Mover and Shaker: Ann Gaboriault, Senior Manager, Accenture Technology

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Ann Gaboriault“I joined Accenture in 2000 after getting a master’s in management information systems. 15 years later, I’m still here.”

Ann Gaboriault started as a consultant on Oracle products and quickly specialized in financial systems within the Natural Resources industry, working on different projects across Canada and the U.S., and eventually for two years in Switzerland. When she returned home to Montréal, she took on a new position in Accenture’s Application Outsourcing Practice. “Seven years later, I’m now leading the practice in Montréal, with teams here in Canada, USA, Europe and Asia, currently working on the next generation of Application Outsourcing with few of our global clients. This is an exciting time for us – we’re delivering Application Outsourcing As-a-Service on the Cloud for our clients, helping them become agile, digital businesses.”

When Gaboriault started at Accenture, she believed people pursued short careers in consulting, primarily due to the nature of the work – client services that most times demanded constant travel and the perceived difficulty in finding a work-life balance. “That has proven itself untrue. Over a decade-and-a-half, I’ve realized that needs change over time. Work-life balance is not the same from year to year, but you can always make it work when you have support of leadership that sees your potential.”

Mentoring has been beneficial for Gaboriault who says she’s had different mentors at every stage of her career. “I have a tendency of finding people who are very different than myself, so I get a different perspective on my work and my career path. Mentors have pushed me to do the best I can and to take control of my career. One of my mentors once told me, “Your career can happen to you if you do not take ownership”. Gaboriault has found sponsorship to be very useful specifically when going for a promotion, noting that, “people will sponsor you if they know you and know your work,” and that networking is key to finding the right sponsors.

Finding a balance

Gaboriault believes that “we can have it all, but not all at the same time.” She quickly climbed the ladder to senior manager and then decided a few years ago to pursue, temporarily, a “horizontal career” so she could work locally and concentrate on starting a family. “I thought, my partner can work the crazy hours for a while – she had just started her career as a critical care physician. My goal is to enjoy what I do, grow in what I do, but be home with our toddlers every night.”

As Gaboriault mentions, there are many programs at Accenture that have helped advance her career and spend more time with her family. She notes, “We have a variety of different mentoring programs, learning and professional development courses, training for “High performing women,” flexible work programs. For working parents like myself, we have one year parental leave policy in Canada, which is offered to any parent, and Accenture also offers the opportunity to work locally for one year following return from the birth or adoption of a child.” Gaboriault is on a flexible schedule, currently working around 30 hours a week, which she describes as “a win for myself, my family and my work with clients.”

Taking the lead with the Canada LGBT Employee Resource Group (ERG)

Gaboriault has been involved with the Canada LGBT ERG since its founding in 2007 and strongly believes the ERG is a necessary step toward helping all employees feel comfortable and accepted at work. “Being me 100% of the time, at Accenture but also with my clients, enables me to speak openly about my family and other personal matters. Being out at work has also helped my colleagues and clients feel more comfortable sharing their personal stories, worries, fears, helping our day-to-day business communications feel more human.”

Gaboriault transitioned into leading the ERG when she realized they could have a global impact– helping and encouraging employees from around the world to join the company’s Global LGBT Network, which spans more than 40 countries, and supporting other ERGs in locations where there are unique laws affecting the LGBT community.

“Our goals globally focus on four pillars – training, policies, benefits, and professional development. We train to build awareness and understanding of the LGBT community, create policies to ensure equal treatment of employees regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity and expression, strive to provide benefits that are equal for same-sex and opposite-sex partners, and professionally develop our people to facilitate career growth and encourage networking and mentoring.”

Gaboriault describes the way Accenture is achieving these goals: “Through best-practice programs like our LGBT Ally Program, which allows anyone within Accenture to identify as an advocate for the LGBT community; a dedicated focus on raising awareness and education; and with a strong commitment from leadership to building an inclusive environment.” According to Gaboriault, having support from leadership is crucial. “I think it’s very encouraging when our senior leaders who are LGBT are also out themselves. They’re role models that help us envision ourselves reaching new heights in our careers.”

A strong commitment to inclusion & diversity

Having a diverse workforce of people with different capabilities, cultures, perspectives, abilities and experiences is inherent to the unique way Accenture operates. “Our workforce is a reflection of the clients we serve and our local communities. A commitment to inclusion & diversity is simply how we do things,” says Gaboriault. For Accenture, this commitment is an integral part of living by the company’s core values. “In essence, it’s what makes us “greater than” in all that we do.”

