Women in Engineering: Providing Pathways for Future Generations

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iStock_000008675366XSmallBy Michelle Hendelman

By now, we have all heard the facts and figures about women in STEM fields. There have been gains, as evidenced by the high profile appointments of Marissa Mayer and Sheryl Sandberg to the C-Suite. However, there have also been setbacks, such as Twitter’s bold move to announce their IPO last fall without a single female on their corporate board.

There is plenty of media attention surrounding women and the boys club of Silicon Valley, but what does the bigger picture look like for women in other STEM fields, such as engineering?

A recent survey conducted by TE Connectivity found that the vast majority (87 percent) of respondents identified engineering as the leading profession sparking innovation and invention in the United States. Yet, women make up only 14 percent of the engineers in the United States. As society is recognizing the positive impact of engineering, what role will women play in sustaining the growth of this industry? Furthermore, what steps can be taken to make sure the pipeline of female engineers remains strong and consistent?

Untapped Potential
According to Jane Leipold, Senior Vice President of Global Human Resources at TE Connectivity, “Women can play a huge role in the future growth of the engineering field. Right now, there is nothing but upside potential in terms of attracting new talent.” Leipold added that as more female role models in engineering emerge, there will be a trickledown effect resulting in finding talented women interested in pursuing a career in engineering.

Attracting female engineers is only one half of the equation. The other –equally important –half of the equation is retaining women who enter the field by providing them with tools and resources that support career advancement and professional growth. Research on why women leave engineering revealed that one of the most important factors cited for driving women out of the field was workplace climate.

What’s more, one-third of women who graduated with an engineering degree never entered the field professionally due to the perception that the industry as a whole was unsupportive of women. In order to reverse the trend of women opting out of engineering, Leipold emphasized the value of investing in programs that support the advancement of women. She noted, “It is important to develop women as they move up the ladder into executive and leadership roles.”

The perception that engineering, and STEM fields in general, are not welcoming to women creates the well-documented psychological phenomenon known as “stereotype threat” that can prevent young women from entering and advancing in their careers. For example, when idea that women are not as good in STEM subjects as men is perpetuated, women will subconsciously internalize this notion and begin to lack confidence, even if they have proven their competence.

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Are You Dutiful or a Disruptor? Career Advice for the Innovator in All of Us

iStock_000009286763XSmallBy Nikole Grimes

A recent six-year study observed the habits of innovative entrepreneurs revealing a set of discovery skills that distinguish the most creative executives. The most entrepreneurial and innovative CEOs spend 50% more time on these discovery activities than leaders without a track record of innovation. The discovery skills highlight that innovative entrepreneurs connect disparate ideas and concepts, interact with diverse people from all walks of life, ask questions of the world at large, keenly observe behaviors, and test their ideas.

So what are these discovery skills? They are associating, questioning, observing, experimenting, and networking with one sub-trait underpinning all five of the discovery skills. What is this subtrait? Disrupting.

The most innovative leaders – those leading inventors whose ideas and businesses literally transform the way our world works – continually assess, evaluate, and analyze existing perspectives. Subtly and not-so-subtly, these leaders challenge the status quo.

Innovators disrupt traditional ideas through the skill of associating. They connect seemingly unrelated issues and concepts, resulting in fundamental shifts in perspective.

They disrupt the assumptions that underpin existing systems through the skill of questioning – asking “why”, “why not”, and “what if.” In order to get the most complete view on a topic, they will frequently take a position that is opposite their own initial perspective. They ask challenging questions that push themselves and others to break through to new ideas.

Visionary leaders disrupt even small things by observing common everyday behaviors and then considering alternatives to the standard ways things are done.

This sub-trait, disrupting, is also expressed through the skill of experimenting – by literally trying new things, testing new concepts, and doing old things in new ways, they explore and encourage the exploration of alternatives.

When they are networking with a wider array of people from all walks of life they disrupt the hierarchical culture of most businesses. Instead of limiting their network to their peer group, transformative visionaries actively seek the cross-pollination of perspectives across fields, cultures, and countries.

The greatest innovations are inherently disruptive and the sub-trait of disrupting underlies all of the discovery skills. In a Forbes piece, “Disruption vs. Innovation: What’s the difference?” author Caroline Howard wrote, “Innovation and disruption are similar in that they are both makers and builders. Disruption takes a left turn by literally uprooting and changing how we think, behave, do business, learn and go about our day-to-day.”

