Preethi Nair at Deutsche Bank’s Women on Wall Street Conference

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By Erin Abrams (New York City)

How often do you get to attend a conference related to your Wall Street job, and hear a story that involves high intrigue, risk taking, impersonation and leading a double life? Well, I guess this isn’t so uncommon these days if you, like me, work in the field of white collar criminal defense. However, I’m happy to report that Preethi Nair’s story at Tuesday night’s 15th Annual Women on Wall Street Conference (probably) didn’t involve any criminal activity and had a much happier ending than the tale of your average financial fraudster. Indeed, her exciting and frequently hilarious explanation of her journey from frustrated management consultant to internationally acclaimed author and creative project entrepreneur ended the presentation on a high note and inspired many of the women in attendance.

Ms. Nair, author of 100 Shades of White, The Colour of Love and Gypsy Masala and founder of Kiss the Frog, a project tasked with reintroducing creativity into the workplace, has experienced quite a reversal of fortune from just a few years ago. In those days, Ms. Nair explained that she would get up in the morning and get dressed in a suit to fool her British Indian parents into thinking that she was headed to the job as a management consultant that she had prematurely quit, and would sit in the public library in London dreaming up ways to become a successful, internationally recognized novelist.

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The Top Family-Friendly Employers

By Elizabeth Harrin (London)iStock_000006039696XSmall

If you are in the market for a new job, and want to make sure that your next employer is family friendly, you’ll want to check out Working Families’ list of top employers.

U.K. work-life balance charity Working Families has launched an inaugural list of the best of the best family-friendly employers. The list recognises employers whose policies and practices have created working environments that are both flexible and great places to work. The 20 organisations have shown track-records and leadership in the areas of flexible working, childcare provision, maternity/paternity policies and eldercare policies.

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In Case You Missed It: Business News Round-up

Contributed by Martin Mitchell of the Corporate Training Group.Martin Mitchel of CTG

The proposed sale of General Motors’ Opel business to Magna International and Sberbank has suffered a setback. US banks Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan all reported third quarter results. CEO of Lazard and ‘father of modern M&A’ Bruce Wasserstein died aged 61. These are but a few highlights of important market events that we’ve gathered to help you start the week well informed.

Economic Backdrop

  • US Federal Reserve minutes showed that the Fed is still cautious on growth. Despite positive factors such as rising activity in the housing market and stabilising consumer spending, the ‘economic recovery is likely to be quite restrained’.

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Sandra Pianalto, President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland Speaks on the Current Economic Crisis and the Coming Recovery

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By Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)iStock_000003731985XSmall

Economic recovery is likely to be “gradual and bumpy” according to Sandra Pianalto, the president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. In her remarks to a packed house at the Market News International event on October 1st in New York City, she shared her thoughts on both the current economic conditions and the potential challenges on the road to recovery.

The Economy Was in Critical Condition

“My colleague Janet Yellen, president of the Federal Reserve bank of San Francisco, compared the economy to a hospital patient who was in the intensive care unit and only gradually stabilizing,” said Pianalto, adding that she believes that the economy was in “critical condition.” As evidence, she pointed out that the current recession has already lasted nearly seven quarters, almost four times as long as a typical two-quarter recession. “Even with today’s encouraging signs,” said Pianalto, “we have a lot of ground to make up before we even get back to the levels of output seen in 2007.”

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In Case You Missed It: Business News Round-up

Contributed by Martin Mitchell of the Corporate Training Group.Martin Mitchel of CTG

The chief executive of HSBC predicts a ‘W-shaped’ rather than ‘V-shaped’ recovery. The service sector in the US grew for the first time in a year in September. Goldman Sachs stands to receive a payment of $1bn if commercial lender CIT files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. These are but a few highlights of important market events that we’ve gathered to help you start the week well informed.

Economic Backdrop

  • The chief executive of HSBC, Michael Geoghegan, is convinced that the economy will face a second downturn in the coming months. Believing the recovery is ‘W-shaped’ rather than ‘V-shaped’, Mr Geoghegan is ‘cautious about growing (HSBC) too fast.’
  • The World Bank has requested an additional sum of up to $5bn in new equity from its shareholder governments to support lending to middle income countries.
  • The service sector in the U.S. grew for the first time in a year in September. The Institute for Supply Management’s non-manufacturing index rose to 50.9 from 48.5 in August – anything above 50 indicates expansion.
  • Australia became the first of the G20 countries to raise interest rates in more than a year. Believing that the risk of serious economic retraction had passed, interest rates were raised by 25 basis points to 3.25%.

