Loretta Franks: VP, Chief Data & Analytics Officer at Kellogg Company

,

Loretta Franks“If you stay near the same dominion, you always have that depth, but if you move functions, you gain great leadership breadth. That comes with a lot of positives but it can leave a gap in a space you relied on,” says Loretta Franks to her broader, non-tech multidisciplinary background. “I love diving in and helping people, but now that has to happen in a different way. I must rely more on my leadership team and their depth of experience. That’s the shift I have taken from a leadership development perspective.”

Drawn Towards Change and Transformation

After traveling for a year after university, Franks joined Kellogg. Her trajectory to date is an exploration of interdisciplinary skills, each one often interweaving with and building upon the last. Beginning as a Financial Analyst, Franks has gone through 13 positions in her almost 16 years at Kellogg – from finance roles to project management roles, to change programs, to divestitures/acquisitions, to enterprise-wide transformation programs and now to data and analytics.

“I love the end-to-end view of business processes, which you get from large-scale projects and program transformation initiatives,” says Franks. “Finance was an amazing foundation for any role. I’m a big believer that understanding the fundamentals of a P&L is critical in whatever role you are in, but once I got a taste for large transformation roles and driving positive change, I got addicted!”

Her move from Regional European roles to Global roles in 2017 opened her network further and ultimately launched her into Global Business Services, then to lead the Next-Generation Analytics Global Program, then towards her current role.

“My friends would describe me as curious and a bit of a fidget! I have been fortunate to experience many functions and the learning opportunity is always much more important to me than the actual function itself that I report into. I like to blur the lines and work across the business. I enjoy variety; I don’t like the same day-to-day routine,” muses Franks. “I am energized most by strategy development, innovation and ideation, thinking of new ideas and solving problems. In any transformation-based initiative, you are trying to fundamentally change something for the better and add incremental value. That really motivates me.”

She’s felt at home in Kellogg culture which matches her own values as people-centered and solution-focused. “I take pleasure in building new relationships, mentoring and coaching people; whether it be through career matters, personal development challenges or new opportunities.”

The Power of Complementing Tech Expertise

Franks is often asked how she has got to her job without a background in tech.

“What we’ve collectively realized, as a team, is the power of diverse capabilities and experiences coming together is incredibly powerful. You need the technical discipline and expertise in the team, no doubt – the data scientists, the engineers – who have risen in this space,” she says. “But you also need people who can be great storytellers, who can help translate problems into business and technical requirements, who can lead large teams of diverse capabilities and cultures. You need to have customer centricity and think about the user experience as well as issues such as process, adoption, change management, talent development and engagement.” She believes the combination of multiple capabilities and experiences in Data & Analytics is the big unlock end-to-end.

She has also found that many of her tech talent often don’t want to be muddled in business analysis, prioritization debates, investment choices or decision-making, so allowing them to focus on what they really love to do, which is working with technology, data and being innovative is a huge engagement lever.

Franks would say her natural curiosity and her problem-solving mind, “irrelevant of the swim lane I am in,” has helped navigate between disciplines.

“I think people see me as authentic and well-intended,” reflects Franks. “We are a regionally driven company and so for me it’s all about how we best enable our regions and functions as one team. In the end it’s all about creating value for our shareholders and end consumers.”

Back in finance as a leader, Franks could roll up her sleeves and get into the details when it was required due to her experience and qualifications coming up through the lower levels. As she’s taken on senior leadership roles across new functions, she’s had to adjust and identify new ways of providing support and getting enough detail from her leadership team to make decisions.

Building Confidence and Showing Vulnerability

“I have become much more comfortable with showing vulnerability as a leader over the last 12-24 months,” says Franks. “And the more I do it, the more I realize the positive impact it has on my team and myself.”

In a recent in-person feedback team-development session, she repeatedly heard that the more vulnerability she shows, the more she builds trust with her leadership team.

“It made me reflect on the fact that I don’t have to be this unbreakable leader for the sake of my team. Talking about some of my insecurities, gaps in knowledge or concerns and asking for their support is a huge unlock for our team’s performance and overall connection,” says Franks. “Trying to be constantly brilliant for them can put an unintended pressure on them to also not show cracks. It was eye-opening to see that my positive intent was actually creating unintended negative impacts.”

Franks encourages women to focus on confidence-building and even at times being selfish.

“Confidence is so important, yet sometimes ‘confidence’ can be felt by women as a negative because we don’t want to come across arrogant or as a know-it-all. We need to take these words that have negative associations and switch them into positives,” says Franks. “There is also a huge amount of negative connotation around the phrase ‘being selfish.’ But it is so important that at times you put yourself first. Prioritize your own development, personal learning journey, self-care, and look to make choices that help you, not just other people all the time.”

