By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“Courage, I think, is something that is cultivated,” said Shamina Singh, Chief Operating Officer, Global Community Relations at Citi.

After spending 15 years working in high profile public sector jobs – Senior Advisor to Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House of Representatives; President Clinton’s U.S. Department of Labor’s Congressional Liaison on health care issues, and Deputy Executive Director of America Votes to name just a few – Singh found the courage to take a dramatically different route.

She said, “I was ready for a change and wanted to explore new opportunities while leveraging the experience I had built in the public sector. …after learning about [Citi] and the potential to move the needle on global issues, I realized it was the right fit for me.” Singh was also recently named to the Young Global Leaders program of the World Economic Forum – another opportunity to expand her global outreach.

“We can’t afford not to be talking to each other across the world,” she said.

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“Get comfortable in your own skin as fast as you can,” recommends Virginia Volpe, Director of Hedge Fund Services at Citi’s Global Transaction Services division. “You will be so much happier so much sooner – I only realized that four years ago,” she explained with a laugh.

Volpe exudes a good-natured confidence, something she attributes to to her flexibility. “One of my professional achievements is how easily I’ve been able to slip in and out of various roles, whether at Citi or going back to being a member of a small village,” she said, referring to her time in the Peace Corps in Sri Lanka working as a community developer.

It was during her time in Sri Lanka that Volpe developed an interest in finance. “I was really intrigued by microfinance, but did not have a firm understanding of capital markets” she explained. After receiving her degree in Economics and Latin American Studies from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, Volpe began a career as an analyst at Reuters, and eleven years ago, she says, “I was invited to work at Citi and haven’t looked back since!”

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Contributed by Bill George, professor of management practice at Harvard Business School

The Aspen Institute recently made the following announcement:

“Twenty-eight leaders representing business, investment, government, academia, and labor joined the Aspen Institute Business & Society Program’s Corporate Values Strategy Group (CVSG) to endorse a bold call to end the focus on value-destroying short-termism in our financial markets and create public policies that reward long-term value creation for investors and the public good.”

I am one of those twenty-eight leaders, and am proud to join the likes of Warren Buffett, Louis Gerstner, Barbara Hackman Franklin, and Richard Trumka as a signatory to the statement, “Overcoming Short-termism: A Call for a More Responsible Approach to Investment and Business Management.”

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by Elizabeth Harrin (London)

“As a temporary secretary without the first clue about how business worked, I would never have seen myself ten years down the road as a senior manager working outside of the U.S.,” says Dale Meikle, Regional Human Capital Communications Manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Dale says it was “total chance” that she ended up in consulting. “I had just graduated from university and was temping at PwC in Washington, D.C. as a partner’s secretary,” she explains. “I was saving up to attend a master’s programme in Shakespeare. Working for what I perceived as an accounting firm was pretty much the diametric opposite of my career vision at that time.”

Dale ended up getting on well with the partner she was working for: he saw the talent in her and recognised that she would be an asset to the firm. “He let me sit in on conference calls with clients, he brought me with him to meetings on Capitol Hill and with firm leaders – always making sure I had an active rather than passive role,” she says. “He trusted me with sensitive tasks and was transparent in all of our communications. He always asked me, ‘what do you think about this?’ This early and intense trust and exposure to high level client and PwC executives developed me at a quick pace and primed me for future roles.”

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By Sima Matthes (New York City)

A quick Google search of “Women in Metal” generates a long list of women in heavy metal bands and women clad only in metal. Fortunately, a more in depth search reveals that there are women working in the metal industry today, climbing to the upper echelons of some of the top companies in the category.

There’s a woman in charge at Carpenter Technology (#15 in the category, #906 on the Forbes 1000 in 2008). Anne L. Stevens, who joined the company in 2006, is the Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. Ms. Stevens had previously been at Ford Motor Company, and held progressively responsible positions there over her 16-year tenure, including EVP of Ford Motor Company and COO of Ford in the Americas. Prior to that, she worked at Exxon Corporation, holding engineering, manufacturing and marketing positions. She has a B.S. in Mechanical and Materials Engineering from Drexel University and did post graduate work at Rutgers University.

Over at Schnitzer Steel (#757/#13 in the category), Tamara Lundgren serves as President and CEO. Ms. Lundgren has been with the company just 4 years, coming aboard in 2005 as Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer, and progressing to EVP Strategy and Investments and President of Shared Services. She was elected to her current position in December 2008. She brings her experience as a managing director at JP Morgan Chase’s London Office and Deutsche Bank AG, as well as her experience as a partner at Hogan & Hartson, LLP in Washington, D.C. Ms. Lundgren is a graduate of Wellesley College and Northwestern University School of Law.

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