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In Case You Missed It: Business News Round-up

Contributed by Martin Mitchell of the Corporate Training Group.Martin Mitchel of CTG

U.S. unemployment rose higher than expected, while the weakening of sterling against the U.S. dollar has strengthened Kraft’s position in the takeover of Cadbury. Six U.K. recruitment companies were fined a total of £39.7m for price-fixing by the Office of Fair Trading. These are but a few highlights of important market events that we’ve gathered to help you start the week well informed.

Economic Backdrop

  • The week ended with disappointing news on U.S. jobs. The number of workers on U.S. payrolls dropped by a worse-than-expected 263,000 in September, with unemployment hitting 9.8%. In the two years since the recession began, the number of people out of work in America has risen by 7.6m to 15.1m.
  • The Japanese yen rose to an eight-month high against the U.S. dollar as Japan’s finance minister indicated that Tokyo would not intervene to stem the currency’s rise.
  • The S&P Case-Shiller index of house prices in 20 big U.S. cities rose by 1.6% in July from June, its biggest increase in four years.
  • U.S. financial regulators are working on rules aimed to help banks avoid the sudden funding withdrawals suffered by Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. The rules will prevent banks from being overly dependent on short-term financing using a variety of ratios.
  • A report from International Financial Services London suggests that London’s position as the world’s number two city for hedge funds is beginning to slip, probably as a result of the EU’s draft alternative investment manager directive. New York is still the leader, and Swiss cities of Zurich and Geneva are gaining in popularity.

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In Case You Missed It: Business News Round-up

Contributed by Martin Mitchell of the Corporate Training Group. Martin Mitchel of CTG

The E.U. unveiled new rules to create a new Eurpoean Systematic Risk Board. The pound fell to a low of £0.9078 against the euro, its weakest level since April. Goldman Sachs tops Dealogic’s third quarter M&A list. These are but a few highlights of important market events that we’ve gathered to help you start the week well informed.

Economic Backdrop

  • The European Union unveiled new rules that it hopes will prevent a repeat of the financial crisis. The draft legislation will create a new European Systemic Risk Board warning of threats to financial stability. The board’s main members will be the 27 central bank governors as well as the president and vice president of the ECB. There will also be a European System of Financial Supervisors to oversee individual banks and financial groups, although day-to-day supervision will remain with national supervisors.
  • A technical analysis of sterling’s performance since 2007 published in the Bank of England’s quarterly report brought about a substantial fall in the pound. The article highlighted changes to Britain’s economic outlook, including the perceived riskiness of its assets and the need to rebalance the economy away from domestic consumption. The pound fell to a low of £0.9078 against the euro, its weakest level since April.

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The White House Project: Promoting Women Leaders in the Public and Private Sectors

iStock_000004638435XSmall[1]By Elizabeth Harrin (London)

“When we started there was absolutely no attention paid to how stuck women’s leadership was in the US,” says Marie Wilson, founder and President of The White House Project.  That was 1998. Today, she says, “people actually care about women’s leadership.”

The White House Project aims to advance women’s leadership in all communities and sectors—up to the U.S. presidency—by filling the leadership pipeline with a richly diverse, critical mass of women. Wilson’s objective was to help foster a representative democracy, with women leading alongside men in all areas of life. The last decade has seen The White House Project become a leading voice on women’s leadership.

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The MOVE Project: Top Accounting Firms Trying to Find Out Why Women Leave the Industry

By Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)iStock_000005966600XSmall

According to Joanne Cleaver, the founder of Wilson-Taylor Associates, there’s a pattern for women in public accounting: they love it, but leave it. There are many theories as to why, but Cleaver, a research project manager and business journalist, has partnered up with the American Society of Women Accountants (ASWA) and the American Woman’s Society of Certified Public Accountants (AWSCPA) for some solid answers. Together, they’ve created the Accounting/MOVE Project, a national survey research effort to measure and advance women at public accounting firms and corporate accounting employers.

MOVE stands for Money (fair pay practices), Opportunity (advancement and leadership development), Vital supports (work/life programs that remove barriers), and Entrepreneurship (operating experience for managing business ownership). According to Cleaver, this study will be the first of its kind. “The key thing is [that] our methodology combines quantitative with qualitative. Nearly all of the other companies that do similar projects just collect self-reported survey results and draw conclusions from that. We go far beyond, which is why we think this will become the most authoritative measurement of women’s progress in accounting,” Cleaver said.

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Goldman Sachs Returnship (SM) Program Helps Top Women On-Ramp Into Finance

By Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

On September 15, 2008, 11 women walked through the doors of the Goldman Sachs office in Manhattan. Some had decades of experience in finance; others had substantial careers in law, technology, operations and accounting. All had voluntarily taken a hiatus from the workforce—from two years to two decades—and were there to explore the possibility of returning to the world of finance through the pilot Returnship (SM) program offered by Goldman Sachs.

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