Mover and Shaker: Mary-Kate Ryan, Manager, Advisory Consulting, PwC Ireland

Mary-Kate Ryan, Pwc“People are like tea bags. You don’t know how strong they are until you put them in hot water.”

This advice from one of her role models, Eleanor Roosevelt, has always resonated with Mary-Kate Ryan.

“This wisdom is still up-to-date as a great analogy of how women must challenge ourselves in the workplace. Men are more apt to claim they are the right person for any given task, while women often feel ‘imposter syndrome,’ where they’re not sure they have the capability they need. But we all know that if you put tea in cold water it’s not very good, but put it in the thick of things, in the ‘hot water,’ and you see how well it works.”

Ryan’s career has been a series of hot water scenarios that she has willingly put herself in and come out stronger. After studying economics and finance in university, she and two of her sisters opened a successful fashion boutique in Dublin which she managed for eight years, attracting a devoted clientele – think Beyoncé caliber!

She says that looking after the business and seeing the fruits of her labor in a niche market was a wonderful training ground throughout her 20s where she had to learn to be adaptable and willing to take on any role; then as she built a team, acquire a comfort level to let go and allow the team to develop as well.

After a brief stint in another business with one sister, she noticed a curiosity about the corporate sector, specifically management consulting, as she approached her 30s. Deciding to act on that gut instinct, she took a career break to go back to university and earn a master’s degree in Management Consultancy at UCD Smurfit in Dublin, something she said feels even more important at that point in your life, because you are more committed and yet able to fully appreciate the freedom of being a full-time student. She made the most of her time there, building up her network and even playing on a touch rugby team that went to the MBA Rugby World Cup in North Carolina.

Learning the Ropes in a Corporate Environment

Earning top honors in her class, Ryan felt confident that she could parlay that success into the skills needed for management consulting and joined PwC Ireland. Some people were confused by her move, expressing that she had been living the dream with her own company, but she enjoyed the leap to the corporate environment. “One of my key skills is my adaptability. I am good at jumping into new situations so I put my head down and figured out the culture.”

Since then she has enjoyed her work on long-term projects in complex environments, overcoming challenges and working with high-performing teams.

She credits her robust support network with helping her along the way. “Sometimes you just need a few conversations that remind you how capable you are and that it’s fine to not know everything because you will learn what you need to,” she says.

Her projects helping organizations integrate after a merger can be quite intense. “The change management and personnel aspect is very interesting, as each situation entails complexity and ambiguity,” she says. “There’s no magic formula and that’s what keeps it exciting.”

When she first started at PwC, she assumed it was going to be a dog-eat-dog environment but was pleasantly surprised at her experience. “Business is always going to be competitive, but I soon learned that high-performing people are also very nice and accessible.” She found that building relationships with clients worked in the same way. “As I got to know them, I found that they were more supportive than you would imagine. We all are just trying to do the job well.” And she adds, PwC offers a diversity of backgrounds that allows its employees to nourish all the aspects that make each person individual.

Along the way, she was able to acquire mentors and sponsors, which she says came about naturally because she showed she was interested, curious and enthusiastic. “Bringing those aspects to the table didn’t have immediate rewards but they put me on people’s radar. A year or so later, someone would think of me and present me with an amazing opportunity,” she says.

For example, even while working offsite, she kept in touch and because of her initiative was offered a project in Dubai with a client with whom she really wanted to work. “It came about because I maintained a network and let people know what I was interested in. If you share the views of what you want to do and have the right conversations, it will naturally happen.”

Multicultural Assignments Feed Her Work/Life Balance

In addition to her work in Dubai, she has enjoyed other international assignments because of what she’s learned about global and multicultural issues. “When I was working in Ireland, there were mostly similarities in terms of approaches, but the international assignments have shown me I can build a team of people with different backgrounds and still be able to see the commonalities,” she says. “You learn not to make assumptions, but instead to really listen and understand people’s motives and objectives.” For example, if someone is being resistant in a meeting, it could be because they don’t agree, but it also could be because they don’t understand and you have to draw them out.

She says that has made her more open-minded and perform better in cross-functional teams, as well as making her gravitate toward more global assignments with an eye to what else she can learn.
Her love of travel extends to her personal life, where she spends as much time as she can trekking and traveling, exploring her interest in different languages, cuisine and cultures.

“As Eleanor Roosevelt said, ‘Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.’ I believe that approaching life with a curious mind keeps you invigorated and allows me to bring that level of enthusiasm to my work.”

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Mover and Shaker: Karyn Cavanaugh, CFA, Senior Market Strategist, Voya Investment Management

karen cavanaugh, voyaSuccess comes from two major strengths, believes Karyn Cavanaugh, CFA and senior market strategist in Voya’s Multi-Asset Strategies and Solutions (MASS) group. “Work hard, but be nice. People work with those whom they like to work with, so be that person. Then back it up with competence. Be the person who does what needs to get done,” Cavanaugh says. This approach has served her well. Even though she was never actively jockeying for position, she has a reputation as someone who did more than was needed, always moving the ball forward.

