpoint and a staffing standpoint. They will be fundamentally different than the people we have today. Trying to measure and judge and anticipate that is a big thing for me, looking at the digital natives.”

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Movers and Shakers: Karen Hughes, Vice President, Technology, American Express

karenhughesBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Karen Hughes, Vice President, Technology at American Express is passionate about ensuring that women feel comfortable taking a career break – whether taking leave to care for children or other family members, or taking time off to care for themselves.

She explained, “Perceptions around on-ramps and off-ramps are still causing women uncertainty around their careers. Things are getting better though.”

Hughes leads the New York chapter of American Express’s new global Women in Technology group – and is enthusiastic about how networking and career development can help women grow.

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Quantitative Measures Reveal the Business Case for Women in Technology

Brunett woman with laptopBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Named after one of the pioneers women in computing, the Anita Borg Institute provides research and tools to advance women in the field of technology, and works to make women in the field more visible.

But despite the organization’s hard work, many feel the needle isn’t moving fast enough. In response to the slow pace of change, this year the organization launched its first Top Company for Technical Women award (along with its Women of Vision awards). The award isn’t just about honoring the companies that have achieved high levels of success in retaining and advancing women. It’s also about motivating companies to measure their progress, and to work harder to get (and keep) more women in their ranks.

Dr. Caroline Simard, Anita Borg’s Vice President of Research and Executive Programs, explained, “This is our first corporate award and what motivated us to initiate it is that you don’t achieve organizational change without measurement.” She continued, “A lot of companies talk about getting more diversity in technical roles, but they don’t know where they should start.”

“Before they decide where they want to get, they have to know where they’re at,” Dr. Simard explained.

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Opt In: Getting Beyond the Glass Ceiling

LM headshot 2011Contributed by Lynne Morton, President, Performance Improvement Solutions

We increasingly see statistics about where women are in the workforce: more of us, locally and globally, in graduate schools and in organizations, yet not earning enough and not senior enough. The organizations that generate that data are doing terrific work making the progress (or the lack thereof) clear and present.

Equally clear and present, though, is a danger on the horizon. If, as The Economist has said, “women’s economic empowerment is arguably the biggest social change of our times,” then the time has come for us to seize the momentum of that change and make it powerful, meaningful, and lasting. When trying to engender change, a motivating phrase used to be “Carpe Diem,” or seize the day. Today, a more appropriate phrase seems to be “Opt In.”

We can “Opt In” by knowing more about the power we already have in society and using that power in our professional lives. We can “Opt In” by becoming more aware of what is constraining us and preventing that from controlling us. We can “Opt In” by taking more actions that move our professional goals forward step by step. Sometimes it may just be easier to Opt Out. But the only way that change will really happen is by each of us, one person at a time, Opting In in three ways and then joining hands.

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