Time with the family

Outside of work, Gaboriault is an avid skier. “I ski thirty plus days per year, great exercise and your mind is off work when going down the slopes at 40km/hour, though I now spend hours on the magic carpet with the kids.”

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Things to Negotiate for….Besides More Money

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Smartly dressed young women shaking hands in a business meeting at office deskYou’re no stranger to the idea of salary negotiation when it comes to career advancement, but that’s just one of the fringe benefits up for discussion at the bargaining table on your road to the C-suite. You can’t go in assuming that certain perks like maternity leave or promotions are a given. Be prepared. One of the most effective tools at your disposal is your bargaining power.

Be Bold

Sheryl Sandberg discusses many of these points in her book, “Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead.” Don’t be afraid to go to the table knowing what you want for the future of your career. Take charge, as Sheryl writes:

“Taking initiative pays off. It is hard to visualize someone as a leader if she is always waiting to be told what to do.”

That doesn’t mean you should storm through the office door and make outrageous demands, expecting them to be met instantly. Approach the situation with the right information and engage in tactful and professional discussion. Not sure exactly what that means or what those negotiations should entail? Here are six topics to keep in mind, and how you should approach them.

1. Flex Time

In the modern workplace, there are actually more people than you think working outside of the office with more flexible, nontraditional schedules. In a 2013 survey by the research group Catalyst, four out of every five respondents holding graduate-level degrees said they had some kind of work flexibility with their employer – that’s a whopping 81 percent.

In order to secure that type of perk at your next position, you’ve got to go in knowing exactly what you want from the flex time – both the when and the why. Your employer is going to be more keen to accept this stipulation if you have a detailed plan heading into negotiations. Be sure that you’ve cross-referenced any existing flex-time policy with the HR department to cover all your bases.

2. Professional and Personal Development

Make sure your future employer knows about your interest in professional and personal development. Continuing to learn and grow in your chosen profession keeps your skills innovative and creative, which will enrich the working environment for those around you as well. In fact, this type of incentive is among one of the most sought-after additions to an employment package by millennials. Consider asking about family friendly programs that encourage a work/life-balance, one of the most important points for Gen Xers.

3. Promotions

If you find yourself facing your annual review, consider your promotion options. Don’t be afraid to demonstrate how you’ve added value to the company, and why you should be considered for compensation.
Of course this doesn’t just magically happen one day by telling your boss you’re a rock star and should be paid accordingly. You need to work on cultivating a relationship and proving you are a valuable member of the company – these real bosses will give it to you straight.

In fact, a study done by Accenture in 2011 found that 85 percent of employees out of the 3,400 companies it surveyed got something – whether a large increase in salary to some kind of other incentive – simply by asking for a raise.

4. Maternity/Paternity Leave

Unfortunately, this is still an issue. In all the developed nations of the world, the U.S. is currently the only one that does not offer federally mandated parent leave. In OECD’s 2014 family database document, America literally has 0s across the board. You are not guaranteed anything.

Luckily most companies that want to retain talented staff recognize the importance of maternity/paternity leave. You could piggy-back your discussion concerning flex-time as well, and increase your chances of extending time at home with your new addition.

5. Vacation Time

Other than maternity leave, vacation time is also extremely important. Again in the U.S., the average employee has less vacation time than most other advanced economies in the world. Typically, a worker is only entitled to 10 days of paid vacation and six holidays, but even these are not guaranteed – quite different than the 30 days in France or 20 in New Zealand.

As you well know, this is where your bargaining power and value to the company can come in handy to secure more than the 10 days. Use tact, and also offer solutions for the time you are requesting to be away For example, tell your boss “I’ll be out of the office, but regularly checking my emails.

It’s important that you take advantage of complete time away from the office for a recharge. You’ll be more of an asset to your company when you return re-energized and refreshed.

6. Big Project Participation

If you really want to put yourself out there and be bold, ask to swim in the deep water, rub shoulders with the executives and request to work on the interesting projects that are happening in your company. This will help you get noticed, and you can also take the opportunity to cultivate mentoring relationships at the leadership and management level.

By Sarah Landrum

Sarah Landrum is a Penn State graduate, marketing specialist, freelance writer and the career expert behind Punched Clocks.
 
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Making sure you are in the running for a promotion

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women shaking handsIf you are lucky enough to work for a really great company that has a robust, unbiased, transparent talent process then you can probably skip this post. But wait, not so fast, how can you tell if your firm is good at ensuring that the best talent regardless of any other factor gets promoted?