Cavanaugh admits her career path was not as linear as most. She says she spent her 20’s “making money and having fun,” as a consultant. She then had three children in three years, so her priority was juggling that with work. At the age of 40, when her youngest started school, she realized it was time to focus on her next move down the career path she wanted. She took a position in internal business development, using her finance background, and then the recession hit.

“My whole group was kicked out, and that’s when I figured out the importance of networking,” she says. Although she had actively participated in groups for fellow University of Connecticut alumni and Chartered Financial Analysts®, she admits that “it was a brutal time.”

At the same time, Cavanaugh saw a chance to reinvent herself. “I realized I’m a finance person, and my other career paths hadn’t been as fulfilling because, deep down, I’m an investment person who loves looking at the market and following economics.”

By happenstance, she ran into a colleague who had hired her right out of college, who was working for ING (now Voya). He remembered she had been both smart and a good worker, and took a chance on her.

Together, they created and evolved the Global Perspectives program, parlaying $40,000 they had been given in seed money into $750,000,000 over four years. Cavanaugh routinely appears on CNBC, Fox Business News, Market Watch, NPR and other shows as a spokesperson for Voya. For Cavanaugh, it’s a dream position. “I get to manage a portfolio and share my views on the market,” she says. “Things do work out if you work hard.”

Right now, she is most excited about continuing to grow the assets under management and build wealth for the investors. The current volatile market has made her portfolio shine, she says, because it focuses on mitigating risk. “In this type of market, people realize they need professional advice and management,” she says.

The Myth of Corporate Drama

Corporate America hardly lived up to Cavanaugh’s worst fears, where she pictured a back-stabbing TV drama. “The reality is most people just want to do great work, do their job successfully and go home. They do want to help each other.” That’s been a welcome realization that has been confirmed with the wonderful managers she’s had at Voya.

She appreciates the mentorship she receives more than most because much of her early career was spent as an hourly consultant. “My work was well respected and appreciated, but it was different than working for a corporation,” she says. “I didn’t have a clear career path or someone who was watching out to promote me.”

She says that her role models are “all the women who came before me on Wall Street.” When her son was recently accepted at the University of South Carolina, she suggested he research Darla Moore, after whom the business school is named. One of the original female Wall Street pioneers in the 1980s, Moore left South Carolina in her grandma’s car and took the whole industry by storm.

“Women like that blazed the trail and made Wall Street accessible to all women,” Cavanaugh says.

Anything Can Happen

The biggest career lesson that Cavanaugh learned came when she was laid off. “Even if you do everything right, even if you are a good employee, it can happen to you,” she says.

She feels fortunate that she had paved the way for her future success and credits earning her CFA designation as one of her wisest moves. Although she describes the program as “three years of hell,” — only about 20 percent of those who start ever finish – the designation adds an unprecedented layer of credibility as the gold standard in portfolio management. “I’m happy that I had the sense to do it as it has paid off over the years,” she says.

The CFA society provides a key networking niche for her, and she has been active as a president and board member. “It’s easy to get into your own silo and the CFA society provides excellent networking and educational opportunities.” She says she wishes more women would earn the designation since it’s a vital stepping stone to establishing credibility in the investment world.

Becoming Part of the Charleston Community

Since relocating to Charleston, Cavanaugh has mentored local women starting an investment club, helping them learn how to research companies, decipher P/E ratios and sharing her investment knowledge.

Cavanaugh seeks out anything related to the water – crabbing, fishing, boating and beaching. Her three teens keep her busy, and the whole family loves to travel. Most recently they went snorkeling in St. Thomas, and she has taken her daughters to Paris.

She loves living in Charleston and has a goal of trying a different restaurant every time she goes out. “l have become an aficionado of the best shrimp and grits,” she says.

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Mover and Shaker: Shirley Murray, Senior Lead Program Manager, TIAA-CREF

Shirley Murray, TIAA-CREF“With every new role, you have to try to understand the bigger picture: what is being done and why,” says TIAA-CREF’s Shirley Murray. “After you have that ‘aha moment,’ you can often find better ways of doing something instead of sticking with how they always have been.”

Murray attributes that mindset to one of her mentors, her high school math teacher. “I really blossomed under her new approach that helped me understand both the ‘what’ and the ‘why,’” she says.

That perspective helped Murray in her first career as a math teacher. It still helps in her current role at TIAA-CREF where she focuses on deciphering the ‘why,’ instead of just doing what was done in the past.

During her time as a math teacher, Murray realized her love of programming when she created an introductory computer course for students. She then leveraged these skills to take a programming role in an actuarial firm. Soon after, Murray moved from her native Jamaica to the United States, where she joined TIAA-CREF in its New York City office. Murray began her career as part of the rotational development program within the actuarial department and has been with the financial services firm for the past 27 years.

