Men Who Get It: Jim Wall, Chief Diversity Officer, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited

Jim_WallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“There is a lot of research that shows, and we believe, that diverse teams create better solutions to client problems than homogeneous teams,” explained Jim Wall, Global Chief Diversity Officer for Deloitte.

Wall said he appreciates the firm’s organization’s commitment to diversity – not only because it’s strategically important, but because it has enabled him to do work that is meaningful to him for almost three decades.

“When you go to work, you don’t leave your value system at the door. In my 27 years at Deloitte, I’ve been allowed to do my best work from my value base. And I hope I’ve made an impact,” he said.

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Why Women Are More Trusted Than Men, and How to Use Trust to Our Advantage

Vanessa HallBy Vanessa Hall “The Trust Lady” and author of The Truth About Trust in Business

In a recent survey by Management Today and the Institute of Leadership and Management, female CEOs were found to be more trusted than their male counterparts. In a number of sales training sessions I’ve attended over the years, women have been lauded as more trustworthy sales people than their male colleagues.

At the same time, women are more sensitive to trust and mistrust. In a survey I conducted through an independent researcher we found that only 1 in 20 women will deal with someone they like but do not trust, as opposed to 1 out of 5 men.

So what does this all mean for women in leadership?

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Movers and Shakers: Tiffany Dufu, President, The White House Project

tiffanydufuBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“Right now the United States is ranked 72nd in terms of women in political leadership,” said Tiffany Dufu, the newly inaugurated President of The White House Project. Recently Marie Wilson, founder of the WHP, handed over the reins of leadership to Dufu, who says she has big plans for the organization.

“My goal is to take us to number one,” she said.

Making an Impact

Originally from the Pacific Northwest, Dufu got her bachelors and masters degrees from the University of Washington. “I was actually on my way to a career in academia, but then my mentor asked me a question about the kind of impact I wanted to make in the world,” she explained.

Dufu realized she wanted a different path. She began volunteering for a program that provided mentorship opportunities for girls. Then she took a fundraising role at Seattle Girls School – a math, science, and technology middle school with an ambitious commitment to diversity. In fact, Dufu said her proudest professional achievement so far has been helping to raise $1 million for the school in order to secure a matching grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – in only a year – “because they’ve been able to maintain that commitment to diversity to this day.”

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Role Models Provide Powerful Advice for Women in Law

Trailblazers Photo _FWABy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Recognizing the impact role models can have on professional development is critical to the advancement of women in law. And Last week, the Financial Women’s Association of New York and the New York County Law Association held an event honoring trailblazing women in the profession, who shared their wisdom on breaking barriers, managing office politics, handling work and life responsibilities, and more.

The panel was moderated by Susan L. Harper, Esq., Baritz & Colman, LLP, General Counsel, FWA of New York, Inc. & Co-Chair, NYCLA’s Women’s Rights Committee, and featured Judith S. Kaye, Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals (1993-2008), now Of Counsel with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Susan L. Blount, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Law, Compliance, and Business Ethics, Prudential Financial, Inc.; Sheila K. Davidson, Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel, The New York Life Insurance Co.; and Susan Merrill, former head of enforcement at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), New York Stock Exchange, now Partner, Bingham McCutchen.

One of the most interesting aspects about the evening (besides the insightful and often humorous remarks by the panelists) is that the event was worth continuing legal education (CLE) credits – a nod to the importance of sharing career wisdom and motivation.

Harper said, “It is extremely important that our executive level bar leaders participate in professional development programs. It sends a very strong message to developing attorneys and business people when New York’s former Chief Judge, a sitting GC of a Fortune 500 company, a sitting GC of a Fortune 100 company and the former head of enforcement for our nation’s largest financial regulatory organization agree to come together to share how attendees can break through the glass ceiling.”

She continued, “The information and wisdom that these leaders imparted is critical in educating and advancing the future leaders of our profession. I applaud our panelists for being so candid in their remarks and recommendations. Women and men need to know that such success is attainable and it may be as simple as leaders providing the knowledge and the inspiration, as this program did.”

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More Women Recommended for Board Positions, But It’s Not All Good News

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Young women sitting in row reading reportBy Elizabeth Harrin (London)

Don’t get us wrong. We love the fact that there are more women being recommended for non-executive roles at British companies, according to new research. But does this small uplift really show a sea-change in attitudes to women in the top jobs?

The research, published by MM&K, an executive remuneration consultancy, involved more than 300 directors. HR Magazine reports that in 2010, only 43% of survey respondents said they would recommend a woman as a non-executive director. This year the figure is up at 50%. Good news for women wanting roles as non-execs; there seems to be more willingness to put forward women’s names when considering making new board appointments. But 50%? Seriously? The other half of the people asked don’t know any women who would make good non-executive directors?

The trouble is that there just aren’t that many great female candidates around. There are only 242 women with board seats in the FTSE350 companies. That’s 242 seats out of 2,742 available seats. Part of the problem is that women are under-represented in senior management in general. “Of the 14 companies in the FTSE100 that were founded within the last fifty years, every one of them was started by a man, or group of men,” says David O’Hara, Founder of Blackthorn Focus. He cites examples like Autonomy, Cairn Energy and Investec. O’Hara believes that non-executive roles are generally filled by people who are in a founding position or the role of finance director – and these are not the positions typically held by women.