I can think of three ways to heighten your chances

  • Ask what the process is
  • Ask what you have to do specifically to get to the next level/beyond
  • Make sure you have sponsors to broaden and deepen your portfolio of work because women still mostly get promoted on past performance as opposed to some men truly get promoted on what others think they will be capable of growing into (future potential not fact- yes this still happens)

Here is the kicker. I have done several consulting projects with women’s networks and I even wrote a Masters thesis at Columbia University on how networks can be formally connected to the talent process (sadly, often they are not related to a direct promotional path and interestingly this if often due to the resistance of the women inside the network-which in part is often due to the reason the network exists is to provide a container for shared experiences). So, if you want your membership of a network to be part of your strategy to advance, then make sure it is doing that and ways to tangibly use it include access to senior management, find a sponsor and more that we have covered in the past 4-5 weeks in this column.

By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Contact nicki@theglasshammer.com if you would like to hire a coach to help you navigate your career

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Voice of Experience: Julie Silverman, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs

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Julie SilvermanFor Goldman’s Julie Silverman, coming out to her colleagues was an important statement, particularly due to the small number of openly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people working in the financial services industry at the time. She acknowledges that while support of LGBT people in the workplace has increased dramatically, the need to raise awareness is not over.

“When each person comes out, there’s a meaningful trickle-down effect to everyone around them,” she says. “I come out every day in regular conversation. I talk about my wife and have pictures of my kids all over my office. For me, my identity is very public, and it’s important to me to be able to bring my whole self to work. Being out has allowed me to focus my energy on doing the best job I can and I hope I serve as a role model for those who might consider coming out in the workplace.”

From Restaurants to Banking

Silverman’s path to the financial services industry could be called unconventional. After graduating from Brown University, she began work as a manager at Pastis, a restaurant in New York City’s Meatpacking District.

There, she honed skills that would prove to be highly relevant to her future banking career. “At 23, I was managing a large group of diverse people, an experience that put me on the front line solving problems, from employee dynamics to customer service,” she says. Noting that restaurant staff can be transient, she took an organizational perspective on how to reduce attrition and improve the continuity of service.

She also developed problem solving skills and the ability to stay calm under pressure while working in the fast-paced restaurant environment. “The hallmark of my management style was instituting a degree of fairness throughout the restaurant, and I continue to implement that in my role today,” she says. “Employees may disagree with you, but if they sense you’re fair, they are more likely to respect your decisions.”

After her time at Pastis, Silverman earned her MBA at Stanford with the hope of enhancing her understanding of business. She joined Goldman Sachs as a summer associate in the Investment Banking Division and returned as a full-time associate in 2006. She then served as the business unit manager for Equity Capital Markets and Leveraged Finance, and later became chief of staff for the Mergers & Acquisitions Group and the Financial Sponsors Group. Now a managing director, she is currently head of the division’s junior banker program.

“I’m proud of the work we’re doing to enhance the junior banker experience,” she said. “This population is critical to the success of our business, and we recognize that we need to make changes that will provide these employees with development opportunities and make them excited to come to and stay at the firm.” Changes Goldman Sachs announced late last year to the program include a faster promotion timeline, a rotational assignment to a new group and the help of new technology to improve execution efficiency.

Silverman wishes she realized earlier in her career that investment banking can be very entrepreneurial. She noted that she hesitated to pursue a career in financial services following the completion of her undergraduate degree because she didn’t realize so many options were available. “There are opportunities in banking to develop a variety of different skill sets. You’re building your own business on behalf of the firm, which allows you to be creative, thoughtful and chart your own course in many ways,” she says.

She urges analysts and associates to choose a role that’s intellectually stimulating, but that also allows them to achieve goals outside of work, whether spending time with family and friends or volunteering.

Growing Acceptance of LGBT Issues

In the 10 years Silverman has worked at Goldman Sachs, she says the firm’s continual evolution supporting LGBT issues has experienced a “large shift in a relatively short time.” She notes that while there were previously only two or three people who were out in the Investment Banking Division, these numbers have risen.

She is particularly pleased with the growth of the firm’s Ally program, where senior people across the organization publicly indicate their support for their LGBT colleagues by placing “Ally” signs on their doors, as a way to show employees that this is a place where they can be out and be comfortable.