She continues, “I think it’s breaking those associations in our head that suggest ‘If I’m confident…I’m perceived as arrogant’ or ‘If I’m selfish… I’m a mean person.’ It can feel very uncomfortable, but it is these simple things that can make a massive difference and it is not about changing your values, just your priorities.”

Women in STEM – A Leap Beyond Sight

As Franks has moved from gender-balanced Finance and GBS functions in Kellogg towards an IT leadership role working with many tech partners and vendors externally, she’s seen the difference in representation. She is an advocate for gender parity and passionate about getting more women into STEM and girls into STEM subjects, looking at gender equity talent pipelines and career development at Kellogg, and working with partners and vendors for their support as well across the industry.

“As a big global brand, we have the opportunity to choose who we work with, we can leverage that position to lead the conversation and drive positive change in the industry,” says Franks. “Our partners also have their own fantastic programs and priorities around gender equity and women in STEM initiatives so working together, we can really start to shift the dial.”

After taking the opportunity to speak about women in STEM and gender equity across Data & Analytics, amidst a large technology conference, she was inspired by the number of men who waited after to speak with her about inspiring their own daughters.

“I think it surprised them because I raised this topic as a bolt on to the main agenda. It was a proud moment to see this big queue to talk more about getting women into D&A and Technology,” says Franks. “I think the more that we can use platforms like that to talk about it, the better.”

Franks partners with different organizations to reach younger girls about opportunities available to them in STEM. Having role models is essential to inspire and motivate others, Franks emphasizes. “If you can see it, you can be it”.


“When I was in school, CDAOs did not exist as a career choice and there are many more roles that will exist in ten years’ time that do not exist today,” she iterates. “It is important that we change the narrative and mindset of following a linear pre-defined journey and instead give both girls and women the confidence to trust and keep moving within an area of their passion, without having to plan the future out in too much detail. The world is changing fast and knowing the opportunities are open to us all, irrelevant of gender, is what is important.”

Speaking of the next generation, Franks and her partner have two children, seven and five years old. As a family person and former Lacrosse player, she watches a lot of sports when she’s not launching into yet another unexplored territory.

By Aimee Hansen

/by

Why Choose A Women’s Retreat Instead of A Summer Vacation?

, ,

women's retreatAs we enter spring, summer vacation is approaching. While sometimes a vacation is the perfect break from daily life, other times it may feel like a too short escape. Sometimes, as women, we don’t wish only to take a week away from our lives. Sometimes we want to take a deeper look at how we are feeling in our lives and what belongs here, now? 

Once in a while, a woman admits she skipped the annual girlfriends cocktails on the beach trip or perhaps gifted herself a rare week away alone because she knew she was being called to do something else. That voice came from nowhere but within. Rather than a break, sometimes women want to put the brakes on everything, step back and connect: This is my life: how awake am I to the living of it?

Sometimes we want to listen into our own center with less noise around. We want to take an honest look at whether we are allowing ourselves to feel what we truly feel, be who we want to be and do what we most want to do – and how we, ourselves, might be getting in our way. We want to see if we have fallen into getting by in life instead of enchanting our lives. We want to reimagine our possibilities and shift, within ourselves, to be more intentionally in alignment with our desires.

When women choose a women’s retreat, it’s often because they are confronting a crossroads or seek soul nourishiment or simply a fuller sense of aliveness. Which also means they want an experience of life that is nourished from within rather than defined by constant striving. While often held in an idyllic location with exceptional scenery, the real invitation of a women’s retreat is as much to the inner journey as it is to the travel adventure.

Debating about summer plans?

Here are some reasons why you might choose a women’s retreat this year instead of just the usual summer vacation.

You will release stress and be nurtured. Even short mindfulness retreats have shown a significant reduction in stress and anxiety levels and improved biological markers of inflammation. Going on retreat is a way to strip away the distractions and allow yourself to simply be nourished – by your host, by the warmth and sharing of your fellow participants, by the rich offerings of your surroundings. But not only that – you again remember how to truly nourish yourself while on retreat and the importance of that, and not just for a week.

You can disrupt your routine and thought patterns. We typically think at least 6,000 thoughts a day (some say far more) and up to 90% of thoughts are repetitive. Talk about exhausting! At a retreat, you release control of the small decisions and surrender into a different and foreign rhythm. Why does that matter? It disrupts and shakes up your repetitive thought patterns and creates spaciousness in which you can hear other voices within. It’s amazing how the questions and also being-ness that lie buried just under the busy-ness begin to surface.