A Focus on Efficiencies

Murray has served in several roles that involved programming and managing operations across many different groups, including both insurance services and the corporate actuarial department. She helped oversee the production of the firm’s financial statements and helped develop a tool for management reporting, an application that is still in use.

After this success, she had the opportunity to move to the firm’s Charlotte office to lead a group responsible for calculating accumulation values and overseeing financial controls. In this role, Murray helped install a suite of applications as part of the organization’s master record-keeping initiative. In 2013, she moved to the information technology department to lead a newly created group that supports the actuarial function, with the goal of streamlining their technologies to allow the group to devote more time to their analytical roles.

Streamlining processes has been important to Murray throughout her career; in fact, one of the accomplishments she’s most proud of was a project in 2011 that helped create more efficient processes that ultimately decreased the time involved in the daily pricing of products by two hours. “We overcame lots of challenges to roll it out,” she says.

She’s also excited about a current project that entails tracking data to see how it changes over time and how they can use that historicalinformation to create assumptions that can help them project into the future. “Using past behavior as a model helps our business divisions,” she says. Two of the projects she’s working on are also breaking new ground by providing automation for processes that were formerly completed manually.

Her work was recently acknowledged with TIAA-CREF’s “IT Outcomes that Matter” award, which she received for her work as part of a cross-functional team with members from across IT.

Learning the Ropes of the Corporate World

From her background as a teacher, where she was able to determine the delivery of her curriculum, she had come to the corporate world excited to get involved in a faster-paced industry. Murray realized that regardless of the industry or firm, there are always going to be challenges. “I learned that you have to be patient and find ways to be proactive to overcome obstacles.”

Having benefitted from the support of mentors and a sponsor, Murray has learned the importance of having someone watch out for you and in turn has become the mentor of other African-American females throughout the years.She recognizes that being a minority in the workplace can be difficult, yet advises those in similar situations to focus on your performance. “Sometimes only positive experience can overcome these biases, so I just do the best that I can regardless of my role or the challenges I face, and ultimately this mentality has allowed me to progress in my career.”

Another one of her best pieces of advice for others is to make sure that you plan for the long term, not just the short term – whether for your career or a project. “You have to move knowledge from one role into the next, thus building rather than compartmentalizing.” And, she adds, don’t be afraid to take risks and challenge the status quo.

Among Murray’s hobbies when she’s not at work are doing puzzles, particularly jigsaw puzzles, and traveling, especially to Jamaica to visit her mother and brothers.

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Mover and Shaker: Julie Moog, Director, Business Information Security Office, TIAA-CREF

Julie Moog Although situations at work will arise where there may not be a clearly defined solution, you can succeed if you do your homework and surround yourself with others who can help you. Julie Moog, TIAA-CREF, learned this advice while progressing in her career. “You have to be willing to take on big unknowns and new opportunities. If you face challenges head on and come to the table prepared, you will come out on top.”

Moog began her career as an intern with Ernst and Young’s technology risk services department, which then translated into her first full-time role post-graduation. She spent the next five years there handling a myriad of responsibilities from internal audit to regulatory compliance to vendor management for several financial services firms. The work often had to be completed quickly and under pressure since she was with the clients for a brief amount of time. “I loved being a consultant because it gave me deep insight into the financial services sector and provided an excellent base from which to launch my career. You have to be a problem solver with quick turnarounds but high-quality work,” Moog says.

Her decision to leave EY presented her with an important learning moment. Leaving a first job that had been such a positive experience is always challenging because it is all that you know. “You may waver over whether you are making the right choice,” she says, “but in hindsight it was the best thing that I could have done.”

Moog then became an information risk manager within the investment bank side of JP Morgan Chase, supporting emerging markets for the Americas. The new role entailed frequent travel to South America and fascinating new learning experiences dealing with international regulators and requirements.

She was given the opportunity to oversee a strategic front office application that the firm was deploying across their fixed income, currencies and commodities platforms. She helped design and implement the controls, before walking international regulators through the control suite that they had developed. Moog then moved into the corporate risk management team where she was the global lead of application assessment services, rolling out solutions firm-wide.

Tackling New Challenges

From there she went to work at TIAA-CREF within the IT risk management team. She created the BISO (Banking Information Security Office) organization, acting as a liaison between information security and both technology and business partners. The goal of the BISO is to work with senior technology leaders and their business partners to understand risk and cybersecurity topics, from regulatory requirements to the types of services provided by the greater team.

This past December, Moog was promoted to the Information Security Officer for TIAA-CREF’s Trust Company in addition to continuing to head the IT BISO organization. “It’s a great opportunity and challenge that I’m looking forward to,” she says, adding that although she had been in the risk space and security officer role for many years, she never had this level of responsibility. Moog is responsible for the strategic direction of the entire program and reports to the board of directors. “I’ve worked closely in the past with the CIO and CTO but I have never shared in the boardroom on a day-to-day basis. This elevated level of responsibility is an exciting new phase for my career.”

