Voice of Experience: Linda Singh, Senior Executive, Health & Public Service, Accenture

Linda Singh AccentureBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

As both a Colonel in the National Guard and Client Account Lead for Veterans Affairs at Accenture, Linda Singh has devoted her career to the service of her country. She has spent almost 30 years total service time and 20 of those years with the Maryland Army National Guard. She was deployed to Kosovo from2006 to 2007. Besides her current client work at Accenture, Singh is passionate about the company’s corporate citizenship focus.

“Our corporate citizenship theme is Skills to Succeed and the goal, by 2015, is to equip 250,000 people with the skills to get a job or start a business. We are teaming with clients as well as nonprofits to get individuals trained, re-employed and transitioned back to work,” Singh said. “We are working to apply this program to help our veterans.”

She continued, “It gets to one of the key issues that Veteran Affairs that is facing. It’s our most daunting issue – there are 1.2 million veterans unemployed and over 100,000 who are homeless. And the fastest growing population within the veteran community is women. There are increasing numbers of women in both of those groups. This is something I would love people to rally behind and support. It’s something we can fix together but it will take more than just one organization to do it.”

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Voice of Experience: Ci Ci Holloway, Managing Director, Diversity & Inclusion, Americas, UBS Investment Bank

Image courtesy The Network Journal

Image courtesy The Network Journal

By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Ci Ci Holloway spent the majority of her career working in the diversity and inclusion space in the entertainment industry. But four years ago, she found herself drawn to the financial services. Now Managing Director of Diversity and Inclusion for the Americas at UBS, Holloway said she’s working on an exciting new initiative – DROI.

Holloway explained, “Diversity Return On Investment will clearly make the connection between diverse achievements and the impact on the organization – how that ties to the bottom line.”

She continued, “It’s certainly not an easy argument to make, and it gets challenged. But the good thing is that the numbers don’t lie, and we can tie those numbers or new clients to diversity. Showing how a diverse team outperforms a homogenous team will make people rethink how they look at diversity and inclusion in an organization.”

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Voice of Experience: Aine Leddy, Executive Director, Investment Management Technology, Morgan Stanley

Leddy-1By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“Just go for it. Don’t be afraid to show interest. If you prefer a career in something considered to be an all-male bastion like Wall Street investment banking, just do it,” said Aine Leddy, Executive Director, Investment Management Technology at Morgan Stanley.

As chief operating officer for the company’s investment technology group, Leddy, who hails from Ireland, has plenty of experience in a traditionally male dominated field, and has found success in “going for it.”

And while she encourages women to enter roles where they may initially be the odd person out, she encourages men to do the same. She continued, “I try to give the same advice to my sons as to my daughter.”

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Intrepid Woman: Educating Children in Goa

P1050292By Cleo Thompson (London), founder of The Gender Blog. A regular contributor, Thompson has just returned to the UK from a period of volunteer work for a charity in India. This is her story.

Goa: the smallest and the richest state in India; a former Portuguese colony, a place of beautiful golden beaches, swaying palm trees and over a million domestic and foreign tourists per year. The wealth brought by the tourists also brings an influx of economic migrants. In search of work and money, they travel to this tiny state in western India from other areas – hundreds and in some cases thousands of miles away.

I first visited Goa in 1999, have been back many times since then and have seen the volume of both tourists and of workers from other parts of India soar in the intervening years. Unsurprisingly, the Goan infrastructure is now creaking under this flood of people; from a tourist’s point of view, power cuts and water shortages are increasingly common but can be dismissed as being “part of the Indian experience.” However, what many tourists never see are the living environments of many of the migrant workers – and, more particularly, how this impacts the health and education of their children.

Before Christmas, I spent time undertaking volunteer work for a small Goan-based charity called Educators’ Trust India – I’m pictured here with some of the children on a trip to the beach. The charity was set up two years ago in order to provide practical assistance to the children of these migrant workers and they now, funded only by donations, run two schools, Leading Light and New Light, and a number of outreach projects where they work with migrant workers in the local slums.

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Intrepid Woman: From Futures Trader to Microfinance Film Maker

RachelCook1Contributed by Rachel Cook

I was working as a Futures Trader on the European shift – in the middle of the night, Chicago time – in September 2009 when I first came across an op-ed in The New York Times written by Nick Kristof the month before, “The Women’s Crusade.” I was completely floored by the article – it told the stories of women in the developing world, facing terrifying, seemingly insurmountable odds. And some of these women were able to overcome these odds using a development tool I’d heard little about – microfinance. I was intrigued. Microlending seemed to help women, and it seemed to be a high-return financial investment – both topics of high interest to me.

