Voice of Experience: Jitania Kandhari, Head of Global Macroeconomic Research and Portfolio Manager, Morgan Stanley

jitania kandhariBy Cathie Ericson

In the male-dominated world of finance, Morgan Stanley’s Jitania Kandhari finds that women’s voices can often get muffled in their constant quest for perfection. “Women tend to speak up less as they search for the ideal solution or just the right words, but it’s something they can and should overcome,” she says. “It’s important to have faith in yourself — just join the conversation and own what you say.” An encouraging environment with the right leadership and colleagues can be a big factor in the success of women, and in her case, she says that she is very fortunate to be part of a wonderful team at Morgan Stanley that has a strong culture of open expression.

Carving Out a Valuable Role

Jitania hit the ground running, beginning her career as a trainee at the peak of the Asian crisis at Morgan Stanley in India. With jobs in short supply, she moved to another firm that covered Indian equities and subsequently became a private wealth manager for ultra-high net worth individuals, where the seed of her interest in global economics — the linkages between global macro and asset classes — was sown. She worked at another firm in the United States, consulting on Latin American markets, and then came back to Morgan Stanley where the person with whom she’d done her first-year rotation was head of a team.

She joined them as the sole analyst in an emerging market fund and has since carved out a role and built a team doing what she is most passionate about — heading global macro-economic research and recently co-managing the Breakout Nations fund, which is a highly active country allocation fund that invests in both emerging and frontier markets

“Being named as head of macro-economic research for the team was a huge lift in my career and has produced a steep learning curve, which I love,” she says. “I have learned more than I have ever learned in any role in my career.” For her, one of the most important lessons has been the value of good leadership which goes hand-in-hand with building a high-quality team, along with the more strategic functions of her position.

While active management versus passive management is currently getting a lot of attention, Jitania is confident that active management will reassert its importance. “In my group, we pay a lot of attention to country allocation, as well as stock allocation,” she says, adding that their philosophy is that in the developing world, getting the country call right matters as much as the stocks. “We first identify the best countries and then the portfolio managers buy stocks to reflect that country view,” she explains.

While she has a mentor, Jitania wishes she had had the benefit of one from the start of her career, having seen the valuable role it has played in shaping her career and helping her identify strengths and weaknesses. She also advises women to keep an eye out for a sponsor, noting that women are adept at working horizontally but shouldn’t overlook the need for someone higher up to be guiding and watching out for them.

Advice That Resonates

Jitania has three pieces of advice that ring true at any career stage.

The first is to be a voracious reader, which she says will help you connect the dots in your investment career and better understand the world as one macro environment.

Second, she advises others further along in their career to keep reinventing themselves, as the only constant is change.

And finally she says, “I tell my kids to work harder than anyone else around you, and the rest will follow.”

Through internal workshops and networking, she continues seeking advice on her own career, including a recent series on communication training, which has further bolstered her interactions with clients and peers, as well as her own team.

Threading Her Global Interests To All Areas of her Life

Complementing her work with global and emerging markets at Morgan Stanley, Jitania extends that focus throughout the other facets of her life. In her spare time, she enjoys Indian classical singing and dancing, activities she has pursued since she was a child.

Her husband is on the board of the Afya Foundation, a medical supply recovery organization that collects supplies that would otherwise be wasted in the U.S., and ships them to less-developed countries that are experiencing calamities. She would like to take her children, ages 7 and 5, to their warehouse to participate, as a way to bridge her work and philanthropic interests. “I want to make a difference and extend my knowledge and reach to these countries and help a bigger cause,” she says.

And the thread continues in her travel with her family, whom she takes to one emerging market each year. They started with India and will visit Egypt next. She is gratified that her kids have inherited her interest in thinking globally. Recently her daughter’s class completed a New York neighborhood study, and Jitania was delighted that her daughter selected Greenpoint specifically because it was a Polish neighborhood, where her daughter knew she invested and visited.

“My goal is to give them those experiences that I live and breathe,” she says.

