Where are the Black Women Executives?

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iStock_000005966600XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

A little more than two years ago, The Executive Leadership Council Institute for Leadership Development & Research published the findings of its Black Women’s Research Initiative [PDF]. Executive Director Ancella Livers, Ph.D., explained, “Some of our female members noticed the numbers of black women in executive roles seemed to be fairly small. They wanted to know why.”

“We really wanted to be able to understand what’s going on, and to give some of our younger women markers on a pathway.” She continued, “Younger women have the intelligence and the skills, but not the access to the experiences of the women who went before them to guide the way.”

Unfortunately, according to Dr. Livers, in the years since the research was published, there has not been much change regarding the number of Black women in senior roles, or in the pipeline. And while she noted the importance of Ursula Burns as the CEO of Xerox, Dr. Livers said, in general, many black women perceived a lack of role models, as part of the reason why. Others suggest that black women lack strength in their strategic relationships with those in power, as another reason.

This week and throughout the month of February, The Glass Hammer will highlight some of those Black women who have achieved a high level of success in the corporate environment, who can serve as role models for the women climbing the ladder behind them.

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Ambassador Karen Hughes Discusses Leadership at the FWA

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hughes_karenBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“I’ve always done what I’m passionate about,” began Ambassador Karen Hughes, Global Vice Chair of public relations firm Burson Marsteller. “I always tell young people, ‘follow your passion and keep with your values.'”

At a recent Financial Women’s Association Event, Hughes recalled some of the critical moments during her previous career as Counselor to President George W. Bush and Under Secretary of Public Affairs at the State Department. She discussed important factors for strong leadership, and what it means to follow your passion.

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Gender Quotas in Practice: The Last Straw

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boardroomBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Last week The Glass Hammer covered a conference hosted by the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College and the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Center for Leadership and Ethics at Columbia Business School, which asked, “Has the time come for bolder policies for diversity at the top of corporations?”

While the first part of the morning focused on academic research on the subject of quotas and gender targets, the second half focused on the practitioner perspective – how does the implementation of gender targets actually work within companies, what are the drawbacks, and how can organizations work toward a more balanced workforce?

The practitioners’ panel, moderated by Gillian Tett, US Managing Editor, Financial Times, featured Sheila Hooda, Senior Managing Director, TIAA-CREF; Ellen Stafford-Sigg, Board Member and Principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP; James DeGraffenreidt, Corporate Director and Former chairman and CEO of WGL Holdings, Inc.; and Barbara Colwell, Corporate Director, Advisory Board member of Women Corporate Directors and Former Executive Director of ThinkQuest NYC.

Contrasting the morning’s discussions which, for the most part, concluded that quotas would be a positive outcome, the practitioners’ panel was not as favorable. The panelists largely agreed that quotas were not the best outcome in terms of building gender equality in the corporate space, and should be considered, at most, a last resort.

Said Hooda, “Quotas might be necessary as a last straw – like saving a drowning man.”

Tett commented, “Sometimes the last straw is necessary.”

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The Future of Women in Financial Services at the NCRW’s Women and Money Luncheon

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iStock_000001124874XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Earlier this week, the National Council for Research on Women hosted a discussion on women and money at JP Morgan Private Bank. The event featured four notable panelists as well as a conclusion by Jacki Zehner, Vice Chair of the Women’s Funding Network.

The panel discussed the next steps in getting more women into the financial services sector, keeping them there, and getting to them to the top. Zehner explained, “We are moving from a place of less power to more power, and shifting from a moral argument… to an economic one.”

She added, “There is a tremendous amount of research that fuels our activism.”

The panel included Rosie Rios, Treasurer of the United States; Michelle Clayman, Founder, Managing Partner & Chief Investment Officer, New Amsterdam Partners LLC; Joe Keefe, President & CEO, Pax World Management LLC; and Rebecca Patterson, Managing Director and Global Head of Foreign Exchange and Commodities, J.P. Morgan Private Bank. The panel was moderated by Deirdre Bolton, Anchor, Bloomberg Television, and Co-host of “Inside Track.”