Although Silverman came out many years ago, she notes that having children requires LGBT people to come out on a continual basis. “When you tell people that you have children, there is still an assumption that you are straight. If you correct that assumption, then the questions start about how you had your children,” she says. “It can put you in the awkward position of deciding how much detail is appropriate to share with a client or new colleague. These are issues we continue to face every day.” Still, she says, it’s important to be able to bring your whole self to work and find an organization like Goldman that is supportive of that.

Giving Back Within and Outside the Firm

Silverman believes that giving back is critically important, and she has been pleased that the firm has given her the ability to balance volunteer work and her career. Giving back helps to keep her grounded. “It offers a great perspective when you can leave your work and do something to help others,” she says.

Internally, she has served on Goldman’s LGBT steering committee and has organized Pride Month activities. She also works with junior women in informal mentoring relationships. “It’s important for senior women to realize that we’ve all benefited from mentorship and now it’s our turn to give it back to those who are coming up at the firm,” she says. “We have to help each other and avoid competition.”

Outside of work she is equally busy with philanthropic efforts, serving as a member of the Junior Advisory Board of the Innocence Project and as vice chairman of the board for the Hope Project, a non-profit work readiness organization in Brooklyn that trains people in poverty to help find sustainable employment. She admires the work of the Hope Project, as the organization not only provides skills training but also teaches mindfulness and the ability to cope with workplace challenges. “It’s intensive, but the results are some of the best in the country,” she says.

And of course, her main priority is being a present and primary parent to her two children, ages six and four, alongside her wife.

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Mansplaining: It’s Time to Interrupt

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Business meeting with women and menMansplaining. If you’ve lived and breathed in this world as a woman, you’ve experienced it. If you work in a male-dominated office, it might be served up as a daily side with your coffee.

Recently, Chicago Tribune workplace columnist Rex Huppke declared: “Mansplaining — whether you like the term or not — is real. That’s not up for debate.”

Huppke called it “a slow drip of sexism”. How much is your office environment dripping with it?

What is Mansplaining, exactly?

In The Salon, Benjamin Hart argued that the term “mansplaining” lost its potency, as well as its real utility within gender dynamics discussions, when it became popularly used and broadly defined as a man explaining something to a women in a condescending or patronizing manner.

Hart asserts it’s morphed into an “increasingly vague catchall expression” of “men saying things to, or about, women.”

“Mansplain” is thrown about liberally. Jimmy Kimmel mansplained speech coaching to Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. The Financial Times recently referred to the EU referendum in the UK as at risk of becoming a “giant exercise in ‘mansplaining’”, due to media domination by male voices. Women called for Trump to mansplain his Clinton “women card” accusation. Even a collection of mansplaining moments shows a diversity of takes on what it is.

Merriam Webster takes a hard line on its specific definition: “when a man talks condescendingly to someone (especially a woman) about something he has incomplete knowledge of, with the mistaken assumption that he knows more about it than the person he’s talking to does.”

Other than a sinking feeling in your stomach and increasing desire to find a conversational back door, what are the tell-tale signs of mansplaining?

1) It feels like a “manologue”

One sure-fire sign you’re being mansplained to: you’re not speaking or discussing. Instead, you are being spoken at or spoken over, often for a frustrating duration of time.

Mansplaining carries a trademark air of wisdom-wielding, knowledge-imparting, and time-taking. You may also have the feeling of being verbally cut-across.

Mansplaining, in a two-step conversational dominance maneuver, often follows immediately after manterruption – “unnecessary interruption of a woman by a man”.

A 2014 informal experiment by empirical linguist Kieran Snyder in a tech workplace found that in conversations of four or more, men interrupted at twice the rate women did, and were three times more likely to interrupt women than men. (Women interrupt women, too.)

Dr. Arin N. Reeves also conducted an observational study across 41 hours of meetings, calls, and panel discussions. Not only did Reeves observe that men interrupt far more, but also that 89.3% of men’s interruptions of women (and only 42.6% of men’s interruptions of men) were intrusive interruptions – “intentionally or unintentionally usurping the speaker’s turn at talk with the intent of ceasing the speaker’s ability to finish organically.”

Women were most commonly intrusively manterrupted on panel discussions, although men weren’t “aware” of doing it. Less than 1/5th of all women’s interruptions of anyone were intrusive.

2) It wasn’t solicited

Mansplaining is not a direct question followed by a direct explanatory answer. That’s just explaining.

Mansplaining is more of an unsolicited espousing of lengthy information and proffered opinions, which seeks to ensnare you in its immanent glow of intelligence, and which may or may not follow a question.