Women & Disruption
Disrupting is increasingly valued by corporations and is now frequently covered in business-related media. For example, the theme of Deloitte’s just-released 2014 Technology Trends report is Inspiring Disruption. The report provides a deep analysis of ten emerging technological innovations. By identifying disruptive technologies as they are developing, you can best plan for and even capitalize on them.

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Be Yourself at Work: An International Women’s Day Event, Hosted by Capco

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iStock_000017306404XSmallJarod Cerf

Featuring a panel of senior partners, top clients, and thought leaders, Capco’s 2014 International Women’s Day Event, “What Would You Tell Your Younger Self?”, provided the 63 attendees with an opportunity to speak frankly about their career aspirations and hear from the panelists, first-hand, about how to create opportunities and reach for the top. As founder and CEO of Prosek Partners, Jen Prosek, stated, in quoting author Jim Collins: “we all have the same amount of and return on luck.”

Prosek, who at twenty-four and lacking the credentials she sought, joined a local financial communications firm in Greenwich, CT, noted how her circumstances at the time conflicted with her desire to run an internationally-acknowledged firm: “We were going to be in New York, London, Hong Kong, Singapore. And we were going to work for the biggest companies.”

Regarding her first few years at the consultancy, Prosek remarked: “It still wasn’t the job I wanted. And I made a promise to myself, that if every year I could make it closer to what I wanted, I would make it work.” Currently, Prosek serves as the chief executive and managing partner of the company, which was named Corporate Agency of the Year by the Holmes Report in 2013.
“The people who are entrepreneurial,” she advised, “know how to recognize good luck. […] They also know how to turn the unfortunate moments around.”

Make the Most of Every Opportunity
For author Shari Harley, whose business management consultancy, Candid Culture, trains employees to be more up front about their needs and concerns, the opportunity to move her career forward stemmed from an unlikely moment.

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The Outlook for High Potential Women in India and the 3 Approaches to Improve It

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By Kayla Turo

Another demonstration of gender inequality is exposed in India, research from Catalyst shows in their latest report, High Potentials Under High Pressure in India’s Technology Sector. In general, even the most capable, post-MBA Indian women fall short of men in terms of pay and position in most of the country’s industries.

At first glance, however, the technology sector seems to be a light on the horizon for Indian women, hiring ambitious male and female graduates with an equal amount of pay, but according to a recent Catalyst report, within 12 years in the same job and all other factors being equal, women’s salary falls behind their male coworkers by an average of Rs. 3.8 lakhs (6,000 US dollars).

“We cannot blame the gender gap in pay and position to lack of aspirations on the part of women,” said Aarti Shyamsunder, Director of Research at Catalyst, and one of two contributors to the report. 79 percent of both men and women starting out in India’s technology industry aspired to senior executive positions. Data shows that throughout their careers, male and female workers received analogous amounts of training through formal programs, and were likely to “job hop” in search of greater career advancement, a common factor within the industry.

The Power of Social Pressures
One explanation for the salary decline is the lack of women landing “hot jobs” or long-term international assignments that lead to more opportunities for future career growth within their industry. Statistics from the report reveal that only 18 percent of women were able to relocate abroad for 3 or more years at a time, compared to 57 percent of men. Women with children were reported as less willing to relocate compared to men with children, and twice as many men accepted the international relocation positions they were offered.

Likewise, 54 percent of women reported taking leaves of absences (LOAs). This is twice that of men, who also tended to take much shorter leaves than women. The Catalyst report details that women were three times more likely to take LOAs for childcare related-reasons compared to men (not including childbirth and maternity leave), while men were three times more apt to take leaves for personal welfare. Even in dual-career marriages, almost three times more women took on the role of at-home caregiver compared to a small percentage of men.

Given the context of the surrounding cultural expectations, these findings are not surprising, according to Shyamsunder. She stated, “I don’t think it’s realistic to expect women to suddenly stop taking leaves to care for their children, or to overcome centuries of socialization of overnight.”

Changing the Corporate Culture
Shyamsunder suggests that in order to better support women in their careers, companies should evaluate the overall credentials and potential of executive candidates based on their abilities to perform the job, “not on proxies like tenure or role maturity,” insists Shyamsunder.

