Let’s Bury Short-Termism to Avoid Another Crisis

Contributed by Bill George, professor of management practice at Harvard Business SchooliStock_000005516576XSmall

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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Voice of Experience: Beth Skillern, President and General Counsel, Bullivant Houser Bailey

By Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)Skillern[1]

From a very young age, Beth Skillern, Bullivant Houser Bailey‘s firm president and general counsel, was determined to grow up to be the kind of woman that found her own way and supported herself, an unusual aspiration for a young girl coming of age in the 50s and 60s. But her father, who she cites as her main source of inspiration, raised her to make the most of her talents. “My father really valued education because he didn’t have the opportunity to go to college,” Skillern said. “His work ethic was incredibly strong and he inspired me to become who and what I am today.”

Skillern spent a majority of her adult life as a junior high history and English teacher before deciding to return to graduate school. “When I was in college in the 1960s, many women didn’t go to law school,” Skillern said. “I’d always been fascinated by lawyers [though] so I decided to [go to law school and] begin my second career. I was up for the intellectual challenge it posed.”

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Voice of Experience: Mareile Cusack, General Counsel, Ariel Investments

By Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)Cusack_Mareile_H_9975

“Change awakens the stranger in you. When you are faced with a different situation, that’s when you find your strength and are able to grow and become a better person,” said Mareile Cusack, General Counsel at Chicago investment firm, Ariel Investments.

That’s the voice of experience talking. Cusack was born in Haiti. At the age of two, she and her family fled to Guinea when her father, a government official, was exiled. They remained in northwest Africa until a nationalist movement forced all foreigners out five years later. “It was an unusual time. It wasn’t yet violent but foreigners were being looked upon with suspicion. I do remember, though, that the father of someone I knew suddenly disappeared because he was thought to be a spy. It was that kind environment, so my parents decided it was time to get out.” The family moved to France, where Cusack lived until she came to the United States to attend boarding school in Andover, Massachusetts at the age of 16.

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Voice of Experience: Cynthia Steer, Chief Research Strategist and the Head of Beta Research Group, Rogerscasey

By Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)steer_cynthia_2006_3

A former competitive figure skater, swimmer, and track and field star, Cynthia Steer knows about self-discipline and drive. She relies on those traits daily as the Chief Research Strategist and the head of Beta Research Group at global investment solutions firm Rogerscasey.

“I was an athlete at a time when women were not normally athletes,” she explained. She forced the integration of her high school track team and held her own as the only girl on the team.
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Voice of Experience: Monica Mandelli, Managing Director, Investment Management Division, Goldman Sachs

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Monica MandelliOn a faded and tattered piece of paper taped to a wall in Monica Mandelli’s Manhattan office is the motto by which she lives: “La vittoria non e’ mai definitiva e la sconfitta non e’ mai fatale: quello che conta e’ il coraggio,” which roughly translates into “Victory is never forever and defeat is never fatal: all that matters is courage.”

That piece of paper (and its message) has traveled with Mandelli from London to Harvard and from a small cubicle to the large office she now inhabits as a managing director at Goldman Sachs. Said Mandelli, “It encourages me to not become complacent when I win and never to give up when I’m struggling. It reminds me to wake up every day and fight. I’m very confident and relentless and it sums me up quite well.”

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Voice of Experience: Cynthia Meyn, SVP and Senior Operations Manager,PIMCO

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by Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Cynthia Meyn, the Senior Operations Manager at PIMCO’s New York Office, spent her childhood on the move, living in three states and a European country, all before the tender age of twelve. And while some might have viewed this as a negative experience, Meyn actually sees it as one that had a wholly positive impact on her. “I think it helped me be at ease meeting new people,” she explained, “and helped me be comfortable trying new things,” a skill which has allowed her to fearlessly take on new challenges in her life and career.

When it came time for college, Meyn moved again, this time from Ohio back to Massachusetts to study math, computer science and philosophy at Smith College. While her senior level research fieldwork was in cognitive science and artificial intelligence, she decided not to pursue it as a career once she realized that artificial intelligence “was just too academic.” Instead, she chose to pursue finance and business, an area she became interested in via a sophomore year internship with Smith College’s Summer Women in Business Mini MBA program, an executive education seminar for women. Meyn said, “My role was to set up, monitor, and staff the computer center. I also got to take the classes with the executive women because I had to help them do the LOTUS spreadsheets. That summer was formative because I met executive women from places like General Motors and AT&T, and they encouraged me to pursue a career in business. They also told me about some internship and training programs that I would be able to get into if I tried. So, because of them, I sought out an internship at Morgan Stanley.”

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35 Under 35: Alexandra Basirov, Head of Sovereigns, Supranationals, and Agencies for Debt Capital Markets, BNP Paribas

By Elizabeth Harrin (London)AlexandraBasirov[1]

“One of the first pieces of advice I was given was never tell your age to anyone as they could perceive you differently,” says Alexandra Basirov, Head of Sovereigns, Supranationals and Agencies for Debt Capital Markets at BNP Paribas. I won’t tell you her age, but suffice to say that Alexandra has leapt up through the hierarchies of banking to her position before most women have managed to make much of a mark on the corporate world.