Mentoring and Sponsorship

Although she hasn’t had a formal sponsorship arrangement, Moog has benefitted from informal relationships over the years, starting at EY where there was a strong community of women in all different phases of their careers. “I continue to leverage that network in seeking advice on career and personal choices,” she says adding, “You have to view any mentoring or networking relationship as a two-way street.”

To create a strong community in her current role, Moog and her co-chair launched TIAA-CREF’s Information Security Women’s Leadership Group in 2015. The group’s objective is to build strong women leaders within the cybersecurity team. The group offers education and training, community outreach and networking opportunities. “We wanted a way to engage with each other since we’re in different locations,” she says.

The group has had a successful first year, focusing on both technical hard skills and soft skills for employees, as well as planning a variety of events that are open to everyone in the company. In addition, they organized a Cyber School Challenge for 600 students in the Charlotte area that discussed cyber bullying and issues around creating a positive digital footprint – a program which they intend to expand this year.

Balancing Career and Home Successfully

While there were many moms who worked in the community where she grew up, her own mom stayed at home while Moog and her siblings were in school. When Moog entered the workforce as an intern, she remembers noticing the women who held the title of partners. “Something clicked in me, because I had never really thought about where my career could take me. It was eye-opening to get that long-term perspective that women can succeed in both their personal and professional lives.”

Moog’s father was the primary breadwinner, but she recalls that he was still present in their lives, prioritizing the importance of being home for dinner and coaching teams for her and her siblings. “His work/life balance and work ethic both really stood out to me. He excelled professionally and maintained a high-quality, ethical career path and choices, but was still present in our lives,” Moog says.

As she is newly establishing her family, she strives to emulate his path. “Your career is important but family always comes first and in our fast paced, 24/7 society you can sometimes lose sight of that.” Outside of work, Moog has one focus – her son William who is 18 months. “My husband and I are consumed, and we love every second of it.”

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Mover and Shaker: Leonora Xhekaj, Vice President of Operational Risk Management, Voya Investment Management

Leonora XhekajLeonora Xhekaj remembers being asked by someone she admires: “What is more important to you, being liked or respected?” Although she said “both” at the time, over the years she has learned that everyone might not like you, but most will respect you when you establish credibility and act professionally with colleagues and others, regardless of their experience, association or job function.

This philosophy has helped lead to Xhekaj’s successful career ascension. She started at Paine Webber (which was subsequently acquired by UBS) as a client services associate in the institutional equity sales area, providing research to institutional clients. While there she developed a reputation as someone who was persistent and reliable – arriving at work at 5 a.m. if needed to get the job done.

In 2000 she joined Voya Investment Management, previously known as ING U.S. Investment Management, and, at the time, they were involved in a number of M&A consolidations. “I learned early in my career on the buy side that change is the one constant you can count on, and it is something I learned to adapt to and embrace.”

Xhekaj, who earned a B.B.A in management and finance from Baruch College, has held her current role in risk management since 2009. She supports the equity investment platform, structured assets and alternatives group and institutional distribution, as well as other business support areas, such as operations.

Over the years, she has held a variety of positions, including leading the business resilience program for Voya IM including managing crisis events such as Hurricane Irene and Hurricane Sandy. In the days leading up to each, Voya IM activated contingency plans that had been developed and tested, allowing the firm to continue business operations uninterrupted with remote capabilities for all staff with essential functions.

Xhekaj is most proud of her contributions over the years that have led to the development of the company’s effective risk management program that partners with the business to identify, analyze and mitigate risks. “I appreciate that I can contribute to teamwork that benefits the end client, and have opportunities to lead initiatives for the firm that involve collaboration with multiple business areas,” she says.

The operational risk function was relatively new when she assumed the position, offering her an opportunity to help create and establish a key function for the company. “It’s amazing to be in this position where I can offer foresight as we evaluate risks and that I can contribute to enhance programs or processes that add value.”

Working Girl

Even though family and friends warned her that Wall Street was a “man’s world,”Xhekaj learned much of her early career impressions from the movie Working Girl, where she remembers identifying with Melanie Griffith’s character and wanting to be one of those women who succeeded based on talent and skill.

She found breaking into the environment more challenging than expected, but she quickly recognized that becoming a subject matter expert would allow her to push through those barriers. “I was able to earn a seat at the table. I was accepted because I earned respect,” she says. “You can be your own worst enemy if you dwell on the fact that you’re often outnumbered. I decided I needed to think differently and the actions I took showed I belonged and could achieve success.”