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Why is Women’s Leadership in Law Stalling?

law2.jpgBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Last year, almost half (47.5 percent) of all graduates of law school were women. This is lower, actually, than it was in 2004, when it was 49.5 percent.

On its face, a two percent decrease doesn’t seem like that much, of course. But over the past decade, universities, law firms, professional organizations, and non-profits have poured tremendous effort into attracting young women to join the legal profession. By all accounts, that percentage should have risen much more than it decreased. It doesn’t make sense.

The reasons for the drop are unclear. Perhaps talented young women are being drawn into the worlds of finance, academia, the non-profit world, or other professions. It is interesting to note, though, that this year marked some other unfortunate downward trends. Women’s leadership in law is decreasing as well.

Women in Leadership Numbers
In early February, the American Bar Association published its annual Goal III report on women leaders in the legal profession. The report was first published in 1991, and since then, it has benchmarked the progress of women in the ABA. In the 1991 report, only 22 percent of women lawyers in the ABA were female. That percentage has risen incrementally by one or two points per year, reaching 33 percent for the 2014 report.

On the other hand, the report’s numbers on women in leadership are concerning. The percentage of women on the ABA’s Board of Governors has decreased every year since 2012, when it reached a high of 36.8 percent. Last year, the number was 28.9 percent, and this year, it’s only 25 percent. That’s quite a big drop in such a short amount of time. The percentage of women Section and Division chairs has also decreased, from 28.6 percent to 25 percent in the same amount of time.

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Why Hold International Women’s Day Events in Your Firm?

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She is leading the way in her fieldBy Jarod Cerf

As McKinsey’s 2012 report on gender and corporate culture can attest, firms and companies still have the power, means, and capacity to serve as primary advocates for the women they employ. Given the context and theme of “Inspiring Change” for this year’s International Women’s Day, the month of March can serve as an ideal time to increase the volume on conversations about the challenges and opportunities for professional women.

While it is important for companies and their employees to be agents of change every day of the year, many firms take advantage of International Women’s Day to increase awareness, provide data, relate progress, and encourage participation in ongoing efforts to increase the number of women in leadership roles.

Defining Keys to Success and Unlocking Potential
Accenture has released a new study called “Career Capital” in honor of International Women’s Day. The study emphasizes the need for continued proactive training programs and leadership initiatives that focus on how men and women approach their career paths—as well as where the two genders differ on certain values.

The study revealed that men are still more likely to ask for (and negotiate) a raise, while women tend to rate efficiency somewhat higher than men as the skill they bring to the table, whereas men rate their leadership skill higher. Both men and women anticipate a greater number of women CEOs and board members by 2020, with correspondents across the board (74 percent) claiming that experience mattered more than education.

Accenture also hosted a webcast this past Friday with keynote speakers Arianna Huffington and Gayle King, and panelists ranging from Accenture’s Managing Director of Global Inclusion and Diversity, Nellie Borrero, to the Chairman and CEO of BAV Consulting, John Gerzema. The conversation centered on professional insights and how participants can best acquire and build their own career capital.

Community Outreach Builds the Pipeline and Boosts Morale
To celebrate International Women’s Day, SunGard teamed up with Girl Develop It – an international organization providing affordable and accessible programs to women who want to learn software development through mentorship and hands-on instruction – to host screenings of the film, Girl Rising, and raise awareness for access to education for girls across the world.

Suzanne Penavic, Director of Employee Engagement at SunGard, commented on how being aware of issues can really get people thinking and talking.

She noted, “As a technology company we rely on our software developers, who represent 33% of our total workforce and are based in numerous locations around the world. We support recruiting and retaining a diverse talent pool among this group, and within our entire company, because in the end we want the best minds working together in our organization. We invited Girl Develop It to help connect the dots around this notion.”

Penavic added, “Girl Develop It will join SunGard in other locations such as Chicago, Miami and Philadelphia, and in screening locations where they do not have a presence, such as Pune and Tunis.”

Engaging Women in the Workplace
Capco, likewise, continues to evaluate and evolve its mentoring efforts, with Kaylin Kugler, a principal consultant and leader at the company, acting as one of the chief advocates for Women@Capco –an initiative the company launched in 2011.

Kugler said the network consolidates available resources, including Capco’s mentoring circles, and provides current (and incoming) generations of women with a means for reaching out to the leadership, as well as each other, for support.