You will get back into your body and intuition. We live so predominantly in our minds in the modern world and even more so as faces on screens in the virtual workplace. And how much of achievement culture is based on striving and producing at all costs, even if overriding the physical self? Have your ever actually, even once, crossed off the entire to-do list and finally got to the landing? You have to create it for yourself, regardless. A retreat invites you to get back into your body. Whether through breathing or meditation or yoga or free movement, you are given the opportunity to connect with your body and the rich and embodied insight that lives in your cellular awareness.

You will step out of your roles. We play many roles in our lives, but sometimes, we can get so enmeshed with them that the roles start to parade around as us. A role includes any ‘part’ you play from which you derive value, worth or a sense of identity – both the roles that you love (chief executive, favorite grandmother) and roles that you don’t (undervalued team member, sleepless mom of a difficult child). No matter the role, no matter who assigned it to you, no matter what you’ve made it mean and no matter how much your identity may be wrapped up in it, every role is too small. Sometimes we derive our worth from the roles we play and the scripts we’ve created, displacing it from our core. We can also victimize or aggrandize ourselves through roles. Stepping out of them challenges you to value yourself inherently.

You will be seen, heard and validated. Small talk comprises up to one-third of our speech, and plays an important role in social interaction. But women do not come to a retreat to have the usual conversation. A retreat circle is a circle of women who usually did not know each other previously: it can provide a place without history. No blueprint of your identity exists here. Women often come to shake up the conversation they have with themselves. And sometimes, all it takes is being heard saying something you thought you could not, so you can finally clear your throat and let your voice come through. You are invited to be raw and authentic and unresolved. In a women’s retreat, women come together with the intention to honor and support each other – but in doing so, we also redefine what that means.

You can expect some perspective shifts. Of course, putting yourself in new and often incredible surroundings can refresh your perspective. But, if you dare, expect more. Whether we want to face it, there is no one consensus reality. Our experience of life emerges through our practices of perception. In the context of a women’s retreat, you may be able to see where you are buying into beliefs about yourself and the world that have never worked for you. You may be able to see where you are inhibiting yourself with the patterns or false virtues or committing to things you don’t want to with regular reinforcing action, instead of what you want. What if you’ve played down the part of you that would benefit you most to play up? You may recognize that you are sitting in victimhood where it would feel so much more empowering to recognize your agency and your choice. What if the world and your options are not nearly as limited as you have been determined to see them?

You may feel a rush of life force or have new visions. In a women’s retreat, you are invited to remember that being self-loving is how you fill your own cup, so that you can spill over. As you begin to pour into yourself on retreat, with less going on externally to take up space within you, do not be surprised if you begin to feel like you are accessing more of yourself. You may find more to be grateful for. You may remember a vivid energy or quality about yourself that you’ve forgotten and now want to bring back. Or a new way you want to share from your heart. You may realize you have enough resource and energy to make real steps, first within, towards a change you wish for. You may simply feel more at peace and able to be less shaken by the chaos outside of you. But it would be very rare if you thought and felt exactly the same as you did arriving.

Which is the main point, really. So, the biggest reason to skip the traditional summer vacation and go on a women’s retreat this year? What animates you most in life is living into and showing up for this adventure of you.

By: Aimee Hansen – Our “Heart” coach, interviewer, and lead writer – is a women’s retreat creator and facilitator. The Journey Into Sacred Expression writing and yoga women’s retreats on Lake Atitlan in Guatemala are recommended in Lonely Planet Wellness Escapes and have been praised by the nearly 200 women who have gathered with her. Circle with women underneath volcanoes to write, meditate, do yoga, move and participate in various sessions. She has two summer events in 2023: July 7-15 and Aug 25 – Sept 2. Each has 12 spaces only.

/by

Marcella Sivilotti: Chief Strategy Officer, PGIM

,

Marcella Sivilotti“Somewhere along the way of observing women progress in their careers, I realized that no one ever got very far if they cared too much about: What do others think? How did I come across? Was I likeable? And so on,” says Marcella Sivilotti. “You get to a certain place because you channeled that energy not on worrying about whether people like you or your answer, but on asking how do I get the job at hand done?”

Structuring Strategic Issues

Having studied industrial engineering in Rome, Marcella mastered the ability to approach any practical problem–including business problems–with an analytical lens: How do you maximize profit? What is the shortest path? The ability to streamline problems and structure solutions led her to management consulting with McKinsey. She transferred to the US with the firm to obtain an MBA from Columbia. What began as a two-year stint has led to almost 15 years in the US, and a career and family now firmly established in New York.

