Voice of Experience: Lisa Cregan, UBS, Dallas Complex Director and Director of Women’s Development Wealth Management Advisory Group

lisa-mediumBy Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

It’s the rare 13-year-old who can clearly set the course for the rest of her life; indeed, it’s the rare 13- year-old who knows from moment to moment what she wants from that day. So when Lisa Cregan—all of 13 years old—told a local newspaper reporter “I want to be a stockbroker one day,” she was likely met with some surprise. Since that time, however, Lisa Cregan has made her dream come true, and now works to help other women do the same as the head of career development for women at UBS.

Not that it was based only on her seemingly precocious response to the reporter. Cregan, who is also the Dallas Market Area Manager for UBS, did her homework.

During the second year of her MBA program, she conducted informational interviews with executives in various industries. “I wanted to gain a perspective on each industry, learn more about the industry culture, the skills needed to be successful, and the career paths I might be able to follow.”

Based on what she learned, she confirmed that she did indeed want to end up in finance. “I was intrigued by the culture of constant change. I liked the idea of high pressure coupled with high opportunity.”

Read more

/by

Thriving with Breast Cancer

Kim_Michel_Photo[1]By Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

“Thank god for hot flashes,” said Kim Michel, owner of Michel Financial Services firm in Los Angeles, “They very likely saved my life.”

Last year, just as Michel turned fifty, she began to be troubled by those telltale signs of menopause, and went to consult with a doctor about hormone replacement therapy. During that examination, the doctor felt something “very deep down” in her left breast. And although the annual mammogram and ultrasound she’d had just 30 days prior had disclosed nothing, the doctor wasn’t convinced, and sent her for an urgent MRI.

Just a couple of days later, the doctor called with the results. “He said, ‘You have four tumors on both sides.’ I was shocked, stunned,” said Michel.
Read more

/by

Voice of Experience: Ida Liu, Head of the Fashion, Retail and Consumer Group, Citi Private Bank

1001144416[1]by Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Ida Liu creates wealth management strategies for ultra high net worth individuals in her role as Head of the Fashion, Retail and Consumer Group at Citi Private Bank. From high finance to high fashion and back, her career path is a testament to following your passions and to keeping in touch with your contacts.

Born in California and raised in a Mandarin-speaking home by her Chinese parents, Liu said, “My father really is an inspiration to me. He instilled in me from a very young age a work ethic and the ability to work really hard, not give up. I saw him start a business and the can-do attitude and work ethic were instilled in me at a very young age, and still inspire me everyday.”

Liu graduated from Wellesley College with a dual major in Psychology and Chinese Studies, with a concentration in Economics and a passion for fashion. “I was one of six corporate buying interns at Neiman Marcus during my junior summer while at college and was offered a job to be an assistant buyer out of college but decided to take the investment banking route [after acing the on-campus interviews]. At the time, I thought that it would be easier for me to go into investment banking and then into fashion rather than the other way around.”
Read more

/by

Voice of Experience: Jan Floyd-Douglass

JAFD_March_2009[1]By Elizabeth Harrin (London)

“I’ve always been a cold contactor,” says Jan Floyd-Douglass, when I ask her how she landed her top city jobs at Zurich and Barclays. “I find it’s much better to circumnavigate all the job ads.”

Jan started out with two job offers on the table: Lloyds and Citicorp and back in the ’70s took the lower paid role because Citi created “a hum” inside of her. It turned out to be a good choice. Over her fourteen years with Citi, she had seven different roles, ultimately ending up as Resident Vice President for mortgage sales.

Read more

/by

Voice of Experience: Stephanie Hauge, President, Financial Women’s Association

hauge_stephanie72_06[1]by Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

“Gender diversification represents a range of approaches to risk analysis and problem solving. All of that is part of the equation of getting better decisions made in a company; it isn’t just to dress up the boardroom or the C-suite with females. If there had been different perspectives and different experiences among the leadership and decision-makers [of the companies that were at the center of the financial meltdown], I believe it could have had a very different outcome.” said Stephanie Hauge, president of the Financial Women’s Association.

Hauge started her own financial career at a pharma company in New Jersey. Working as a marketing customer service representative while attending night school at Seton Hall—first for her B.A. in Accounting and then her M.B.A. in Finance—she saw firsthand the importance of gender diversity and the challenges women face in the workplace.