Earlier in her career, Xhekaj hesitated to seek mentors and was less vocal about volunteering for stretch roles. But with senior sponsors advocating for her, she realized that they were seeing possibilities in her work that would lead to advancement. Her cadre of mentors ended up being an organic mix of men and women offering a diversity of age and specialty, from backgrounds in risk and investment functions to operations to technology. “I saw it as a major benefit that I could tap into all those resources, views and perspectives to gain as much information on different angles and functions as possible.”

Recipe for Success

From those diverse perspectives she has identified a number of colleagues who display qualities that she would consider important for a role model: humble, inspirational, insightful and credible. One manager in particular stands out for her ability to defuse and navigate through uncomfortable situations with grace and poise.

Over the years Xhekaj has amassed a list of values and principles that she believes provide a path to success: integrity; respect; valuing differences; a positive attitude; avoiding excuses; building relationships, engaging people; and appreciating differences in skill sets. She has also always admired those who don’t say ‘that’s not my problem,’ but contribute to meaningful discussions and provide recommendations instead; or those who are willing to roll up their sleeves to collaborate even if it’s not officially part of their role.

Advice for Balancing Work, Family and Outside Life

At a conference recently, one of the speakers mentioned how outsourcing helped her balance work and life, and Xhekaj realized she had not heard outsourcing used in this context before. She saw that outsourcing everything from housekeeping and other chores to child care can be achieved in a number of ways, such as asking family and friends for help and relying on your partner to contribute more if you both work.Xhekaj says her mom has been her biggest advocate and supporter of all aspects of her life.

Finding that balance has been essential, as Xhekaj is active with a number of groups that grow her professional skills outside of her job commitments. She has been involved with Voya’s New York Women’s Network, her town’s Professional Moms Network and also participates in informal networking and other leadership skill-building conferences and opportunities. Always eager to stay sharp in her field, Xhekaj is a member of a number of industry associations, such as the Security Industry Financial Marketing Association and the Global Association of Risk Professionals (GARP).

Married with two kids, her priority is to spend as much time as she can with daughters Leyla, age 10, and Hana, age 8. “Both inspire and motivate me to continue to contribute to our culture and community,” she says. She shares her passion for charity, helping with the March of Dimes and juvenile diabetes organizations, as well as other local charities in her town.

She also loves to travel, and together her family has explored different cultures from Germany and Switzerland to Kosovo, Antigua, Montreal and Quebec. Closer to home, the family regularly visits local monuments and historical sites, and as avid readers, they love nothing more than a Saturday in front of the fire at their local library.

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Mover and Shaker: Tana Jackson, a SOASTA founder and the Vice President of Engineering

Tana JacksonOne of Tana Jackson’s greatest learning moments was when she realized there’s a limited to how much she could accomplish on her own. “It might seem faster to do things myself which was what I always fell back on rather than wanting to train someone else but I eventually learned that it is worth the investment to train team members,” she says. “When I finally figured that out, I morphed from being an individual contributor to a leader, and that’s when my title leaped from team leader to director to vice president.
 
Jackson has worked in facets of engineering during her entire career – from her first position as a co-op with IBM to her recent appointment as vice president of engineering for SOASTA, the performance analytics company she helped found.
 
One of her proudest moments with the company was the live launch this spring of the SOASTA Digital Operations Center, an industry-first web performance command center that simultaneously displays and integrates an organization’s dozens of digital moving parts – on a giant wall screen – or in the palm of your hand. Designed from start to finish by Jackson, she did a live demonstration at industry trade show Velocity– the first time a product has been introduced in that manner.
 
Now, she says, the company is currently in the phase she describes as a “collision with the real world,” where they are doing lots of demonstrations and taking the product from prototype to implementation. “This is the process when we learn what people actually need the product to do in real-world examples and we can tweak it to make it a success.”
Along the road, she has learned many valuable lessons, but she knows that it was useful to enter the industry as a co-op when she was just a student at Valparaiso. “I was in the corporate world before I even graduated so I didn’t have a lot of assumptions and it was easy to adapt,” she says. One lesson she did find was that although she had expected to be focused on complex problems, as you do in school, much of your career success ends up being your focus on communication, managing relationships and all the interpersonal qualities that have nothing to do with working at your desk.
 
That has played out in her remarkable career success – just this fall she was claimed the top spot at the 4th Annual CloudNOW Awards, among nine other distinguished women in tech. The awards honored these 10 women for their advances in using technology to solve real world business problems and move the tech industry forward.
 
Models in the Workplace – and Closer to Home
 
Over the years, Jackson has benefited from the opportunities she’s been given over the years from her sponsors, as well as many of her managers who have acted as role models by exemplifying the qualifies she wanted to emulate – most notably, a strong work ethic. But her real role models in that area are her parents, neither of whom had a college education but always worked her. Her mom worked for the same CPA firm for nearly 20 years, and her father was a controller for a temp agency for many years, then segued to a position as a business manager for a K-12 school. “They both worked really hard and always took their responsibilities very seriously,” Jackson says.
 