In 2014, ready to shift from consulting to working to implement change within companies, Marcella joined PGIM, the $1.2 trillion asset management arm of Prudential Financial. Now she leads a small but high-impact team who advises senior management on the strategic direction and priorities of the business, that also strongly factor in the human element of every equation.

“As an advisor, you look at the data and the range of strategic options. But, there’s also: Where is this person coming from as they assess this decision? What makes them click? What are their concerns, spoken or unspoken?” she says. “So there’s a lot of psychology involved when you’re on the other side.”

Marcella is animated by the constant variety her role offers: “I’ve been at the company for over eight years, and every day there’s some new aspect of the business I have not looked into and a new problem to solve.” She loves applying the same analytic framework to new kinds of problems – identifying the variables, finding possible solutions and assessing the best path forward in partnership with the senior business leaders she advises.

Coming from consulting, Marcella has been inspired to find that the PGIM culture is not about making the decision that is going to look good in front of your boss, but rather about managing the business with a long-term mindset. She points out that investment management is all about generating returns in a very measurable way. And it’s exactly that accountability that necessitates honest discussions and a willingness to engage in fruitful debate and open exchanges of ideas and views with passion and respect, which she loves. She enjoys working with smart and motivated people and says, “People here care about doing the right thing by the business.”

Giving and Receiving the Feedback We Need to Grow

Marcella is animated by leading and shaping a team. She enjoys the human element of influencing behavior: “It’s less about what looks good in a PowerPoint deck and more about how to make things happen in the complex, messy real world. Importantly, that requires establishing trust, and modulating between ‘when do I need to be nice and accommodating?’ versus ‘when do I need to give the gift of direct and honest feedback?’”

Marcella seeks to strike that delicate balance both in leading her team and in her advising role. In leading a team: “There is a balance between creating a caring and ‘fail safe’ team environment (where it’s okay not to be perfect and bring what you’re good at and what you’re not good and it’s understood that everybody has both aspects) and also having a focus on giving clear feedback,” she discerns. “Everybody loves to be told they are great, but that’s not always conducive to growth. So how do you make sure people get the tough message when it’s warranted, without it coming across as failure but rather as an opportunity and source of growth?”

In her advisory role: “When I advise people, if I just tell them what they want to be told, I am useless. Because that’s not good advice,” she notes.

She herself has learned to better embrace both giving and receiving tough feedback and position it not as a deficit but as a developmental edge.

Take Your Attention Away from What Others Think

At the core of her own success is two things. The first is being a logical and structured thinker–always beginning with ‘what do we know’ and ‘what do we not know?’ The second is being able to relate to people, to read them and also not shy away from being candid as a leader.

When it comes to fulfilling potential, Marcella points out that if you listen to the stories of either men or women in leadership, they stopped preoccupying themselves with what other people were thinking or how they came across, and instead liberated themselves to focus on how to achieve their visions. And if there’s one thing she could have known sooner, it would be that.

She also picked up the value of conviction and resilience. “If you’re told ‘no’ once, just have another go. No one ever got far because they got pessimistic the first time they failed. As the saying goes, it’s about how many times you get back up.”

From university onwards, Marcella has been used to being the one, or one of the few, women in the room. Against that backdrop, she has focused on what she wants to achieve, avoided getting caught up in the politics, and shown up as candid and outspoken with conscious disregard for whatever societal expectations may be at play.

Passion is Showing Up and Growing

As a leader, Marcella hopes to infuse her team with a good measure of passion, involvement and caring about the outcomes they create together.

“You hear lately about ‘quiet quitting’ and how people come to work because they want to get a paycheck, but they’re tuned out. I can’t imagine that, because if that ever happened to me, I’d rather just quit,” she says. “When it comes to solving problems, I like the fact that I do feel a measure of responsibility for the outcome and the quality of work we put in. I’m lucky to have been able to build and be supported by a team that shares that same spirit.”

The other thing she likes to convey to her team is to not be too serious and to always keep some perspective around the work. In supporting a growth culture, Marcella feels it’s so important that people realize that it is okay to fail.

“There is that saying, ‘you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.’ If the aim is to be perfect and never make the wrong decision, by definition there’s an element of faking or over-conservatism,” she says, “because just to ensure you don’t ever make the wrong move, you’re never going to make a move. But investment professionals make decisions for a living and no one will ever be right 100% of the time. That comes with the job.”

Being A Mom Has Only Added to Her Game

In the past three years, Marcella has become a mom and feels bringing up her two kids has strengthened her leadership.