In the Chicago Tribune article, Elly Shariat, founder and CEO of shariatPR, tells of a former boss who pulled her aside to advise on the health implications of her shoe choices, for example.

3) Major assumptions are at play

The biggest thing about mansplaining is that it’s based on a culturally embedded assumption. At the core, men often assume they know more or better than women, and culture mirrors this.

Although she didn’t coin the word itself, mansplaining’s popular origin is attributed to Rebecca Solnit’s 2008 essay entitled “Men Explain Things to Me”, in which she tells about a cocktail party experience where a man asked her a question about her writing and then interrupted her to tell her at length about a very important book that she should read – which turned out to be her book, and he hadn’t even read it, just the review.

Solnit wrote, “Men explain things to me, and to other women, whether or not they know what they’re talking about. Some men. Every woman knows what I’m talking about. It’s the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field, that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence.”

What can we do about it?

No matter how narrowly or broadly you define it, mansplaining reinforces a power imbalance. It reinforces the male domination of meeting conversations and rewarding of men for talking more.

Here’s a thought: interrupting mansplaining might be a necessary, career-building skill.

In her experiment, Snyder found that women interrupt less and very rarely interrupt men (only 13% of the time). But which women were entirely responsible for that 13% of interrupting men? The only three senior women in the study – who all interrupted men (as well as women). In fact, these women were three of the four biggest interruptors in the study.

Snyder wrote, “The results suggest that women don’t advance in their careers beyond a certain point without learning to interrupt, at least in this male-dominated tech setting.”

The most empowering thing women can do when faced with mansplaining?

Put acquiescence away. Interrupt this nonsense, and be heard.

By Aimee Hansen

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The 8th Annual Top Women on The Buyside Event: Overcoming Risks, Managing Volatility and Another New Normal Ahead?

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women on the buyside event

By Nicki Gilmour, CEO and Founder of theglasshammer.com

Theglasshammer convened 100 senior women from traditional and alternative investment management companies last Wednesday 1st June 2016 for the 8th Annual Top Women on the Buyside breakfast panel and networking event. Nicki Gilmour CEO and Founder of theglasshammer.com opened the session with a welcome and an urge for the audience to continue to be change leaders for a culture of trust in their firms and beyond so that the industry can continue to attract women as investors and as participants.

The panel consisted of Judy Posnikoff, Managing Director of Paamco, Donna Parisi, Partner and Co-leader of the Asset Management Group, Shearman and Sterling, Nili Gilbert, Co-Founder of Matarin Capital Management, and Katina Stefanova, CEO and CIO of Marto Capital. Antony Currie, Associate Editor of Thomson Reuters Breaking Views moderated the discussion with candid questions that the panel answered with deep expertise to the peer audience as well as a sprinkling of humor at times.

Themes this year included disruption and innovation as drivers of results with the obvious challenges this year being the risk management of political, economic, credit and operational risk issues in this US election year.

It was agreed that volatility is high, uncertainty a constant and alpha diminished with a backdrop of limited historical data on how to invest in an environment of low interest rates. It was also agreed that all types of disruption, good and bad, was rife with developed countries still trying to ignite their economies post credit crisis. Risk would definitely dominate the short and medium term thoughts of investors. Fintech was also mentioned as an important element of future innovation in the industry without real precedents and an uncertain regulatory environment.

Katina Stefanova began with an overview of the macro environment and framed some issues,

“We deal with political, social and economic risks when assessing investments and this year is a unique year as we are at a pivotal point .We live in a world with over $200 trillion dollars of debt and with such uncertainty, it is not surprising that there is political volatility and that becomes a big issue for markets not just for investing but also for people building businesses. There has been a huge amount of disillusionment with traditional investment strategies, and other popular strategies such as risk parity in last few years. Volatility is here to stay and so it’s about figuring out how to navigate volatility and building that into your application.
It is time to develop alternative solutions.”

Judy Posnikoff concurred with the increased volatility issue stating

“The environment is quite different from 30 years ago when investors could achieve high enough returns with one asset class (fixed income). One of the difficulties of today’s uncertainty and meager expected rates of return is that institutions and individuals are having to take on more risk than they would like to in order to meet financing requirements such as pension liabilities.”