And that has played a role in what she counts as her “recipe for success:” hard work, combined with frequent communication and checkpoints against milestones. “But I haven’t yet found a substitute for hard work, nor will I,” she says.
 
She emphasizes that with the women she sponsors, noting that her company has been extremely supportive of hiring and retaining women, and advancing them into senior management positions.
 
The company is prominent in its support of diversity: Most recently it helped sponsor diversity scholarships to the Velocity conference. The program targets technology professionals often underrepresented at industry conferences, including but not limited to women, people of color, people with disabilities, or LGBTQ. In addition to participating in the full Velocity program of main stage events and workshops, they participated in onsite networking opportunities.
Training for Success
 
Jackson is just as focused in her off-time: she has participated in 35 Ironman Triathlons and earned 10 world championships. Just recently, she placed fifth in the Tahoe Ironman (podium). I’d say this has been a pretty remarkable week for her.
 
She sees it as a healthy outlet: “Some of us would work all day and all night, so an Ironman on the horizon allows me to realize I need to get away from my desk,” she says.
 
But it has another benefit too: “Training parallels the hard work of engineering,” she says, noting that lot of Ironman athletes are Type A CEOs. “The type of people in the Ironman community are very similar to my peers and customers.”
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Mover and Shaker: Maureen Erokwu, CEO, Vosmap

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Maureen Erokwu“Anything worth having is worth fighting for,” says Maureen Erokwu, CEO of Vosmap.

“We hear success stories about career journeys, but more people need to see what the process looks like and understand that it’s going to be hard. Sometimes we give up right before it all comes together, but you have to go through the ugly stage first and resist comparing yourself to those who have already been through those phases.”

This sage advice comes from someone who created her own thriving career by focusing on her skill sets and passions.

After graduating and beginning a career in business development, Erokwu decided to take a step back and mindfully determine what impact she was going to have in the world.

She focused on developing her interest in photography, which not only showed her the importance of passion but helped her meet people who opened up a new world – as they were inviting her places to capture a moment, she determined that she could parlay her passion into a career.

“I learned that in some ways, it doesn’t matter how good you are; it’s how you market yourself and tell your story, and that’s what determines if the world will know who you are.”

Having begun her career in Florida, she returned to the livelier pace of New York and landed a contract with Google. Most people consider Google a technology company, but she discovered that with Google Maps, there’s the element of life imagery which gave her the opportunity to combine photos and technology — two things she loves — into her current role creating imagery of businesses on Google and ensuring the photos meet technical standards.

Erokwu says her success has come from three simple steps: have a vision, build the team and then constantly test and pivot if you have to. “Don’t give up when it gets hard, but use those failures as learning opportunities,” she says. “It just means you are that much closer to getting it right.”

Appreciating the Chance to Mentor and Role Model

The professional achievement she is most proud of so far — being able to monetize something she loves – is also allowing her to fulfill another one of her goals. “I am finally getting to a place where I can share my story and inspire other women to explore career paths. It’s not just about me, it’s about the people that I can impact. That’s my high,” she says.

And it stems from her early experience not having the mentors she needed, which she now realizes made her journey more frustrating than it had to be. Although she always had great support from her family, it wasn’t the guidance she needed to run and build a business and therefore her success took longer. And that’s why she encourages people to seek out mentorship early on. “It helps you fast track,” she acknowledges.

Though she never had one particular role model, she worked to create her own. “If I read about someone in an industry article who had wisdom I could capture, I would make them a role model in my mind. I encourage people who don’t have a dedicated role model to keep their eyes open for qualities that are what you need,” Erokwu says, adding that she also greatly admires the foresight of Elon Musk and what he’s done with his brand.

Her desire to be a mentor also plays out in her daily work, which involves helping local businesses find marketing opportunities. “We’re not only mapping them, but we’re hosting events and giving them tools they can leverage online to really stand out and make their business successful.”

She encourages women to find support groups because she has seen that something incredible happens when women work together. “Sometimes when there are men in the room, women get silent, but when you find spaces with just women, you are going to be your best self.”

When women find spaces that validate them wholeheartedly, they can move to the next level. For Erokwu, those “communities of allies” included Digital Undivided and Lesbians In Tech.

Opening up the World

As an advisor for the group, she says it has been life-changing to share their mission and has also created opportunities for professional development, such as speaking on panels.
Although her work focuses on New York, the nature of it takes her to places worldwide, fulfilling her desire to travel.

“My love for photography has turned into a love of programming,” she says, adding that she taught herself how to code.

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Mover and Shaker: Christina Smedley, Brand and Communications Officer, PayPal

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Christina Smedley“The skills you need to navigate the corporate world are ‘earned,’ not ‘learned,’” says PayPal’s Christina Smedley, who is quick to clarify that doesn’t mean that newer professionals don’t offer value to add. She believes that you have to find ideas from anyone around you and cites her experience with creative interns as an excellent example. “Ideas come from everywhere but some skill sets take time to learn.”