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OP-ED: Next Generation Diversity: Developing Tomorrow’s Female Leaders

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diverse women in the boardroomContributed by Aoife Flood, based in Dublin, Ireland, Aoife is Senior Manager of the Global Diversity and Inclusion Programme Office at PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited.

Saturday, 8 March, marks International Women’s Day. As we celebrate the achievements of women in the workforce and beyond, my advice for leaders is don’t limit your focus to the gender leadership gap.

We know that organisations the world over are currently challenged with a lack of women in leadership positions, and concerned with the competitive and financial toll this could mean for their organisation. However, to achieve sustainable change CEOs must be committed to driving parallel efforts which tackle enhanced leadership diversity in conjunction with systemic change efforts targeting their workforce from day one. Organisations need to be focused on developing talented junior women now for future leadership roles – because when talent rises to the top, everyone wins.

At PwC Diversity and Inclusion is a strategic priority. We recognise that diversity is fundamental to the success of our business strategy and with the sponsorship of our Global Chairman, Dennis Nally, we are working hard to get this right. But we also recognise that to do this PwC, like other organisations, must first understand how to attract, develop and retain female millennial talent.

We are passionate about this, so to mark International Women’s Day this year we are launching the research based report Next Generation Diversity: Developing tomorrow’s female leaders which focuses on the attraction, development and retention of the female millennial.

A New Era of Female Talent

Born between 1980 and 1995, female millennials make up a significant proportion of the current and future talent pool. Female millennials matter because they are more highly educated and are entering the workforce in larger numbers than any of their previous generations. The female millennial has likely outperformed her male counterparts at school and at university and is the most confident of any female generation before her. She considers opportunities for career progression the most attractive employer trait. When it comes to the female millennial we really are dealing with a new era of talent; both in terms of the make-up of the workforce she enters and the career mind-set with which she enters.

The female millennial sounds pretty amazing, right? But how will organisations lean in to this new era of talent so they are successful in capitalising on these stellar traits? The Next Generation Diversity report shares six key themes that matter to the female millennial and positions the difficult questions that employers need to be cognisant of when it comes to this significant cohort of talent.

Female Millennial Demand for Global Careers

Let me delve a little deeper into one of the themes: ‘Global Careers’. I choose this theme because I am a millennial woman who was lucky enough to undertake an international assignment to PwC’s Boston office in 2006. This experience was life changing – throughout my 14 year career it is un-paralled as an experience in driving such an intense level of both personal and professional development. In essence, I know the impact an international assignment can have on a woman’s career.

Millennials have a strong appetite for working abroad, with PwC research telling us 71% are keen to do so at some stage in their career. What’s compelling – and critical for employers – is to realise that this is not a male phenomenon.

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The Toigo Foundation: Taking Steps to Diversify the Financial Services Industry

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Group of diverse business colleagues enjoying successBy Kerry Jordan

“No one who makes it does so alone.” This assertion by Dr. Stacy Blake-Beard, Professor of Management at the Simmons School of Management, was recently made at the Toigo Foundation’s third-annual Groundbreakers Women in Leadership Summit on December 5. In those eight words, Blake-Beard encapsulated so much of what Toigo is about as an organization.

Founded in 1989, the Robert Toigo Foundation’s goal is to bring increased diversity to the finance industry through a number of programs aimed at inspiring young people of color who might not have otherwise considered a career in the finance industry. Through its MBA Fellowship the Foundation provides leadership training, mentoring, tuition assistance, and support as they pursue MBAs and launch their finance careers. Toigo offers the only diversity leadership development program focused on the field of finance.

Financial Services’ Lack of Diversity
There is endless data that illustrates the great need for an organization like Toigo that is committed to encouraging people of color to enter the financial services industry. A report by the General Accountability Office (GAO) looked at the issue of diversity in the financial services industry, finding that “overall diversity at the management level in the financial services industry did not change substantially from 1993 through 2008.” Using data collected by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the GAO reported that minorities held just 10 percent of senior-level management positions at financial services firms. In 2008, EEOC data revealed that white males held 64 percent of all senior jobs in financial services, with African Americans holding 2.8 percent, Hispanics 3 percent of all senior jobs, and Asians holding 3.5 percent of top-level jobs.

