Delivering Diverse Directors: The Pipeline and the Pool

iStock_000016639682XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“Our goal is to bring greater visibility and access to those minority individuals who have demonstrated a potential for senior leadership,” said Nancy Sims, President of the Robert Toigo Foundation. The Toigo Foundation has worked to help diverse candidates enter the financial services industry for almost 22 years. According to Sims, Toigo’s mission and work is grounded in the belief that diverse teams deliver better results—at all levels of leadership. In 2000, the organization recognized the need to do more to prepare younger generations of leaders to enter the industry and introduced leadership development and career management services as part of its programming. Today, the Foundation’s focus is on this initiative, Leader 20/20, and ensuring diverse professionals have the skills and support to lead organizations and drive industry change.

One way the Foundation is reaching out to women and minority individuals is through its new All A Board initiative – preparing diverse high performing professionals to enter board service.

While at the core of the All A Board initiative is addressing the “supply side” by building a clearinghouse of qualified minority director candidates, Sims said, “All A Board provides thought leadership and networking with other organizations who share in our goal to promote diversity leadership , and later this year formalized training components to help candidates take their experience and leverage it for the next level.”

Toigo’s All A Board initiative is complimentary to CalPERS and CalSTRS’ diverse director initiative. The two pension funds recently announced their Diverse Director DataSource, or 3D, as a platform to launch diverse Fortune 500 board candidates into the limelight. 3D has been launched as an independent entity, owned and operated by The Corporate Library.

Anne Simpson, Senior Portfolio Manager, Investments, Global Equity at CalPERS, said, “The underlying issue is that we need the companies we invest in to grow, thrive, and survive over the long term. Boards are desperately in need of new talent and companies are coming to us asking if we can recommend candidates.”

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Women on Top: The Newest Innovation in Technology Event

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Business meeting“Our economy depends on women being at the table creating technology,” said Dr. Telle Whitney, President and CEO of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology. She continued, “The innovation that will drive the future is in your hands.”

Dr. Whitney was the keynote speaker at The Glass Hammer’s event Tuesday night entitled “Women on Top: The Newest Innovation in Technology.”

The event, sponsored by Barclays Capital and American Express, was held at the Barclays Capital headquarters in New York. Moderated by Avis Yates Rivers, President and CEO of Technology Concepts Group, the panel speakers included Sarah Sherber; Head of Securitized Products IT and Cross Product Operations Technology, Barclays Capital; Linda Albornoz, B2B Payment Solutions, American Express Technologies; Augusta Sanfilippo, Managing Director, Cash Securities Operations IT, Citi; and Mary Cecola, CIO Asset Management Business Solutions, Deutsche Bank.

When trying to plot out a career, the panel advised, simply do what you love. Albornoz said, “Follow your bliss. Find the thing you’re engaged by and enjoy doing. Because you’re going to spend a lot of time doing it!”

Sanfilippo agreed. She said, “Passion… is something you have to stay true to no matter what you do. Make sure you manage your career. Don’t make someone else manage your career for you.”

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Voice of Experience: Lis Brown, Application Management Outsourcing (AMO) Lead, Accenture

LisBrownBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Lis Brown, Accenture‘s Application Management Outsourcing (AMO) Lead, based in Singapore, is perhaps the most enthusiastic evangelist we’ve interviewed yet on the importance of relationship-building in the tech industry. According to Brown, working in IT is all about networking and building deep relationships.

“Don’t underestimate the power of networking. You don’t have to come out with your guns blazing to network,” she joked. “But in all that you do, you will become known.”

She continued, “And for women working in the tech space, you’ll be known as ‘the woman who…’ This is something that will just happen, but make sure it happens because you know something as well as someone. I’m probably best known for my ability to build relationships with clients at all levels.”

After over two decades in IT, with a career that has spanned the globe, Brown should know. She has been a passionate supporter of women taking charge of their professional growth in the tech space, as she continues to grow her own career.

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How to Build a Winning Team

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SueBosContributed by Susan E. Bos, CMA, CPA

A successful team begins with a great leader. To be a great leader, there are some basic, important qualities one must possess: sincerity, integrity, technical ability, a positive attitude, good communication, and trust. The most effective leaders take it a step further by surrounding themselves with individuals who complement each other’s strengths and offset one another’s weaknesses.

Creating effective teams is a challenge in any organization, but a great leader will reap the benefits of this rewarding experience by fostering a positive atmosphere of collaboration and teamwork. Making others feel important and appreciated is a sure way to win the trust and support of employees as you all work toward a common goal. To build a winning team, a leader must keep the following in mind.