Born in Jamaica, Smedley grew up in England and had her first job on a factory line, where one of her tasks — inspecting clear shampoo bottles for flaws – provided her first entrée to the importance of quality control and paying attention to details.

Prior to joining PayPal, Smedley worked for Edelman, where she was global chair of consumer marketing which entailed telling stories for big brands. One of her many initiatives during that time was helming Dove’s award-winning “Real Beauty” campaign where she helped change the way that people look at beauty — an important crusade both professionally and personally, as she has a teenager daughter. Prior to that, she handled worldwide communications for Amazon, helping change the way people would shop during a time when most people had never even heard of the website or the concept of online retail.

In her current role at PayPal, she is responsible for communications and marketing for global consumers and making sure the company is connecting them with tools to move money more simply.

“Money is such an intrinsic part of life, and it is changing faster in the next three years than it has in the past 20 years,” she says. “It’s exciting to be part of that narrative, and it’s why I’m passionate about what I do.”

At PayPal one of her roles has been to unify the brand globally including rebuilding the website and launching a new brand image; previously, due to its meteoric growth, the brand looked different in Australia than in Germany, for example.

And that’s what keeps her inspired in her day-to-day work: the opportunity she sees ahead to make it simple for people to move their money and provide a secure, effective double-sided network for merchants.

Sponsors and Mentors Play Valuable Roles

During her career ascension, Smedley has benefited from both sponsors and mentors and sees a role for both. Her trusted mentors have been people with whom she can share dreams and aspirations, but her sponsors have been those who have pushed her in ways she didn’t even think she was ready for.

“A sponsor might put you forward for a stretch assignment you hadn’t considered or a promotion you weren’t even asking for. Women tend not to put themselves out there, but you have to push yourself even if you think you aren’t ready; just take that deep breath, jump in, and ask for feedback.”

Along the way she has worked with women whom she says have left an indelible mark as mentors, and she’s also able to find qualities she’d like to emulate throughout different business units within PayPal. For example, she feels inspired by the customer service team, who can ably handle tough moments and respond positively under pressure.

Continuous Learning

She acknowledges that it’s as important to have a pause in your career as it is to drive forward, though assuming that philosophy can be challenging for individuals who are focused on advancement.

“We have so many influences and when you’re in the middle of a dynamic industry, it’s sometimes challenging to just stop for a moment and assess what we’re trying to do as a team, but that’s when you’re learning nuances and skills.” She says that she underscores that concept to those she mentors – that doing the same job for a period of time allows to you to hone the craftsmanship that will ultimately make you a better professional.

Smedley actively supports PayPal’s Women’s Initiative, a company-wide initiative that enables women throughout the organization to advance their careers through conferences, networking and continuous learning.

Smedley says she loves to travel and has brought that drive to her family, including her 16-year-old twins. In addition, Smedley is passionate about literacy and supports programs that advance the skills in her native Jamaica, since she has seen the impact that learning and reading can have on communities. “It’s vital to me to look after my homeland,” she says.

By Cathie Ericson

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Mover & Shaker: Isabel Yepes, Director, Women Who Code

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Isabel Yepes

As the director of Women who Code in Colombia, Isabel Yepes thrives on capturing the interest of women. “It’s something I feel strongly about; there are very few of us in the telecomm field and there’s no reason why. Women can do it as well as men.”

Trained as an engineer, Yepes says she realized she had a passion for telecommunications and decided that is where she wanted to dedicate her career. Currently an independent software developer and founder of Hacemos Contactors, she also parlays her knowledge into a teaching position at a local technical college.While she used to teach more advanced classes on how to configurerouters and servers, she prefers her new position because of its open, positive work environment and the inspiration of teaching technology to people who are not yet immersed in it.

When Yepes first began her career, she realized how different the corporate world is from school. “You figure out the skills you learned in school weren’t always applied skills,” she says, adding that learning the importance of networking and relationship building is also something that has to be developed.

Yepes’ mentor has been a teacher who was a friend of her mom, who has been an advisor at different points in her career. And she considers her sister, also an engineer, as her role model during school. Another role model has been a colleague who founded a startup that is now a thriving corporation.

Attracting More Women to the Field through Women Who Code

Yepes’ goal at Women who Code is to work on attracting more women to technology. She and a friend are developing tools to introduce women to the many benefits of a career in technology, including a video channel that they will offer to conferences and other interested groups.

She also believes it’s important to include men in the conversation. “It’s not just about women helping women,” she says. “We all need to speak a common language to let women know that it’s a robust and attractive field.”

Before her role with Women Who Code she volunteered for United Nations, sponsored by Cisco, with the objective to bring Cisco Networking Academy program to an underserved population, primarily unemployed young people. “We had no budget so we were able to accomplish it through the goodwill of the stakeholders and the generosity of Cisco as a sponsor.”