I’d studied film in undergrad, as well as Economics and English. I’d loved movies since I was a kid.

It occurred to me that this could make an amazing topic for a global documentary film.

But I’ve never made a feature documentary before; I’d made a few shorts in school, and beyond that I knew virtually nothing about production. It was imperative that I surround myself with professionals who could compensate for my own greenness. And I got lucky; I was able to put together a wonderful group of people who are highly seasoned professionals just as passionate about the project as I am, and what’s more, they were willing to volunteer.

So we got started. While maintaining my trading job, the crew and I traveled to South America and filmed in Paraguay in 2010, and we’re only getting started – we’ll continue filming throughout this year.

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Voice of Experience: Rhonda Mims, President, ING Foundation & SVP, Corporate Responsibility and Multicultural Affairs, ING

rhondamimsBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Rhonda Mims, President, ING Foundation & SVP, Corporate Responsibility and Multicultural Affairs, ING, said she was glad to have learned the value of a non-linear career.

Having begun her career as an attorney, then working for the government, and finally moving to the corporate space, Mims has had a broad range of experiences. She explained, “For a number of years, I have understood the fact that every career doesn’t have a straight linear curve.” Looking back though, she said, “When I started, I was so focused that I may have missed opportunities to go to the left or the right, instead of going straight up.”

Mims now leads the ING Foundation as well as corporate responsibility and diversity and inclusion initiatives at ING. “It’s an incredible job,” she added.

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Voice of Experience: Aynesh Johnson, Head of the Office of Global Leadership and Diversity, Goldman Sachs

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Aynesh Johnson“Look ahead to other senior women who have gone through the experience and learn from them,” said Aynesh Johnson, Managing Director and Head of the Office of Global Leadership and Diversity at Goldman Sachs. But, she continued, “Be comfortable that you will be successful and do it on your own terms.”

Johnson, who has been with Goldman since the beginning of her career, is enthusiastic about the importance of leveraging mentors and sponsors throughout one’s career. But, she said, ultimately you are responsible for your own success.

“You have to be able to find support, but you are responsible for owning your career,” she advised.

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35 Under 35: Louise Mor, Partner, Asset Finance, White & Case

Mor_LouiseBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Louise Mor, a new partner at the global law firm White & Case, is building a career in asset finance law. She has built a store of expertise in the global financing of aircraft and trains. And now, at just 34, Mor has recently been named a partner at the firm.

She advised young women in law to get involved as much as possible at the office. “Not only doing your work, but get exposed to other people. Try to get involved in wider things, like pro-bono work and marketing initiatives. It’s a great way to get people to know you – to know your face. Get your face out there all the time.”

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Voice of Experience: DiAnne Calabrisotto, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Compliance Officer, The Williams Capital Group, L.P.

DiAnne CalabrisottoBy Elizabeth Harrin (London)

DiAnne Calabrisotto wanted to be a graphic designer or a paralegal when she grew up, but reluctantly settled for a job as a receptionist at Prudential Securities in 1984. Since those early days, Calabrisotto has risen through the ranks to the C-suite, and is now Chief Operating Officer and Chief Compliance Officer at The Williams Capital Group, L.P., a leading boutique investment banking firm in New York.

“Working at a boutique firm allows me, on the one hand, to have creative input on challenging special projects. On the other hand, I deal with a lot of legal and regulatory issues, working closely with top-notch attorneys at prominent law firms,” she says. “I never thought I could combine my two passions on Wall Street.”

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Voice of Experience: Yaarit Silverstone, Managing Director, Talent & Organization Performance, Accenture

Yaarit Silverstone Picture-higher resBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“Be your own best critic,” advised Yaarit Silverstone, a managing director in Accenture’s Talent & Organization Performance practice. “Be sure you are showing up as the best you – and be open to development.”

Silverstone’s career, which spans continents and industries, has taken her from consulting on human capital issues externally to human capital management within the firm, and she is passionate about the importance of helping people develop the skills to succeed, no matter what their career or geographic location. “It’s a matter of global economic importance,” she said.

She said, “Each of us, every 2 years, should be somehow different in terms of our capabilities. And the only way to do that is to be aware of your strengths and where you would like to stretch. I’m doing something entirely different every 2 years.”

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