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Voice of Experience: Joanne L. Alma, Managing Director, Head of IMD Technology for Europe & Asia, Goldman Sachs

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Joanne Alma“In my view, there are no particular barriers for women in technology,” began Jo Alma, Managing Director and Head of IMD Technology for Europe and Asia at Goldman Sachs. “But we need more role models and more senior female colleagues to learn from and work with.”

She continued, “We tend to look up one or two levels and look for people like ourselves. If more women were in technology, more women could see themselves in the industry. It would be like a self-fulfilling prophesy.”

Alma is doing her part to serve as a role model, as well. Having recently initiated a program at Goldman called Girls in IT, in the past year, Alma and other senior women have made time to speak with teenager girls in UK schools on careers for women in technology. She said, “It’s fantastic to feel you can make a difference for these girls.”

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Voice of Experience: Sallie Graves, Senior Vice President, Head of Insurance and Distributor Services IT, ING

SallieGravesBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Sallie Graves, Senior Vice President and Head of Insurance and Distributor Services IT at ING, has built a career that demonstrates the importance of taking on new challenges, as well as making lateral moves. For the past 15 years, Graves has been motivated by her interest in IT – moving between industries (from manufacturing to consulting to financial services) and functions to get closer to technology.

But, she said, what’s impacted her career more than anything is her family. She explained, “The balance my children have created within me has made me more successful than I ever could have been without them.”

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Voice of Experience: Yolande Piazza, Managing Director, Global Consumer Technology, Citi

YolandePiazzaBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Yolande Piazza’s career at Citigroup began with a six-week assignment. Twenty-two years later, it has blossomed into a role where she’s driving the strategy behind Citi’s Global Consumer Technology organization’s transformation.

“Our goal is to integrate and transform technology teams from around the world into a single, world-class IT organization,” said Piazza, Citi’s Managing Director of Global Consumer Technology. “Strategically, we are trying to drive the standard of processes and tools across 15,000 people in the organization. We have an incredibly aggressive agenda. We’re talking months, not years.”

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Family, Flex Time, and The Big Four

iStock_000015579064XSmallBy Laura Steele

Lisa James used to dread tax season. As a CPA for a large accounting firm in the early 1990s, she put in 60 hour work weeks between January and May, and then settled back into a 45-50 hour per week routine with very little downtime, except for a three week vacation. “It was challenging, and sometimes even grueling, but my company had no concept of flex time,” says James, who kept this schedule for 5 years until she married and had children. “I managed pretty well by putting my first child in infant care, but when the second baby arrived, I found I could not keep up with either my company’s or the client’s expectations. Since I am a perfectionist, I felt I had no options but to quit for awhile.”

In the past twenty years, however, the nation’s top accounting firms have made steady progress instituting new flex time and work/life policies. The largest driver turned out to be the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which set new standards for corporate accountability and dramatically increased the need for skilled accounting and financial reporting employees at the big four accounting firms, including Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projected a 22 percent growth rate between 2008 and 2018, for accountant and auditors, adding 279,400 more positions to the 1.29 million already-existing jobs. Despite the recession, the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects the number of accountants to grow faster than the national average. One way the big four began competing for a limited talent pool, was to offer their employees a more flexible schedule.

A recent article in the New York Times highlights this trend. The article, “Flex Time Flourishes in Accounting Industry,” reports that “when it comes to respecting the work-life balance of employees, the accounting industry far outshines the rest of corporate America.” Though not everyone agrees that the big four are models of flexibility, it is clear that the situation has improved and the big four accounting firms are now offering a much wider array of flex time options, including sabbaticals with partial salary, shortened work weeks, and personal time off to take care of family matters.

Ellen Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute, notes that “The nation’s accounting firms excel at this for a boring, accounting reason – they’ve looked at the numbers, and they see it helps.” Some firms estimate that increased flex time options have helped them cut turnover from 24% annually to just 15%, a dramatic decrease that can save a company millions in hiring and retraining costs. “This is really about retaining our top talent,” says Michael Fenlon, People Strategies Leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

James couldn’t agree more and is now back working for one of the big four in Denver. But last fall, she faced a new work/life challenge. “My father passed away years ago, and my mom had been living independently in Wisconsin for the past decade. Last year, she came down with severe pneumonia, and was hospitalized for two weeks. She was so weak afterwards that she had to be placed in a rehabilitation hospital. It was clear to me that she could no longer live alone, and I needed to take a month off to help her recover and then move her to an assisted living facility in Boulder, Colorado, where I live. Fortunately, my company was very supportive, and I was able to take 6 weeks off, with little advance notice, to help my mom.”