“Becoming a parent makes you so resilient. It’s a great exercise in messing up 50 times a day. Before having children, I may have ruminated on how a meeting didn’t go well,” she says. “Now, I can put it in the context of the 50 others ways I was challenged today. I don’t have time to get stuck on it.”

It has also made her more efficient and laser-focused on the most important aspects of any problem, because she still wants to achieve everything with high quality, but must make it happen in more limited hours. She feels the direct and challenging experience of balancing personal and work life as a parent has also given her more compassion and empathy for others.

“You realize that everybody may have something they’re trying to cope with – whether it’s parenting, caring for someone who is unwell, or a breakup,” she says. “So it’s about being more attuned. I may not know what it is you are dealing with, but I’m going to be empathetic and an ally.”

Time and again, the human element weighs strongly in the equation.

By Aimee Hansen

/by

International Women’s Day 2023: Artificial Intelligence, Technology and the Internet

, ,

IWD 2023It feels that Artificial intelligence (AI) has really gone from feeling opaque and slightly in the realms of science fiction to current reality with Chat GPT now partly academically approved and AI of all types – from Bing’s chat GPT ‘wanting to be alive’ Jungesque aspirations this week to Elon Musk’s perhaps legitimate fear of AI to the ‘metaverse’ – being discussed at family gatherings. Surprisingly, or perhaps right on time, the UN Women 67th Annual Commission on the Status of Women International Women’s Day 2023 has a theme of “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality.” With the hashtag #Poweron, the focus is on the opportunities that technology has to create access to work opportunities and services for more parity for women across the world, while reducing the internet’s facilitation and spread of sexual violence.

AI Issues From a Career Perspective for Women

Algorithms and AI can add another layer to bias and stereotyping beyond the human aspects that we all work so hard to defuse. Just under 80% of people who work in AI are men and the systems are entrenched in language – benign at best, purposely coded at worst with “lesser than” logic patterns. AI has been found to have biases against women and from a career perspective this has been understood most in hiring processes with Amazon scrapping their AI for recruiting for some of these reasons. Machine learning has shown to replicate male and white visibility with higher values given to data and images of white men. In The MIT Sloan Review, invisibility and erasure was discussed when it comes to ethnic diversity in facial recognition, with the topic causing a furor last June when President Obama’s face was machine refined as a high pixel image of a white man.

There are huge opportunities in AI though from a career breadth and depth perspective. AI is and will be in our lives more and more with wearables being the predicted game changer for healthcare. Other industries like financial services and even your digital shopping cart are heavily investing in AI and machine learning. It could it be applied to big issues like carbon farming practices and climate disaster and climate migrant preparation related challenges. And job roles and skillsets that represent a cross-section of disciplines are increasingly relevant and necessary, so coming from a STEM background is not a prerequisite for getting involved.

What are the Social Issues?

The issue behind technology is always based in human behaviors from who creates what, how and why, to who uses the product or service and for what end. How much humanity is in avatars and online commenters and how people behave online versus in real life has been a decade plus study. Do people act differently when they have anonymity or are without nonverbal cues? How does life online inform real life and vice versa? Apparently, moral outrage gets reposted 20% more than regular statements. The Pew Center has a body of research stating online harassment to be around 45% for men especially around topics of politics while fewer women report this. But, female politicians face verbal abuse with 39% of tweets about females in politics containing problematic threats, as do female journalists. Women are more likely to be sexually harassed or threatened with sexual violence online with image sharing, revenge porn and sextortion being part of this century so far.

Legislation is slowly catching up in Europe and the US with The White House launching the White House Task Force to Address Online Harassment and Abuse in 2022 to tackle online issues including sexual violence, abuse and sharing of files against women, and also child sexual abuse material (CSAM) sharing. Files containing CSAM have increased exponentially with 89.1 million files being reported in 2021 alone and the Legal 500 recently published a study entitled “Is it time to age gate the internet?” citing demand by internet to view child abuse to be increasing significantly. Harrowing as this is to report the hundreds of percent increase for demand of this terrible societal scourge, it is entirely important to understand how technology can help solve for issues as well as replicate problems. It does require people to think about hard things, have difficult conversations and take actions – such as code and AI for good not evil. For example, Thorn.org works to help via code to tag material to stop the spread of files, and in the UK and EU, there are similar technologies that all companies can access. We all need to work to solve real issues that degrade people as well as for democracy and opportunity for all humans.