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Coalition of Investors Calls for Gender Diverse Leadership

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iStock_000012154683XSmallBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Despite a global movement to increase the number of women in leadership, a new report shows that, in the past year, women in the boardroom have only increased by .2%. This is not nearly enough for the improvement in governance diversity that many investors are calling for.

“Women on Boards,” a statistical review performed by Governance Results International, counted female representation on boards of directors, and showed little change in the number of women in leadership roles across the globe.

Julie Gorte, Pax World’s Senior VP for Sustainable Investing said, “Women are under represented on boards. They are better represented now than they have been previously, but the needle hasn’t moved far.”

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From Improbable to Reality – PIMCO’s El-Erian at the FWA

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Image Courtesy FWA

Image Courtesy FWA

By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Tuesday evening, the Financial Women’s Association of New York hosted a sold out, members only event featuring Dr. Mohamed El-Erian, CEO & co-CIO of PIMCO. Dr. El-Erian discussed the changes facing the financial markets, the US, and the world, as we navigate what he has coined “the new normal.”

Interviewer Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, analyst and reporter at CNBC, opened the evening by asking what the US Treasury’s first ever issue of a negative yield meant in terms of inflation. Dr. El-Erian said, “It tells you the economy is having some trouble gaining strength.”

But on a broader scale, he continued, “it’s an indication that the unthinkable and the improbable, or at least what used to be unthinkable and what used to be improbable, is not only possible but is the reality.”

Dr. El-Erian believes that rather than simply resetting after the recession, the market is head in a totally new direction – one that is now a structurally different institution. “We came up with the idea that the system wouldn’t reset, that this is the ‘new normal’.” Dr. El-Erian said that the new normal is characterized by slow growth, persistently high unemployment, more political involvement in economies, and a much flatter distribution of outcomes.

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WOWS 2010: Innovation, Ideas, and Action

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innovationBy Natalie Sabia (New York City)

Good conversation, interesting people, warm energy and high powered women are all ways to describe Deutsche Bank’s 16th Annual Women on Wall Street Conference, which is dedicated to the courageous women who represent great power and achievements. Sold out in a matter of 15 minutes, The Women on Wall Street conference drew in over 2,000 women from all areas of the financial services industry to learn about “innovation” and how other women have paved their path to success. “This night is all about empowering, supporting and mentoring women,” said Donna Milrod, Head of Regional Oversight and Strategy, Americas at Deutsche Bank.

The Women on Wall Street network (WOWS) is apart of Deutsche Bank’s diversity strategy, which seeks to develop, retain and motivate diverse talent. Even with a total of 16,000 corporate and investment bank employees, Deutsche Bank has managed to sponsor this conference for members of the financial and broader business communities every year since 1995 and have grown the attendance from just 200 to over 2000.

Kicking off the night, Anshu Jain, Head of Corporate and Investment Bank at Deutsche Bank, highlighted just how strong Deutsche Bank’s view is towards having a diverse population within the firm. Currently, with 138 different nationalities, Jain detailed how important this event is in order to continue the expansion of gender diversity. “Financial innovation is created in many ways,” said Jain. “We should continue to have effortless diversity.”

Hosting a panel of true executive and entrepreneurial women, Sharon Hall, Partner & Co-founder of the Diversity Practice, asked several insightful questions such as what innovation means to them and also what advice that they have learned along the way.

“Innovation means offering creative solutions and collaboration; not being afraid to take risks,” said Reshma Saujani, Attorney & Former Deputy General Counsel at Fortress Investment Group.

“Assessing risk, while having a sense of optimism,” said Alexandra Lebenthal, CEO, Alexandra & James Co. and Lebenthal & Company.

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Women on the Buy-Side: What Does Dodd-Frank Mean for the Capital Markets?

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startup-849804_640(1)Tuesday marked The Glass Hammer’s biggest “women on the buy-side” investment management event so far – due in no small part to the turbulence and uncertainty in the capital markets, driven by the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

Moderated by journalist Heidi Moore, our panelists discussed how Dodd-Frank will impact the investment management field – regarding transparency, compliance, consolidation, and more – and what those changes mean for individuals in the industry, and their companies.