According to the Journal of Accounting, James’ story is far from unusual. “Successful (work/life balance) programs address elder-care as wells as child-care. The growing demand for attending to parents is one of today’s most significant trends.” In fact, the National Council on Aging estimated that between 30 percent and 40 percent of all employees will assist their elderly parents in 2020, compared with 12 percent today.

Professional accounting organizations are also trying to provide their members with better information to help guide them through their work/life balance issues. For example, the Missouri Society of Certified Public Accountants (MSCPA) has a Work/Life Balance Committee. The MSCPA website offers a list of resources, articles and contacts with the goal of “influencing the accounting profession to affect the necessary changes to develop and retain a more competitive work force and to permit men and women to achieve balance among personal, family and professional responsibilities.”

James says, “The accounting industry has come a long way during the course of my career. I intend to keep working for at least another 5-10 years, provided that my employer can respond appropriately when my family needs me the most. I leave work by 3pm most Fridays so I can have an early dinner with my mother, and relax with her as the weekend begins. I’m more confident than ever that flex time is here to stay.”

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Coaching Programs for Moms Returning to Work are on the Rise

iStock_000004767256XSmallBy Stephanie Wilcox (Middlefield, CT)

Is it becoming harder and harder to be a working mom? Yes, if you look at the number of women who throw in the career towel once they start families, finding it challenging to transition back to work while maintaining work/life balance.

Fortunately, many firms are implementing programs to keep women in the loop about news on clients and office changes while they are on maternity leave, making it easier to welcome work back into their lives. If more firms take advantage of these programs, then working moms will have an easier time. In fact, it’s to the firm’s advantage that they be implemented.

It is now more important than ever that firms attract and retain women. According to TD Bank’s recent corporate responsibility report, “Professional women who are returning to the workforce after an extended leave of absence represent an under-tapped source of potential leadership talent. As many as 37 percent of highly qualified women take time off for family responsibilities such as childcare and eldercare.”

Not only that, but there are more first-time mothers in the 30-34 age range today than the 25-29 range, according to a maternity leave report put out by Amanda Alexander, a professional coaching service for individuals and organizations.“With so many women working, and many of these women likely to be in a senior position when they go on maternity leave, it is essential that organizations take steps to retain these women in order to avoid severe disruption and expensive replacement costs,” the report says. “Yet, unfortunately, most organizations have not adapted to the changes around them, evident by the number of female resignation rates and discrimination cases over the past few years.”

The problem is flexibility. Amanda Alexander noted that a report by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission confirmed that having a child is still the “leaky pipe” in women’s career advancement. While employers say they fully support flexible working for mothers, very few employees are actually taking it up. In fact, many women say their company – their colleagues, managers or HR departments – does nothing to help them return to work with ease, confidence and support.

“It’s such an emotional time, no matter how logical a person you are,” said one respondent in a Return to Work survey done by Amanda Alexander. “You go from being 100 percent professional to a year of being 100 percent mother. Then when you return to work you somehow have to combine being 50 percent mum, 50 percent professional, with expectations that you give 100 percent to each role.”

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Five Steps To Becoming A Transformational Leader

Contributed by CEO Coach Henna Inam

Are you fully engaged in the work you are doing? Do you feel like you are both achieving success and also creating a legacy that is deeply personal and important to you?

For a long time in my own career I was happy climbing the corporate ladder, but after a while this success was not fulfilling enough. It got me searching for a broader impact I could make. I discovered that what is really fulfilling work for me is to help empower women leaders to transform their businesses, teams and communities by transforming their own leadership.

Do you know what is deeply fulfilling work for you? Are you pursuing it? As human beings we all have a deep desire to achieve success and create a legacy that is beyond our personal success. In Part 1 and Part 2 of the Transformational Leader series I talked about who transformational leaders are, why this leadership approach is so needed in today’s organizations, and how women often naturally exhibit some of these traits. To briefly recap, transformational leaders are able to tap into the discretionary energy, the full creativity and potential within themselves and within the people around them. They are purpose-driven. They play the role of mentor and coach to the people around them. They constantly encourage intellectual stimulation, dialogue and debate. They inspire others by their own passion, and by creating a culture of trust and high integrity.

So how can we each powerfully express the transformational leader that is within us? I use a five-step process with my clients that I would like to share with you.

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