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Thought Leaders: Donna Parisi on the Derivatives Industry

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Donna ParisiDonna Parisi, a Partner at global law firm Shearman & Sterling, recently sat down with theglasshammer.com to share her thoughts on the future of the derivatives industry. Donna was profiled on the site in 2010 when she participated in our “Top Women on the Buyside” management event, which she will be chairing again this year. Since 2010, Parisi has assumed the roles of co-head of Shearman & Sterling’s Asset Management Group and head of the Derivatives and Structured Products team. Over the past few years, Donna has been focusing on financial regulatory reform matters. At London’s Chatham House Conference on Global Financial Markets on March 17, Parisi will be discussing cross border derivatives harmonization.

The Glass Hammer: What is the outlook like for the derivatives industry at large?

Donna Parisi: The OTC derivatives industry, which has only been around for about 30 years, has constantly innovated and I believe will continue to do so. Over time products become commoditized and profits compressed, but new products have been introduced to meet customer and market demand. The inherent power and beauty of a derivative instrument is the ability to link it to an unending supply of asset classes limited only by a financial professional’s creativity. I believe the outlook is bright – different from what it has been in the past – but one of opportunity.

TGH: What impact does the most recent regulation have on the industry?

DP: The three central tenets of Dodd-Frank are improving transparency, mitigating systemic risk and protecting against market abuse. The regulations attempt to improve transparency in what has been called an “opaque” derivatives market by requiring exchange trading of more liquid derivatives instruments and requiring reporting of all derivatives transactions. Systemic risk is addressed by requiring liquid derivatives transactions to be centrally cleared and providing for higher margin requirements for uncleared instruments. Registration and regulation of major market participants such as swap dealers are intended to prevent market abuse and give regulators greater enforcement powers. Both the sell side and buy side are well past debating the need for or efficacy of new regulations and instead are fully focused on implementation and getting back to business. One major implementation challenge is compliance with regulations across multiple jurisdictions that are substantively similar as a policy matter, but differ in the details, presenting compliance complexities in what is a global marketplace. Related to this is the need for major infrastructure build-outs, including on unrealistic timeframes imposed by regulators on the technology side.

TGH: What do you think is keeping senior execs in derivatives up at night?

DP: What worries senior industry professionals are liquidity and capital. A perhaps unintended consequence of the new regulations has been fractured pools of liquidity largely resulting from cross-border issues such as broad extraterritorial scope, differing regulatory implementation timelines and a lack of mutual recognition of regulatory schemes in other jurisdictions. What does this fractured liquidity mean for the market? Who will the winners and losers be? What will be the impact on pricing and spreads? In some ways, capital considerations instead of regulatory requirements are driving business decisions. What capital is needed to support my business, and do my returns justify this allocation? I expect that in the next few years banks will be scaling back or even abandoning more capital-intensive businesses, perhaps creating opportunities for other credit intermediaries.

By Nicki Gilmour, CEO theglasshammer.com

This week The Glass Hammer is profiling successful women in the derivatives industry.

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Hispanic and Latino Business Women and Men Emerging as Influential Leaders

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Young business woman in a office environment.By Michelle Hendelman, Editor-in-Chief

Since 2009, the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility (HACR) has published the Corporate Inclusion Index survey, which seeks to ensure the inclusion of Hispanics in four core areas: employment, procurement, philanthropy, and governance. In the 2012 study, HACR enjoyed the highest participation ever, with 55 companies submitting responses, including eight new participants, 26 returning companies that improved on their rating from the previous year, and all seven commercial banking companies in the Fortune 100.

To the HACR, this represents a significant shift in the way the business community views the Hispanic population, as being valuable in both the workforce and as a group of influential consumers and clients. There is something to be said about the fact that Hispanics now represent the largest non-white group in the United States. According to the 2012 Corporate Inclusion Index survey, corporate America will experience more Hispanic and Latino workers in the talent pipeline who will replace an aging, predominantly white workforce.

This week on The Glass Hammer, we are featuring profiles of Latinas in business, representing the established and emerging leaders who are making a difference in their companies. We will also highlight national organizations like ALPFA and Proud To Be Latina that devote resources to the professional development of Hispanic business women and men.

Kelly Brennan is a Managing Director in the Securities Division at Goldman Sachs and in her interview with us, she pointed out that there are cultural differences that must be acknowledged and understood in order for business leaders to effectively tap into their Hispanic and Latino workforce. Taking a look at the results of the 2012 Corporate Inclusion Index survey indicates that major companies are making the effort to engage their Hispanic and Latino workforce.

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