Women’s lives is an increasing issue with discussions at major platforms and within governments ongoing on how to truly parse and filter empowering content regarding fitness, breastfeeding and women’s health from adult consensual content from non-consensual violence and assault; first to third world. Society at large from a behavioral perspective is again acceptably and overtly anti- women when it comes to dignity and personal sovereignty it seems. From dating apps and their unsolicited genital pictures and deepfakes to permanent perennial abuse images that never let the victim truly recover and all that is in between, it is hard to avoid pondering the nuances of the internet being a mirror or a vehicle to human darkness?

What Can You Do To Be Part of the Solution?

#1 Support with time and money STEM and coding programs for girls and women such as Girls Who Code or Black Girls Code or anitab.org or NCWIT or TCGi Foundation from Avis Yates Rivers. Encourage any girl or young woman you know to get into STEM. There are many pathways.

#2 Hire women into tech jobs, mentor women where you can, be the sponsor where you can!

#3 Have difficult and unsavory conversations with your kids about what is ok and what is not, and what to do if they see something awful on the internet.

#4 Continue the obviously much needed socio-cultural and psychological work for all humans to instill ethical boundaries in our boys and men (and girls and women) to help stop casual sexual and physical violence in real life as well as virtual world, the mantra ‘boys will be boys’ has to stop now so that girls can be girls, safely.

#5 Fund the solutions. Consider donating to Thorn or a similar organization that provides technical solutions, advocacy, support or education on the topic of CSAM or gender/sexual violence and sex trafficking such as RAINN or New Life, New Friends.

Either way, having awareness that there is a virtual world that replicates some of the real world’s most difficult challenges regarding gender is the conversational entry point into an inevitable new world. With more women being involved in building technology, and more women worldwide having equal access to technology, we hold out hope that we engineer AI for the good of women’s lives and towards the collective good.

By Nicki Gilmour

/by

Judith Barry: Co-Head of Global Equities, Wells Fargo

,

Judith Barry“Women put too much pressure on themselves by thinking they have to walk into a role fully capable and qualified, when the reality is that as long as you have the core of what you need to do for the job, you can build and learn,” says Judith Barry. “As long as you’re willing to be vulnerable enough to admit that you’re going to need help or to learn new skills as you navigate, you can take on those bigger jobs.”

Leveraging Her Unique Trajectory

During her sophomore summer at NYU as a political science major, Barry accepted an operations role with Lehman Brothers, staying on during her junior year while attaining her securities licenses. Graduating a semester early, she switched firms and began her career in trading. Trading suited her perfectly: she thrived on how trading was new every day, both fast and dynamically paced, and that it meant working with very smart individuals. After a few years, Barry moved to the buy-side working for a hedge fund. By 29 years old, she became Head of Trading at a hedge fund, before moving to two other firms also as Head of Trading, eventually returning to the sell-side with Wells Fargo. Now with the bank for five years, Barry is Co-Head of the Equities Division, part of Markets, a role she has held since April 2022, as well as Head of Equity Products Distribution.

“I think my unique trajectory gave me the opportunity to learn and hone a lot of skills and, quite frankly, truly understand what clients need and want,” she notes. “Now I’m in a seat to take that knowledge base and help Wells Fargo address all of our clients’ needs and challenges.”

The WomenGoFar Network: Educate, Elevate and Empower

In addition to her Co-Head and Head roles, Barry is also Chairwoman of the WomenGoFar network within Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB) at Wells Fargo. About a third of CIB staff are part of the WomenGoFar network, not only women, but also men who are allies in support of diversity.

The WomenGoFar network seeks to educate, elevate and empower women to navigate their careers internally as well as their personal lives.

“Women choose and have different paths – some are single, some are mothers, some are dealing with elderly parents or siblings. Not everyone wants a senior leadership role, but we’re about empowering women to navigate their own career goals to be effective while also balancing life,” she notes. “It’s important to have the skills to come into an organization and be able to advocate for yourself or to elevate your profile.”

When Barry entered trading in the early 90’s, women were competing for very few trading and sales positions. It was unusual to be a woman trader, let alone a senior trader, and unimaginable to sit at the head of the trading desk.

“It’s still unusual for women to be a co-head of equities at a bank, so I’m very proud of the seat that I sit in and the support I’ve been given at Wells Fargo,” Barry says. “What’s critical is I was able to take my early experience and turn that into sponsorship and mentorship and advocacy for women. Now, rather than all of us running at just one seat, there is the opportunity for women to be successful in any seat.”

WomenGoFar builds collaboration, instead of competition, between women and increases access to senior women leaders, sharing how they navigated to where they are today. In the spirit of ‘if you can see it, you can be it,’ Barry feels it’s her responsibility to be visible in her position and she is intentional about celebrating milestones for women. Sharing her own story – the good, the bad, and the speed bumps – is an important part of how she inspires others. She seeks to excel as a leader, as a mother and as a partner with the people and teams she works with.