The panel featured Gina M. Biondo, Tax Partner, Financial Services, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP; Christine Hurtsellers, Chief Investment Officer, Fixed Income and Proprietary Investments, ING Investment Management; Donna M. Parisi, Partner and head of the Asset Management Group, Shearman & Sterling LLP; Marcy Engel, Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel, Eton Park Capital Management, LP; and Holly H. Miller, Partner, Stone House Consulting, LLC.

Dodd-Frank’s Biggest Surprises

Moore opened the debate with a discussion of how the regulatory bill had evolved since reform was first being considered – and asked the panelists what Dodd-Frank’s biggest surprises were.

Engel replied, “The biggest surprise was the Volcker Rule saying that proprietary trading by banks should be prohibited.” Early on, she said, no one had thought that it was likely to be included. “The more banks lobbied against it,” she explained, “the harder the push back.”

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On Our Radar – Why Female Vision is Critical at the Top

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Closeup of a business woman laughing against a gray backgroundBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Why do companies need women in leadership? According to a new book by Sally Helgesen, Writer and Leadership Development Consultant, and Julie Johnson, Executive Leadership Coach, women bring a different kind of vision to leadership than men. The book, The Female Vision: Women’s Real Power at Work, reveals that women are privileged to a “broad scale notice” style of leadership, while men display a more pointed focus.

While it may at first seem like a ’90s style Men are from Mars Women are from Venus approach to gender diversity, as Johnson pointed out yesterday at a National Council for Research on Women event, the book is based on neuroscience, examining the differences between male and female brains, as well as interviews and surveys with thousands of individuals.

Helgesen explained, “Women tend to focus in a broader way. Our attention operates like radar,” taking into account context and nuance. “Men display a laser-like focus on one thing,” she added.

Kerrie Peraino, Vice President of Human Resources and Chief Diversity Officer at American Express, opened the event, explaining Helgesen and Johnson “are onto something. This is cutting edge work.” Peraino said that Amex is working to position itself as a “gender intelligent organization.”

She explained that means playing to “the competitive advantage that is created when you bring both brains to work. Not only is it a nice thing to do, but really is about creating the competitive advantage.”

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Power, Ambition, Money, Failure: Confronting Career Taboos

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kolbertContributed by Kathryn Kolbert, Director of the Athena Center for Leadership Studies at Barnard College

Power. Ambition. Money. Failure. These are taboos that haunt women today, stunting their climb to leadership positions in both the public and private sectors. We may not like to talk about them, and we don’t necessarily need to conform to typically masculine styles of approaching them, but women must learn to overcome our discomfort with these demons if we are to achieve parity in the workforce.

The statistics are all too familiar to many of us. While today we can see women in positions of power — from heads of state to university presidents to Wall Street executives – more broadly women are stuck, holding only 16% to 22% [PDF] of the leadership positions in many arenas, and in some areas, such as the military and Fortune 500 CEOs much less. For women of color, the numbers are even worse; of the 15.7% of corporate officer positions in Fortune 500 companies that are held by women, just 1.7% [PDF] are held by women of color.

Part of our inability to advance to leadership positions in the numbers that we’d like, of course, is due to longstanding discrimination and cultural biases that lead men in high-ranking positions to want colleagues that look and act like them.

Part is also due to the fact that women who off-ramp, to raise their children and care for family members, are disadvantaged by skeptical, inflexible employers who view such moves with suspicion. The Center for Work-Life Policy’s May study, Off-Ramps and On-Ramps Revisited [PDF}, found that “73% percent of women trying to return to the workforce after a voluntary timeout for childcare or other reasons have trouble finding a job.” Of those who do return, more than 25% reported a decrease in their management responsibilities and 22% returned with a lower job title.

But whether we like to discuss it or not, part of the problem stems from the fact that many women are uncomfortable with power, ambition, money and failure. In some cases women handle these issues differently than many of their male colleagues.

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