Nili Gilbert commented on unusual nature of the current macro environment stating,

“Negative interest rates and deflationary environments should be something that is taken seriously and it is hard to be informed by history on this. Due to a lack of comparable historical precedents, it is necessary to be thoughtful and insightful rather than just look to historical analysis or a purely data driven approach. “

Katina Stefanova agreed that the environment is unprecedented and the biggest risk is that we are at point when monetary policy is no longer effective. She added,

“Central banks have little power to stimulate or slow down economies. It is time for more aggressive fiscal policy and governments are going to have to play a bigger role. “

Donna Parisi picked up this point when asked about the role of regulators and the change of government in November with the moderator questioning could a new President undo the work done by regulators post credit crisis?

Donna commented on the legislative risk that could come from an election cycle,

“I think Dodd Frank is too far down the road, the rules are so deeply embedded regardless of who takes the White House in November and regulators are
not done trying to fix the lack of transparency that exists in the markets.”

Donna also mentioned that from her perspective that upcoming challenges for the industry would be liquidity mismatches and leverage issues.

“Since funds are more and more becoming intermediaries for lending post credit crisis, there are issues around leverage and the role they should play.” She suggested that regulators are worried that asset managers could be the next too big to fail crisis.

“The regulators are still struggling with information gathering despite the huge volume of data that is required to be reported. They don’t feel like they have enough transparent data to adequately assess liquidity and leverage risk and its impact on the broader market.”

Katina joined this point with her comments that regulatory consequences are not always well understood, and in many ways the government has not eliminated risk but rather transferred it to other institutions.

Nili mentioned that changes in the sell side and how it is regulated can ultimately affect stock price movements and have impact for portfolio managers. By way of example, she cited Reg FD (Regulation Fair Disclosure) as an event, which changed how sell-side analysts released communications, and as a result changed the efficacy of “earnings revisions” as a tool for stock price forecasting.

Other topics discussed included opportunities and creating value for the investor such as changing fee structures. Judy and Nili discussed how it was important for investors to have transparency around how much they had to pay in the search for alpha. Nili also shared her philosophy on finding opportunities stating four main concepts as buying fundamentally good businesses, valuation, shareholder friendly management teams and shorter-term catalysts such as price and volume analysis.

“When we were coming out of the financial crisis, it was a great time to be a value investor because in that environment of fear, there were many cheap stocks. Since then, we have seen investors regain their confidence and so it’s not as an attractive a time as before to be a value investor. Momentum investing is an opportunity that we saw do very well in 2015. What works changes all the time and it is crucial to understand behavioral biases in the markets for optimum results.”

Katina concurred, “ We have factors such as technology, a shift in socio-demographics and this economic environment and the current political volatility that creates a great opportunity for disruption. The question is where will that disruption come from? “

Citing Alibaba as an unexpected money management entity that has grown fast. She added, “It is about access, a platform to retail investors will change it all and it will come”.

Donna added that current incumbents in the market had a competitive advantage when it came to FinTech innovation given their regulated status. However, industry incumbents are at a disadvantage when it comes to being true innovators or disrupters. The rising importance of technology in the industry and the scalability of investment strategies as a result create significant risk for something to go wrong and a resulting regulatory response.

With so much to talk about, and with great questions from the audience, the discussion is hopefully continuing in offices across the world as we speak.

Thanks to our panelists and moderator and engaged audience for another great event!

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How to Make Your Team the Best It Can Be

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woman chairing a boardroom meetingImagine a world where your boss genuinely cares about you, where he or she nurtures you, recognizes and rewards you fairly, always taking time to acknowledge your hard work and dedication. Not only that, but they respect you and support your professional growth.

Read more

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How networks can increase motivation, well-being and even increase performance

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Professional-networking-advice featuredLast week we talked about how having psychological safety at work is a key to feeling happy and performing well. We have also talked about employees networks recently and there is a case to say that the two are connected and if you can find support and connection here, then why not join one? They could be good for the soul and tangibly useful for tips to advance and a place to find mentors and sponsors. Maybe chatting with peers around a number of subjects will be valuable to you, ranging from social matters such as juggling parental/elder care commitments to a specific project that you want to talk more about. Either way, networks create space and time to talk in, learn in and connect with others in.

It is worth noting three things about networks though. Firstly, not everyone is created with the same amount of desire for contact and affiliation and it is wrong to assume that your need to feel part of something is equal to the next person. As an executive coach, I firmly believe that you should know yourself first ( psychometric tests will help us give your data back to you on this matter).
Secondly, it is also wrong to assume that all women are this or that. We are individuals with varying degrees of extraversion, confidence etc just as men are. What is systemic are the assumptions around what we are however and that is where you get to choose how to fill in the gaps when people think they know you. Remember you, according to you and you according to them are sometimes distant cousins.