Barry is also actively involved in creating inspiring content, understanding the supports women need and elevating awareness around the cumulative experiences of women leaders. One example of programming is a deep dive with McKinsey & Company’s annual Women in the Workplace study. WomenGoFar also hosts internal speaker series on topics like personal wealth and investment management that benefit women, from the early stages of their career. In addition, this past year, CIB hosted their first off-site Women’s Leadership Summit which brought together high-level senior women from the bank and the client side, spotlighting important female clients across the spectrum of Wells Fargo.

Flexibility, Resilience And Communication

“Especially as a trader, or someone in finance, you need to be incredibly resilient to navigate the up and down turbulence of the marketplace,” Barry says. “It takes flexibility to understand how to approach things but also resilience when things don’t go your way. You need to be able to pivot and get back on track so that you can achieve the goals that you set.”

Back on the trading desk, where each decision was being made with heightened urgency, engagement often took the form of yelling. But as she moved to managerial and leadership roles, she worked on elevating her communication skills – whether navigating smaller conversations in managing people or conveying an important message to a larger audience. She’s also realized how important it is to value her own voice.

“When I first was on a trading desk, I was often attempting to embrace or to emulate what my male peers were doing. I thought that in order to be successful, I had to be them,” she reflects. “Then I realized that it was incredibly important to have my own voice and realize that I didn’t need to do what they were doing in order to be successful.”

Being Confident and Finding Your Voice

“I walk into every new thing I do with an understanding of ‘I know what I know’ but ‘I know what I don’t know,’ too,” says Barry. “I’m comfortable about being vulnerable enough to ask people to help me.”

She continues, “Women put too much pressure on themselves by thinking they have to walk into a role fully capable and qualified, when the reality is that long as you have the core of what you need to do the job, you can build and learn. As long as you’re willing to be vulnerable enough to admit that you’re going to need help or to learn new skills as you navigate, you can take on those bigger jobs.”

Citing the famous study that women apply only if 100% qualified (while men apply with 60% of qualifications), Barry notes: “I think it’s important to have self-awareness and be self-reflective but, more importantly, you have to have confidence.”

Barry feels being an extrovert helped her to find her voice and to self-advocate, and everyone needs to learn that. She is conscious of the introverts who are incredibly talented and make significant contributions but often aren’t as adept at being cheerleaders for their accomplishments.

“Find someone who is both a sponsor and a mentor. A lot of my success comes down to finding those people who see your contributions, see the things you do and see the skills that you offer,” she notes. “It’s having that opportunity to go to them for advice, but also make sure that someone is speaking on your behalf in the rooms that you aren’t in. You can learn to advocate for yourself, but it’s important that you also have people advocating for you.”

Get the Feedback You Need to Grow

Barry brings empathy and vulnerability and confidence and candor into any room and is commanding. She feels “a compliment is nice, but feedback is a gift” and is tougher on the women she is closer to. Barry feels managers have shied away in recent times from giving critical feedback, especially to women, but it’s critical to growth. So also relies on a good dose of humor.

“If you’re not getting feedback from your manager, go ask for it. Make it so that they are given permission to give you feedback because you’re only going to get better,” she advises. “Feedback isn’t personal. It’s professional and possibly data-driven feedback.”

“Be Intentional and Be Exceptional”

Barry would advise women to take more moments to sit back, pause and reflect before taking the bigger steps, personally and professionally, and to constantly check in on their capacity and ability to do more: think in terms of one, three and five year plans. Barry also emphasizes women be mindful of the people they are connecting and working with, their experiences and their background.

She advises women, “Be intentional and be exceptional. It’s incredibly important for women to understand that if you want to hit a certain level of success, you are going to have to really lean into things,” she says. “That phraseology has become commonplace for women, but it’s not a woman thing and it’s not a man thing. It means that when you are going to do something in life, you should want to be exceptional at doing it. And you should be intentional about how you get there.”

Barry enjoys a couple of trips a year with her family and teenage children. She loves disconnecting from work and immersing her family on city trips in Europe. She says her family is into learning trips, as culture and history buffs, far more than beach trips. Recently they visited Northern Ireland and Portugal. She also values ‘me time’ in helping her to show up whole for her family and at work.

“It goes back to that word intentional – I’m intentional in what I do and how I work and I have to be intentional about carving out my spare time.”

Fitness is a top priority for her, including long hikes often accompanied by great conversation with a friend. She also ‘confesses’ that she teaches a bootcamp class based on karate to women every Saturday morning, so it’s women’s empowerment over roundhouse kicks, too, for Barry.