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Voice of Experience: Shaiza Rizavi, Partner, Gilder, Gagnon, Howe, & Co.

shaiza rizaviBy Cathie Ericson

“If you’re open and don’t construct borders and boundaries between different parts of your life, you can discover learning everywhere,” says Shaiza Rizavi, partner at Gilder, Gagnon, Howe, & Co. This philosophy allows Rizavi to blend the different aspects of her life.

Early in her career, Rizavi worked as an investigator in the public defender service and as a legal assistant before moving to Thailand where she worked on child development projects. Upon her return, she entered Columbia Business School where her life took a new trajectory thanks to her securities analysis professor. As part of the class, students researched a stock to pitch to Wall Street professionals who would come to Columbia’s campus and grill the students on the particulars. Rizavi met the founder of Gilder, Gagnon, Howe, & Co. during the class and directly after graduation joined the firm, where she has worked for over two decades.

Identify a Firm’s Culture to Find a Great Fit

She appreciates that the firm centers on giving small investors who possess long-term patience and fortitude the opportunity to create wealth. The firm’s founder had been working in the institutional investment business when he realized that working professionals, such as teachers, doctors and lawyers, would benefit from actively managed accounts in order to compound their capital. The firm focuses on high-growth opportunities rather than capital conservation. Rizavi uses the research skills developed at business school and through her early work experiences to identify companies engaged in transformational change to help investors reap the potential benefits of high-risk, high-return opportunities.

When interviewing with Gilder, Gagnon, Howe & Co., Rizavi was struck by the stories she heard that articulated the firm’s legends and values. She was particularly drawn to the firm’s orientation toward serving and partnering with clients, as well as its commitment to taking risk based on well-researched, well-thought out ideas. The firm is interested in human creativity and innovation and invests in companies looking to change people’s lives while building capital – an approach Rizavi finds as appealing today as she did over twenty years ago. The legends of achievement within the firm also convinced Rizavi of its uniqueness, especially the story of one woman who began as a typist and rose to become a portfolio manager based on her excellent ideas. “I could tell that this firm judged people on merit, allowing anyone to rise if they deserve it,” she says.

Rizavi advises women to take the time to reflect and look for a role where they can shine. “See how people march through their daily lives within the places you are most attracted to and make sure that that march coincides with values you respect,” she says, adding that analysis must be part of the job search process.

“You might not think you have the luxury of considering all these components because you need to take what is offered, but it will serve you better to take your time and be sure about your potential opportunity.”

She says that it is vital to trust instincts and listen to see if it is a place you want to be, not just for the next year or two but for the long term. “You may not want to stay in one place forever, but it is nice to know there is alignment and therefore staying for the long term is an option,” she points out.

Incorporating Life Holistically

Over the years, Rizavi has learned that it is a myth to believe there is a perfect balance between all aspects of your life.

“You have to give yourself permission to be the best you can be in a certain moment,” she says. “There are phases and seasons where you have the opportunity to focus on different priorities. You may rise in certain areas but you cannot expect all aspects to rise at the same time.”

Rizavi says she has served and learned from many incredible leaders. Chief among them arethe founding members of her firm and the individuals who steward the organizations she respects most including Columbia Business School’s Tamer Center for Social Enterprise, the American Museum of Natural History, Acumen, the Gilder Lehrman Institute and The Calhoun School.

Rizavi now hopes to prolong the benefits of mentoring and apprenticeship by working with entrepreneurs and students at Columbia Business School and other places to share the skills and lessons learned.

She recently returned from Acumen’s global gathering in Kenya where she met 400 of Acumen’s entrepreneurs, fellows and partners from 28 countries and six continents, and learned about initiatives as wide ranging as advancing agricultural practices for small holder farmers to lighting previously unlit regions of the world with solar power. “In working with these entrepreneurs, I gained knowledge of trends, technologies and emerging products and services around the world that I can bring back to my life in New York City,” she says.

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Voice of Experience: Marwa Elborai, Partner in the Capital Markets Group, London, Shearman & Sterling

Marwa ElboraiBy Cathie Ericson

“Be confident in your own skills and experience and don’t be shy about speaking up,” Shearman & Sterling’s Marwa Elborai advises.

