Voice of Experience: Annica Lindegren, Partner, White & Case

Foto Lindegren_3x4cm_300dpi_tifBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

For Annica Lindegren, partner at White & Case and head of the firm’s bank finance practice in Germany, a keen focus on providing top service for her clients has been one key to her success – the other is finding a unique balance between her work life and family life. Working in Frankfurt during the week, Lindegren heads home to her family in Spain on the weekend.

She says, “In a sense I have found my work/life balance. When I’m home my priority is my family, and when I am here [in Frankfurt] my priority is my clients (but of course my family is always a top priority). The clients are aware of my travel situation, and it hasn’t affected their view of working with me or the team here.”

And the balance seems to work – Lindegren expresses pride in the team she’s built in Germany, and the success it has seen since the start in 2001.

She continues proudly, “Within 3 years [of starting at White & Case], we were nominated for The Bank Finance Firm of the Year in Germany by JUVE, a guide to the legal profession which ranks lawyers and law firms in Germany. And we won in 2006. We were nominated last year again – all in all we’ve been nominated 4 times with one win.”

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Movers and Shakers: Rachel S. L. Minard, Partner and Managing Director, Optima Fund Management, LLC

RSLMBy Gigi DeVault (Munich)

When the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley opened in 1991, it marked the first time that five United States presidents had gathered in one place. This prestigious gathering of ribbon-cutters—Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, and Bush Sr. and their respective First Ladies—at the largest Presidential library in the nation, could be attributed to a number variables. Three factors come immediately to mind: Longer lives due to improved health care, Presidential privilege, and the marketing acumen of Rachel Minard.

Fresh out of Northeastern University in Boston, from which she graduated with honors in journalism and philosophy, Minard got her start in marketing with the launch of the library. She has, since that time, focused on launches of a different sort.

Skip ahead one year, from Simi Valley to London. Pareto Partners, a currency overlay investment management firm had opened its doors about the same time as those of the most recent Presidential library. A young woman named Rachel Minard was hired as assistant director of marketing and client services at Pareto, helping the firm grow to one of the most highly respected currency overlay firms in the world.

Minard’s is both an “opener” and a “closer.” Early in her career, Minard was hired to be an opener. First she opened her own marketing firm, and then opened a Presidential Library. Her next decade would be spent securing new assets for her firms, raising well over $9 billion in her career. In a new position created for her, Partner and Managing Director, she was hired in May by the hedge fund-of-funds firm Optima Fund Management to open and oversee their San Francisco office as well as build the firm’s global institutional business from the bottom up. She has 18 years experience building businesses and raising assets globally for investment management companies. Minard knows how to close business, too. For the last eight years, Minard has been engaged in building fund of hedge fund firms into global institutional powerhouses.

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Voice of Experience: Michelle Clayman, CFA, Founder, Managing Partner & Chief Investment Officer, New Amsterdam Partners LLC

N_MClaymanBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“I was born and raised in England, and did my undergraduate degree at Oxford,” began Michelle Clayman, CFA, Founder, Managing Partner, and Chief Investment Officer of New Amsterdam Partners. After graduating, Clayman took a job in commercial banking with Bank of America in London for two years, before heading to California to attend Stanford Business School.

“After business school,” she said, “I took a job at Salomon Brothers in sales and trading, and then, after a few months, was asked to go into a new division called quantitative equity research, and I was there for six and a half years.”

“Then I decided to start my own company – and the rest is history,” she continued.

Clayman has built her career and her company on the value of performance-based quantitative metrics. And she believes performance-based careers, like those in investment management, are more amenable to women. Because they’re based on results, she said, there’s less room for gender bias.

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Voice of Experience: Vivian Tsoi, Partner, White & Case

vivian tsoiBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Vivian Tsoi, Partner at global law firm White & Case, sees opportunity just about everywhere, a trait which, no doubt, plays into her success working in mergers and acquisitions at the firm.

Working out of White & Case’s Beijing office, Tsoi says she is amazed at the attitude of possibility that she sees in her clients in China. She said, “You can really see the growth and see how much they have learned. The level of sophistication they have achieved in just a few years is astounding. It keeps you on your toes.”

“A career in Beijing was, frankly, not something I ever anticipated,” she continued. “But I love being here right now.”

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Voice of Experience: Yvonne Schneider, Senior Vice President Global Commercial Services Technologies, American Express

yvonne

By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Yvonne Schneider is a panelist at today’s Women in IT event, hosted by The Glass Hammer.

“I consider myself a global leader,” said Yvonne Schneider, SVP Global Commercial Services Technologies at American Express. “I align employees across five regions around the world and we’re a high performing team. My employees have a lot of responsibility and visibility.”

Schneider’s role at Amex is about managing – and creating – change. She works to create and deploy new solutions to the company’s global corporate client base, she explained. “The adoption of emerging technologies is something we’re paying a lot of attention to. But it’s a matter of putting the right technology at the right time in the right market – the same technology is not the right solution everywhere in the world.”

“What we do is work on automating the workforce,” she said, “and this is changing the face of the world and how it operates and its people.”

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Voice of Experience: Margo Cook, CFA, Executive Vice President, Nuveen Investments

NIHI100705By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

In talking to Margo Cook, CFA, Executive Vice President of Nuveen Investments, its clear that what she’s valued the most throughout her career is her ability to be a part of and to build effective teams.

While her career has taken her from The Bank of New York to Bear Stearns Asset Management, and now to Nuveen Investments, she continues to prize her role as a manager and team builder, investigating and working to improve the dynamic and effectiveness of the groups she’s led.