/by

How to Master Remote Interviews

, ,

remote interviewsTen years ago, the idea of a fully remote role would have been unusual, if not unheard of, especially in some industries. But with the COVID-19 pandemic forcing many of us to work from home in recent years, remote work post-pandemic has become increasingly normal.

The benefits of working from home are clear: better work-life balance, no more lost commuting time, reduced costs, and perhaps even increased productivity without office distractions. But working remotely requires a skill set that is focused on communication, self-management and technical confidence.

Job applicants will want to ensure that their CV accurately reflects these skills, but the interview stage is crucial to successfully be hired for a role. Particularly with remote roles, a video interview is part of the process of understanding whether a candidate has the necessary experience to succeed in the future. So how can job seekers set themselves up for success? We take a look.

Be aware of body language

Saying the right things is understandably important when it comes to interviewing, but body language will also play a part. Even if it’s subconscious, the interviewer may warm to a candidate if their body language is open, calm, and confident. This has always been true at in-person interviews, where eye contact and handshakes are a normal part of the process. But how can candidates replicate this on a screen?

Firstly, candidates should make sure to position their camera at eye level so that they’re able to give the impression of eye contact, and the interviewer is able to clearly see their facial expressions. Having a good posture, keeping a calm but confident tone of voice, and smiling will all help applicants ace virtual interviews according to this guide to job hunting in the age of remote work. Interviewing over an internet connection can make it harder to hear what’s being said, so the interviewee should also ensure they’re speaking slowly enough and speaking up.

If a candidate is worried that they will mumble or get flustered when answering, then they can make sure to consider some responses to generic questions before the call. Practicing answers in front of a mirror might sound excessive, but it can help with correcting any body language issues before the big day. Interviewees can also either choose to hide their self-view on screen if it’s too distracting or keep it open to check on how their body language is coming across to others.

Dress professionally

Dressing professionally, even if the interview is taking place virtually, is key for any hopeful remote employee. If in doubt, it’s always best to be a bit overdressed than underdressed – first impressions count. Whilst it can be tempting to go smart on the top half and casual when it comes to trousers, dressing for the role can help encourage confidence and self-belief. Plus, on the off chance that a candidate needs to stand up on the call (unexpected fire alarms do happen), the professional impression will last.

Test the technology

Technology is vital for success in any remote role, and as such it’s important that it works correctly at the interview stage to give a good impression. Interviewees should make sure that their camera, microphone, and internet connection are working properly ahead of time, and know how to use the meeting platform that the interviewer has proposed. Having a small test meeting with a friend can be a good way to ensure that everything is as it should be, checking that the picture is clear and the lighting is good.

Applicants should also make sure that they know how to handle things if they don’t quite go to plan. Remaining calm and professional is important no matter what happens, and it can help to have a backup such as dialing into the meeting from a phone instead of a laptop. If possible, it may also be worth learning how to set up a phone hotspot in case of a patchy internet connection.

Use prompts

The joy of a remote interview is the ability to use sticky note prompts, short summaries, or even have your resume to hand. As long as candidates are not looking away from the screen for long periods of time, using cues can be a great way to give clear answers, and cover all the necessary points. Some interviewees also like to use these notecards to prepare their answers before the interview and then memorize key details, similar to revision flashcards.

It’s important to ensure that answers remain natural – note cards can help with key points to remember, but should not be read aloud word for word.

Keep things quiet

Finally, it’s good practice to ensure that any housemates or family members are informed of interviews well ahead of time, to ensure they will be quiet wherever possible. Whilst noise-canceling headphones will handle background sounds with ease, they won’t block out any loud sounds like doors shutting or the vacuum cleaner. Keeping disruption to a minimum is both professional and less distracting for the person interviewing.

Interviewees should also mute any phone or computer notifications to avoid them getting distracted – it’s easier to lose focus when you’re not in the room with the interviewer. However, this is highly noticeable on a screen. This is not good news when it comes to interviewing success – research has shown that 80% of unsuccessful candidates seemed distracted in their video interviews.

The best chance of success

In the modern world of work, candidates are more likely than ever to find a remote role. However, just because we’re working from home more, it doesn’t mean that first impressions at an interview should also be casual. By following these tips, job seekers can help give themselves the best chance of success.

By: Kathleen White, who works as an independent business analyst for several small businesses. She completed her degree in Business and Management. She enjoys writing in her spare time to share what she has learned, in hopes of benefiting other businesses.

(The opinions and views of guest contributions are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com).

/by