“I was one of just a few women in the accounting department. A senior accountant at the time, I ended up filling in for my boss when he was not doing his job. When he was eventually let go, there was a lot of external and internal support for me to be moved up into his position. But, [some months later when I still hadn’t been promoted and/or gotten a pay raise], I went to the head of the department to ask why, since I was already doing the job. The department head actually said to me, ‘If I promote you into this position, then all those guys I play golf with will work for a woman and I can’t do that to them.’ Although after some further conversation, I was officially appointed into the position, that incident made me question whether or not I would want to continue there, but it also was a seminal moment in terms of my focus on helping other women. ”

Read more

/by

Rising Star: Nitu Gupta, Vice President of Product Development, Sodexo

Head_Shot-Nitu_Gupta_hi-res_0807[1]by Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Nitu Gupta, Vice President of Product Development at integrated food and facilities management giant Sodexo, knows something about the power of leveling the playing field by doing the right thing. Born and raised in New Delhi, India, she had wanted to pursue a degree in economics and math and have her own career. However, her parents’ notion of the right path for a girl was to go into a home economics program and be married soon after graduating from a university.

After studying to be a teacher, she gained entry into a competitive graduate program in food and nutrition, which was the closest thing her university had to a career oriented program. Unfortunately, she had to leave the program when she met her soul mate and moved to the United States. Of the move, she said: “It was quite a challenge. I was learning how to be married and getting used to a new culture.”

She added, “I am very open minded and willing to adapt. I believe if you go into a situation willing to learn, it makes it much easier. Of course, there are going to be conflicts and confusion. But, as long as you stay positive things work out in the end.”
Read more

/by

Voice of Experience: Sabrina Callin, Managing Director, PIMCO

By Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

“I think I ordered my first application to Harvard and Stanford’s Business Schools when I was roughly 10 years old,” said Sabrina Callin, a PIMCO managing director based in the firm’s Newport Beach headquarters. “My parents were both educators, and instilled a strong work ethic and belief in me that I could do anything I wanted to do. As a result, I was motivated from a young age by the ability to have an influence and make things happen.”

During her undergrad years at Texas Christian University—a school founded by her father’s ancestors back in the 1800s—Callin decided to pursue a career in finance, graduating with degrees in accounting, finance and economics. A focus on finance, she felt, would provide her with the opportunity to be in a “very dynamic and intrinsically interesting profession,” and could provide an opportunity gain unique insight and expertise that “is very broadly relevant, and well beyond the day-to-day workings of a given job.” In the period between her undergraduate and graduate programs, rather than heading to Wall Street as she’d originally planned, she earned her CPA. “I believed experience as a practicing CPA would provide me with an important knowledge base that would be beneficial for my longer-term career path.”

Read more

/by

Voice of Experience: Joanne Kinsella, Managing Director, ITRS America

Joanne_Kinsella_168_resized[1]by Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

When asked how she ended up in the financial technology industry, Jo Kinsella, managing director of ITRS America quickly answers: “Pure unadulterated chance.”

Indeed, her career path has wound through industries and countries, starting with French proficiency upon graduation from university from Leeds, England. And although she was able to write a thesis in the language, Kinsella did not want to be a translator. Without much office experience, she went to work as an office temp for Carlton Television but was soon promoted to full-time events manager, organizing and running corporate events, hospitality, and public relations for the shows they did around England.

Read more

/by

Voice of Experience: Ann Ziegler, Chief Financial Officer of CDW

Ann_Ziegler[1]By Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Audacious proclamations are the hallmark of the many of the successful among us. “You’ve got to raise your hand,” says CDW’s Ann Ziegler, the corporation’s CFO.

No surprise, then, that Ziegler, who is an attorney—not a CPA or Finance MBA—told her boss at Sara Lee— “I want to be the corporate CFO”—and has come to realize that goal.

Ziegler was drawn to the law early, mostly because of strong influence of an older cousin who was an accomplished lawyer. Once she was knee-deep in her legal studies, she realized that, above all else, she was called by corporate law, even though it wasn’t what most of her classmates were doing. “At that time I was in law school, litigation was the sexy part. But I never wanted to be a litigator. I enjoyed corporate law and other similar courses.”

Read more

/by

Voice of Experience: Lucy Reed, Global Co-Head of International Arbitration Group, Freshfields

By Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)Reed_Lucy[1]

“It is not the amount of money that affects how hard I work. I worked as hard when I was a GS-7 law clerk as I do now as a highly paid law firm partner. The most important thing for me is that I have a varied practice and a varied career. I’m always looking for new challenges, which is why I like international arbitration— each case involves a different sector, different expert, different issues,” said Lucy Reed, the global co-head of the International Arbitration Group at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP.

Reed started her career clerking for a federal trial judge in D.C. who had a number of international cases, including a 9-month criminal trial of the first defendants accused of the assassination of former Ambassador Orlando Letelier ordered by Augusto Pinochet. She then went into a D.C. law firm that had arbitration cases before the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal set up in The Hague after the Iranian Revolution. Read more

/by