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International Women’s Day: Why the Gender Dividend is the Business Case for Gender Equality

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Nicki HeadshotBy Nicki Gilmour, Founder and CEO of The Glass Hammer

“There isn’t a glass ceiling, just a thick layer of men” quipped the ever sharp Laura Liswood last week, and this is my favorite description to date of what is preventing women from advancing to executive management and the boardroom.

Others talk about the sticky floor or the marzipan layer preventing women from getting to the top. In the run up to the 100th International women’s day, themed “Equal Access to Education, Training and Science and Technology: Pathway to Decent Work for Women,” the discussion turns to creating a more robust pipeline of female leaders as the statistics don’t show great progress overall – as The White House Project reports, only about 16-18% of leadership roles in almost any industry are held by women. Yet women have long outpaced men in education (with almost 60% of college graduates now female), and capable, highly trained young women are flooding into the workforce.

Some companies are incredibly advanced in their gender work because they take it seriously. They understand, from both a human capital and a consumer perspective, that women are the next big business opportunity. Building stronger, more effective companies means developing and utilizing all of the talent available.

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On International Women’s Day, Hard Questions: How Do You Define Career Success?

On International Women's DayToday marks International Women’s Day – and this year’s theme is “Pathway to Decent Work for Women.” After all, being seen as an equally capable economic performer is key to being seen as an equally valuable person.

It’s only appropriate that on Friday, in honor of IWD, Accenture released the results of a global study on attitudes toward work, surveying 3,400 business executives from medium to large organizations across 29 countries. The survey reveals some telling statistics about how people across the globe feel about women, work, success, and ambition.

What may be most surprising about the report is how similar the responses were between men and women. Apparently, securing satisfying, fairly compensated work is important to everyone!

But there were some notable differences between genders – mainly around the areas of career planning and development. Women are seeking their own brand of professional success and taking their own path to get there. The study revealed that fewer women than men (14% compared to 22%) are hoping to attain C-suite roles. Indeed, the freedom to define your own success is wonderful and freeing, but this begs a very difficult question: are women choosing a different definition of success because obstacles, glass ceilings or sticky floors perhaps, are obstructing the path to the corner office?

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Voice of Experience: Joan Steinberg, Managing Director and Global Head of Philanthropy, Morgan Stanley

Joan SteinbergBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Joan Steinberg, Morgan Stanley’s Global Head of Philanthropy, was recently named a Managing Director at the firm. Steinberg says that it’s important to project professionalism and leadership when seeking advancement.

“You have to be at the next level,” advised the woman who led Morgan Stanley’s charitable efforts following 9/11. She explained that at a recent event for new Managing Directors within the firm, she saw many people she already assumed were MDs.

“Be the role you want to be, so that it’s easy for others to see you that way,” she said.

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WNSF Hosts Panel on Sustainability Reporting

iStock_000015781716XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Last week, the Women’s Network for a Sustainable Future organized an event around new trends in sustainability reporting. With shareholders, regulating agencies, and the public increasingly interested in results, the quality of metrics around corporate sustainability has improved dramatically, as has awareness of the importance of benchmarking and reporting progress.

Ann Goodman, Executive Director of WNSF said, “Everyone from the SEC down and up is clamoring for disclosure.”

Moderated by Helle Jorgensen, US Sustainability Advisory Leader and member of the Global Sustainability Leadership Council, PwC, the panel included Margaret Lindeman, Sustainability Strategist, Lockheed Martin, Erica Matthews, Manager, Public Policy and Sustainability, Pepsico, and Mike Wallace, Director of Sustainability Reporting Framework, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).

Corporate sustainability metrics matter to investors, consumers, and employees – and improving metrics around sustainability reporting will be critical to corporate success in the future.

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NALP Findings No Cause for Concern – Yet

iStock_000004699538XSmallBy Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

Late last year, The National Association for Law Placement (NALP) reported that the representation of women and minority lawyers among law firm associates declined between 2009 and 2010, most likely the result of the massive lawyer layoffs that took place during the recession. The findings made headlines across the country, though the actual drop in the representation of women and minorities was quite small and occurred mostly among associates, not partners.

Despite these facts, some newspapers reported that these findings were significant because they were the first diversity reversals in the NALP’s 17-year history and represent the reversal of what had been, up until 2010, a constant upward trend.

So, are these findings important or not? According to the NALP, aggregate statistics about the representation of women and minority lawyers at law firms do not tell the whole story. For example, among the employers listed in the 2010-2011 NALP Directory of Legal Employers, just over 6 percent of partners were minorities and 1.95 percent of partners were minority women, and yet many offices reported no minority partners at all. In addition, the representation of minorities by specific race and ethnicity varies considerably by size of law firm and geography. The NALP also found that the drop in minority representation among associates was not uniform across specific racial/ethnic groups, which also influenced their findings.

Others believe that while the NALP’s findings are interesting, women in law have bigger fish to fry.

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