Time With Family

In her free time, Yepes enjoys being with her family, including her parents, sister and nieces, and spending time outdoors and traveling.

By Cathie Ericson

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Mover and Shaker: Lauren Koopman, Director, PwC US Sustainable Business Solutions Practice

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Lauren Koopman“The notion of ‘career’ has such a different meaning these days than it used to,” reflects PwC’s Lauren Koopman. “You ask yourself what you are going to be when you grow up, but when I think back, I couldn’t even have named it because it didn’t exist. To get the most out of your career, you have to be very fluid and realize how much change there will be over the course of your life. Don’t feel like you’re hemmed into something and just have to make the best of it.”

Koopman’s observations come from her own career trajectory, including the initial impression that she was going to be in derivatives the rest of her life, and it was just a matter of deciding for which company. But traveling the world allowed her to figure out the new, rewarding career path that she travels today.

Detour Through Wall Street on the Path to Sustainability

Koopman’s first professional position was as a management consultant and manager of e-business during the dot com craze, where her charge was to work with large banks to help them define their internet strategy — helping them switch from “brick to click” as it is commonly known.

That was her first realization that you can’t plan your career too meticulously based on the information you have. “When I was going to school, there was no internet, and then all of a sudden, I was the manager of e-business. The world is morphing so quickly, there’s really no way to look out five to 10 years to identify what you are going to do.”

She decided to return to school to earn her MBA in finance, and there she became intrigued by the complexity of derivatives, realizing that if she could master a technical skill like that it would serve her well. She was subsequently hired by Deutsche Bank and worked on the Wall Street trading floor, which was literally all men. “They used to call the woman’s bathroom ‘Lauren’s room,’” she laughs.

Koopman describes an intense environment that would begin at 7 a.m. when she would familiarize herself with overnight action in Asia and Europe, and then begin monitoring four computer screens and six phone lines.

For five years she worked on the floor, until her new husband, who had just sold his business, asked if she could make it work to travel with him. “I had always wanted to travel around the world so I took a year off and we created our “BC” (Before Child) trip, where we tackled all the harder places to travel, such as India, Beirut, Syria, China, East Asia, the Arctic Circle and Africa.

“It was the best decision I ever made; completely game changing for me,” Koopman recalls. “After seeing firsthand the real issues in the world that people were experiencing, I decided I needed to do something to make a difference.”

Combining her finance background with a second master’s degree, this time in environmental engineering, she began investigating potential options where she could make the biggest impact. She approached it with strategic analysis, creating a database of more than 100 people to speak with at foundations, banks, corporations and consulting firms.

At the time, PwC US was just starting its sustainability practice, and she jumped at the opportunity to build it out and wield true influence, a positon she has held for five years. In fact, she cites her professional role model as the person who hired her, who had the foresight to understand the business benefits of sustainability and the inspiration to build it out.

Though she describes her current position as a complete career shift, she is able to rely on her deep insight in the financial world by focusing on financial service clients. “They appreciate that I am able to speak their language,” she says, adding that even three years ago most of the companies hadn’t even thought about incorporating a sustainability mindset into their investment decisions. “I am proud of how much we’ve done and I am excited to expand our work into asset management and other asset classes.”

Koopman was also recently appointed to the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Young Global Leaders (YGL) forum, a group selected from around the world to form a next generation leadership network to engage in global affairs. The honor recognizes outstanding and proven young leaders under the age of 40 across business, government, and arts and culture, for their accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping a better future. Previous and current YGLs include Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google Co-founder Larry Page, and Statistician Nate Silver.

Lessons Learned Along the Way

As Koopman has navigated her career, she’s learned the importance of reading people. “I had always assumed people at the top knew everything and were always right, but over the years I’ve figured out that people are people. You have to learn to evaluate your audience and understand where they’re coming from and how to speak to what they need,” she says, adding that understanding people and how an organization works is as important as technical knowledge. “Think about who you’re talking to and their needs.”

She also has seen the value of taking on every opportunity that’s presented without immediately worrying about why it wouldn’t work. “We tend to worry about failure and stay in our comfort zone,” she says. “But there’s so much value in taking on those new opportunities. Even if it‘s something that you don’t think you want to do, inherently you are learning so much from new skill sets and new people. This creates a knowledge and network reservoir you will draw on throughout your career.”

She cites learning by simply paying attention and absorbing as critical, for example times when she has watched CEOs sell an idea to a huge group of people. Koopman also pays credit to the mentors and colleagues she has met through participating in Women in Wall Street.

A Traveling Family

Koopman is quick to point to her supportive, “amazing” husband as one of her inspirations. With a two-and-a-half-year old and a six-month-old, her home life is as busy as her office. And, even though their life-changing trip was designed to hold them over until their children were a little older, they already have robust passports: the little travelers have visited Holland, Canada, Colombia and the west coast of America, along with regular trips to her husband’s family in New Zealand.

PwC US? Or globally?

By Cathie Ericson

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