By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

Contact nicki@glasshammer2.wpengine.com if you would like to hire a coach to help you navigate your career

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Voice of Experience: Hannah Grove, Chief Marketing Officer, State Street

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Grove_Hannah headshot 2015“The person who will have the most direct influence on your career is you,” says State Street’s Hannah Grove. She advises women to speak up for what they want, but also to help other women along the way. “It used to be that women were so focused on how to get through the glass ceiling themselves that they were hesitant to help one another as they feared it would dilute their own efforts. But we need to pay it forward,” she says, adding it is women’s responsibility to be instrumental in eliminating the gender divide for her daughter’s generation.

With roots aligned in marketing, public relations and communications, Grove has worked across Europe and America, first for smaller entrepreneurial companies and for the past 17 years in the global marketing group of State Street. While there, she is proud that she has helped evolve the marketing organization from a service function to one that is more proactive and integral to the company’s success.

“Our service is inextricably linked to business success, so we have developed this into a strategic function that’s deeply embedded in the client experience. It’s an achievement that we’ve built over time, through an amazing team. One of my secrets to success is hiring people who are better than me.”

One of the key strategies she has helped implement is an effective social media platform, an important tool that allows a company to engage in two-way dialogue and offers the ability to listen and customize messages by audience. “Corporate speak is vanishing, as there’s a push toward personalization, relevance and context. It’s a more viral, authentic approach and has tremendous possibilities, even in a B2B setting,” she says, adding that the team’s motto is getting the right content to the right person at the right time.

At the same time, there’s no denying that transparency can be overwhelming in the complicated and complex financial services industry, and yet focusing on openness and education can go a long way toward restoring the reputation of the industry at large.

Speak Up to Move Up

Reflecting on her career, Grove says she wishes she had known earlier that it’s ok to say “no.” She believes that women fall into the trap of wanting to take on everything to prove themselves and while it can be a good instinct, you have to put yourself on a “budget” or else you will easily become overwhelmed by a “go-to” reputation.

She also urges women to ask questions. There’s no way you can understand everything in the industry – in her experience, questions are a sign of curiosity and engagement, and you should want to surround yourself with people who ask questions and aren’t afraid to disagree with you.

In addition to asking questions, women should be sure that they make their voice heard at meetings. “Don’t ever be at a meeting where you don’t have a speaking role; I’ve never seen a man sit silently at a meeting,” she says. Even if your role at a meeting is to be an observer as a learning experience, she says there is always still a way to contribute, whether you’re asking a question or making a comment.

Finally, the advice to speak up extends to speaking up about your career. “I can’t tell you how many times women have come to me because their career isn’t moving as they’d like – maybe they’ve been overlooked for a promotion or don’t feel they are receiving a salary commensurate with their contributions. But when I query whether they have asked for what they want, nine times out of 10 they haven’t, and people aren’t telepathic,” she says. “And if you don’t get what you think you deserve, often you start resenting it and you quit in your mind. The reality though is that you’ve done that to yourself; you haven’t had it done to you.”

Championing Inclusion and Diversity as Corporate Values

Grove is part of State Street’s “Leading Women,” a group of 14 executive vice presidents who act as both a support network and a business strategy network. As part of their outreach, they are focusing on sponsorship of the next cadre of senior female leaders to help them develop and establish the gravitas, networking and visibility they need to feed into the pipeline. Through those women paying it forward, they expect they will touch 2,500 women across the country.

The company also has a global Professional Women’s Network with a dozen chapters that focus on networking, personal brand, public speaking and other professional skills.
For more than five years, Grove has acted as the executive sponsor for State Street Pride and Friends, the company’s LGBT employee network, which has seven chapters globally. Grove has been named to the OUTstanding LGBT Leading Ally Executives list, by OUTstanding in collaboration with the Financial Times. The lists recognize business leaders who are outspoken and unwavering in their support for LGBT people in the workplace and professionals who go above and beyond their day jobs to improve the working environment for LGBT employees.
“State Street has a real commitment to diversity and inclusion that manifests itself from our CEO on down; it’s not just a check box acitivity,” she says, as evidenced by the fact that the company earned a perfect 100% on the 2016 Corporate Equality Index (CEI), a national benchmarking survey and report on corporate policies and practices related to LGBT workplace equality, administered by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.