“Economics had always fascinated me from a very young age,” she explains. “I had the first opportunity to study it at A-level while being educated in England after moving from Australia. I went on to study at the London School of Economics.” During the holidays, she sought out internships, and it became clear that a career in the banking industry was what she wanted to do. “There was something about the working environment coupled with being able to follow markets and applying my studies that excited me,” she says.

Basirov continues: “I have always been a firm believer that you have to love what you do to succeed. Like any job, and in particular on the trading floor, work can get very stressful. Banking is an industry that requires you to give it all, and unless you are devoted and have a passion for what you do, it’s unlikely you will last for the duration or climb the ladder.”

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Voice of Experience: Kathleen Weslock, Head of Human Resources, SunGard

Kathleen Weslockby Pamela Weinsaft (New York)

“A career isn’t just climbing straight up a ladder – it is more like a garden lattice. There are many steps along the way and at each juncture, a chance to learn a lot about yourself and your profession,” said Kathleen Weslock, the head of Human Resources at leading software and IT services company, SunGard Data Systems.

The Crooked Career Path

A Spanish and psychology double major at Hood College in Maryland, Weslock started her career as a switchboard operator at the Pan American Health Organization. Because she was fluent in Spanish, less than six months later, she was “promoted” to secretary in the human resources department. The head of employee relations needed someone who could keep information confidential and who could translate for her. “While this job may seem menial to many, I learned a lot from this position and from Mariko; she taught me the importance of having a solid work ethic at an early stage in my career. I learned so much, from basic level employee relations to discretion to the proper code of conduct. She was a marvelous woman,” explained Weslock.

She then went to work as a secretary in the HR and training department of the US Chamber of Commerce and worked her way up to the assistant director, where she ran training programs that taught business executives how to lobby in Washington, DC. “But I was still typing,” laughed Weslock.

She then went to work as a secretary in the training department of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and worked her way up to teaching business executives how to lobby in Washington, D.C. She was also rubbing elbows with business leaders, top columnists, and powerful business executives. “But I was still typing,” laughed Weslock.

At one of the labor relation sessions she organized, some of the influential executives encouraged her to go to grad school or law school and pursue labor relations as a career. “At that point I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do with my career. I didn’t think I wanted to be a lawyer, but I did find the thought of a career in labor relations interesting. So it was really a chance meeting with individuals who really cared about helping young people with their careers that gave me the impetus to decide to go back to graduate school.”

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Voice of Experience: Christi Pedra, CEO, Siemens Hearing Instruments

Christi_Pedra[1]The concept of the “corporate ladder” is such a common analogy that many in the business world only see their careers in terms of the rungs they haven’t been able to reach. According to Christi Pedra, CEO of Siemens Hearing Instruments, that kind of thinking may be a mistake. Pedra prefers to think of the ladder as a rock climb where there are more directions in a career path than strictly moving up.

“My [25 years] at Siemens hasn’t always been a vertical rise to the top,” she said. “I’ve taken many lateral moves and they’ve provided me with some excellent, much-needed experience. You’ve got your feet firmly planted, but sometimes you need to move to the left or right before you can make it to the top.”

Pedra has a knack for seeing opportunities others might miss if they only look upward. After graduating from a state college, she started her climb with non-profits such as the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the March of Dimes and spent a great deal of time managing community outreach.

In 1980, Pedra entered the business world via the telecommunications industry, first with Nortel, then with ROLM. While working on an MBA from Rutgers University, she continued her career climb, this time at Siemens. There, she volunteered for projects offering significant growth potential, but these also required her to venture into unfamiliar territory.

“You can’t be afraid to go out on a limb,” Pedra said. “That’s where the fruit is.”
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Voice of Experience: Alison Sanger, Chief Operating Officer, Ironwood Capital Management

alison_sanger1by Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

The last nine months have been the toughest of Alison Sanger’s career. As COO of Ironwood Capital Management, she has worked incredibly hard to help the firm navigate the choppy waters of the financial crisis. But Sanger had an additional challenge as she had her third child right in the middle of the chaos. “It was a kind of a crazy intersection of all things. I’m a ‘put one foot in front of the other’ kind of girl, so I think that, right now, I’m most proud of having survived and come out the other side.”

Sanger hails from a small town in Michigan, and majored in accounting at Miami University (Ohio). But when she first entered university, accounting seemed the least likely path she would take. “I tested out of all the English classes but into remedial math going into college. So how does someone like that end up in accounting? I’m really competitive and considered it a challenge. So I got to work and took a lot of math classes. And, as I took the classes, I realized I was good at them and enjoyed them. That, combined with the idea that I would be employable in a very slow job market, is what got me into accounting.”

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