Cook said, “The most rewarding thing is to have a strong team that works together well. They know how to respond to challenges, and move ahead. It may be more time consuming – but a strong team can accomplish more than a group of people acting as individuals.”

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Voice of Experience: Avis Yates Rivers, CEO, Technology Concepts Group International

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Avis Yates RiversAvis Yates Rivers, CEO of Technology Concepts Group International, has spent her career in the technology sector – and after 25 years running successful companies, she says one of the most important things she’s learned is “put the right people in the right seats.”

Staying ahead of shifting technology, she said, means “hiring the right people with knowledge about the field. They stay on the cutting edge of new technology and know what it means for us and the customer. I wouldn’t be able to do that on my own,” she explained.

“I’m very heavily involved in civic engagement,” she said, pointing to work with the government and politics, as well as non-profit leadership, such as the National Minority Supplier Development Council, the Women Presidents’ Educational Organization and other organizations working to increase opportunities for small, minority and women-owned businesses. She sits on the board of the National Center for Women in Technology.

She continued, “If you’re entering the technology field, understand that your contribution is very much needed and commit to it.”

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Movers and Shakers: Laura Herman, Managing Director, FSG Social Impact Advisors

Laura Herman 3.09By Andrea Newell (Grand Rapids, Michigan)

At age 14, Laura Herman spent the summer on the north coast of Spain with a host family. It was her first taste of independence, immersion into another culture and glimpse of a society affected by political unrest. Once back in the quiet Boston suburb where she grew up, she determined that not only would she go back to Spain the following summer, but she would do something “international” with her life. That experience kindled a lifelong passion for other cultures and an interest in social issues. Herman not only returned to Spain for the subsequent three summers, but has visited, volunteered and worked in more than 40 countries to date.

When Laura first arrived at the University of Michigan, she thought she would major in International Studies and then join the Peace Corp, but she was ultimately drawn to the U of M Business School. “I came to this huge university from a small high school with a graduating class of 100 students. Entering the business school was a way to make the university seem smaller and I liked the cohesion of the business program.” While at U of M, Herman spent a summer as an intern working in Prague at a new foundation just after the Berlin wall came down.

Abject Poverty and Multinational Companies

After Herman earned her undergraduate international business degree, she spent five years at Deloitte Consulting. While she was learning the nuts and bolts of business consulting, she continued to travel and volunteer. During a leave from Deloitte, she spent nearly three months in southeast Asia (Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia). As she traveled around the beautiful, yet economically desolate, countryside, she saw struggling communities alongside multinational companies. “I thought a lot about poverty, why poor people were poor, and exactly what was driving such poverty.” And she started to think about how they could work together.

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Voice of Experience: Wendy Stops, Global Managing Director, Quality & Client Satisfaction – Technology, Accenture

Wendy Stops AccentureBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Wendy Stops is a panelist at our upcoming event “Women in IT: Staying Technical and Getting to the Top.” We still have a few tickets left – to register, click here: https://theglasshammer.com/events/

“I guess it’s the individual, smaller things that inspire me. When I see very confident, articulate people who are genuine, and know what they want to achieve and share their story with you,” began Wendy Stops, Global Managing Director of Quality and Client Satisfaction for Technology at Accenture.

Stops’ career has brought her around the world – from Australia, to several locations across Southeast Asia, back to Australia, and now to New York City. She said, “My area of current experience and focus – consulting and tech – is helping our business delivery quality solutions for the client. Delivering these quality solutions is very important, and we are always looking to make improvements and changes. My challenge is to innovate how we can continually deliver high quality solutions.” She explained, “I like change – I like dealing with things I know are going to make a difference.”

She continued, “I get inspired by people who are not afraid to make tough decisions – who aren’t hiding and [are willing to] admit when they make mistakes. That’s the sort of person I want to be.”

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Celebrating Two of LA’s History-Making Female Lawyers

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iStock_000002362162XSmallBy Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

Twelve of the nation’s largest law firms are centrally located in the city of Los Angeles and according to numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 556,790 lawyers in California – not including those who are self-employed. As a lawyer, making a name for yourself in this city may not be the easiest of tasks, but if you’re incredibly dedicated to your work, your clients, and your profession – such as the women heralded by the Los Angeles Times as the city’s Women Leaders in the Law – chances are, you’ll make a name for yourself.

The supplement to the Times featured a number of Los Angeles’ top female lawyers, including a revered firm’s first female attorney and a lawyer who was behind a landmark civil rights case. Let’s get to know Amy Fisch Solomon and Deborah Chang, two lawyers who took a different path to making history.

Amy Fisch Solomon, Girardi Keese

If it weren’t for a severe injury, Amy Solomon’s life might have turned out much differently. In third grade she made a deal with her mother: her mom would continue to pay for ballet lessons if Solomon promised to work hard in school and always have something to fall back on. The deal continued well after high school when Solomon began dancing professionally, but after sustaining an injury, she was forced to reevaluate her life. “I enrolled in college and was Pre-Med my first year. I decided that it was too much science and not enough ‘people stuff,’ so I focused on preparing to go to law school,” Solomon said.

Only a former dancer, still in love with the art, could equate her performances on the stage with her performance in front of a jury. “From the beginning I always knew I wanted to be a trial lawyer because of the similarity of performing as a dancer,” Solomon said. “It was the same idea: connecting with an audience to tell them a story that will move them. When I discovered that I could tell stories for people who had no voice – ‘the little guy’ – I was immediately drawn to that area.”

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