Giving Back

Grove, who has been married 23 years, has a high school senior and loves to travel with her family. She is also active in Women’s Lunch Place, a day shelter for women and children in Boston that strives to give women back their dignity, serving 200 guests a day.
As president of the board, she and her daughter volunteer every second Saturday. “It’s amazing how much poverty is in our cities which is why I am passionate about this cause. If you ever think you have a bad day, it really puts your life in perspective.”

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Is it good or bad for your career to change your name?

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wedding-322034_640Congrats! You just got married, now what? Back to work and you have a choice to carry on with your maiden name at work and in life or you can embark upon the admin that comes with changing your last name after getting married . It is an arduous one from standing in line at the DMV, calling the bank and credit card companies and changing email addresses but then there is all that personal branding work to think about. What are you going to do on social media and professional branding sites like LinkedIn?
 
There are more than just the formalities when someone who has already established a career changes their name. There is the story behind the name change and the conversation that is prompted when you first introduce yourself with your new name. An opportunity is created to talk about your personal life and recent marriage and this can serve to deepen your relationships with your co-workers and clients. Being authentic has been written about as a positive factor for building trust at work so perhaps it is a great way to get to know people better but also could reduce your visibility as people don’t recognize your name immediately.
 
Below three women share their experiences and advice on changing your name after already establishing a career.
Keeping it private
Cynthia Zeltwanger, Executive Director at the Paulson Institute, chose not to change her name when she got married in 1992.  
As a private person, she believes the topic can quickly spawn a personal conversation.
“I am a private person and I did not want to get into my personal life with professional relationships,” she said. “If you got married, it’s fine but if you are getting divorced, people could assume you got married and it creates a personal conversation with people in business that you might want to avoid.”
Zeltwanger got married when she was climbing the corporate ladder at a subsidiary of Société Générale. She remembers getting heat from her French colleagues for not taking her husband’s name but she was at pivotal point in her career and wanted to be taken seriously.
“Not so much anymore but when a woman gets married she can be seen as not as serious about her job,” said Zeltwanger. “While men are seen as more reliable when they have kids, women are seen as less committed.”
She believes that women need to be more cautious about clarifying their career intentions when making a name change.
“Be clear about your goals and aspirations and make sure the people in charge of your career progression know your goals have not changed just because you got married,” she said.“Some people will question your commitment.”
Hyphenating it
Patty Kevin followed family members into the derivatives business and worked 10 years in the industry before getting married. Afraid she would lose her identity but at the same time excited to embark on this new chapter in her life, she decided to hyphenate her name to Kevin-Schuler.
 
She said that the hyphenation was a way to make her colleagues aware of the name change.
 
“The colleagues you are close to know what’s going on in your life,” she said. “However, it’s the people on the peripheral that you need to educate.”
 
As Schuler’s career took her to the Chicago Board Options Exchange and then to her current role as Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Business Development at the Boston Options Exchange, she felt more comfortable with her new identity.
 
Schuler finally dropped her maiden name when she got divorced because she wanted to have the same last name as her kids.
 
With the advent of email and social media, Schuler believes it is easy to notify people of a name change. She recommends adding a hyphen in your name or a note in your email signature about the transition.
 
However, Schuler says there are times when it is okay to go back and forth between identities.
 
“I still get asked if I am related to this relative or that one,” she said. “If I am talking to someone who knows my family, I will introduce myself as Patty Kevin. I admit my transition has been a fluid one.”
Embracing it
While Zeltwanger wanted to keep her personal life private and Schuler has kept her identity flexible, others have embraced their new names without looking back.
 
Nancy Stern, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary at Allston Trading, remembers getting married and swiftly changing her last name. 
 
“I remember changing my name, address and phone number all at the same time,” she said. “This was before Facebook and Linked In.”
 
Starting out as a lawyer at Gardner, Carton & Douglas, Stern was worried she would lose her connections in the process and have to build up her network again.Similar to Schuler, Stern also felt like she was losing a part of her identity. However, looking back, she is glad that she made the change and believes women should embrace this right to choose.
 
“I didn’t really see this as a compromise of my feminism because I chose my husband and chose to take his name. The alternative would be my father’s name and while I had a wonderful father whom I loved very much, we cannot choose our fathers,” she said.
 
Changing your name is usually associated with a significant life event and If you are good at self-promotion and marketing yourself, a name change is an exciting reason to reinvent yourself. Have fun with your new personal branding campaign.
By Jessica Darmoni
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