She notes that it’s a skill that comes with experience and adds that to advance your career it’s important not to be intimidated, but rather to share your views on a matter in order to become the advisor that a client wants to turn to.

Proud of Her Tenure at Shearman

Elborai is what they call a “lifer,” having started as a summer associate at Shearman and progressed up the ladder to become partner in January 2016 – an achievement she regards as a “pinnacle moment,” given her tenure with the firm.

She began her career in New York in the capital markets practice and moved to the London office in 2011, where she took on a more specialized role in high yield debt and restructuring.

Elborai appreciated the challenge of adapting to something new and expanding her practice to become more involved with complex restructuring, working closely with clients who were doing capital market work for the first time as well as various internal teams, including finance.

Given that Shearman is one of the leading high yield practices in London, she is proud of being part of a team that’s highly regarded in the industry and has touch points on most of the deals in the market. To that end, Elborai says it’s vital to stay ahead of the latest developments in covenants as it allows her to offer clients the benefit of the most recent thinking and up-to-date best practices.

Mentors Can Help Ease the Path

In this demanding career, Elborai says that those who succeed definitely make investments with their time, but it’s not specific to women. However, in a field still heavily dominated by men, it can be more challenging for women to stay true to the path because they don’t have as many mentors who have previously reached the top goal of partner.

She says that while it’s still common for women to walk into a room and find themselves in the minority, that dynamic is changing with time.

“If you can identify someone you can look up to as a female that’s helpful, but don’t limit yourself to female mentors,” she notes.

One way that mentors helped Elborai along the way was in seeing the big picture: As a young lawyer, she finds you tend to be detail-oriented and don’t always take a step back. “You have to realize that your role is not just to pore over documents, but to facilitate an objective and reach a conclusion to achieve a common goal,” she says. “Working closely with mentors helped me develop the skills to look at and focus on the overall transaction and the main material issues.”

Active in Shearman’s WISER (Women’s Initiative for Success, Excellence and Retention) program, she has appreciated the opportunities to mentor female associates, as well as acting as a mentor in a robust cross-mentorship program with a client company.

Finding Balance to Perform Better

Given the demands of the job, Elborai notes that it’s vital to carve out time for yourself to be with friends and family, and find a diversion that appeals to you. For Elborai, a recent passion has become horseback riding, “It’s a peaceful way to enjoy the outdoors, untethered from email,” she says.

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Thought Leader: Barbara Reinhard, Head of Asset Allocation and Senior Portfolio Manager for Voya Investment Management’s Multi Asset Strategy and Solutions team

Barbara Reinhard“Every individual in America — from a Rockefeller to a Jones — will face retirement,” says Barbara Reinhard. “At Voya, we can touch every American’s life, and it’s a powerful investment mission when you realize that the decisions we make will help someone realize their lifelong goals.”

This is the philosophy that weaves its way through Barbara’s work, in both the day-to-day and long-term activities of focus. Currently enmeshed in the firm’s annual update to its strategic asset portfolios, Barbara appreciates her work at Voya because the firm is not a “traditional” asset manager. “Very few asset managers focus exclusively on retirement investing,” she notes. “Most want to be everything to everybody.”

Voya’s work with retirement plans means that the long-term demographic trend for the investment business is very positive. “The need for adequate retirement savings affects all Americans” notes Barbara.

One challenge in today’s environment is the uncertainty surrounding business regulation, but there are endless opportunities as investors seek value-added advice.

Analytics will continue to be one of the biggest tools Voya has at its disposal, which helps drive innovation. “We are increasingly mining big data to help inform our investment analysis and further our understanding of trends,” says Barbara. “This information is exceedingly valuable as we strive to meet our clients’ needs.”

The best advice she can offer other women in the industry? “Early on, identify a good mentor who can give you sage advice throughout your career.”

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Mover and Shaker: Renata Caine, Vice President, Virtual Payments, WEX

renata caineBy Cathie Ericson

“I used to think that showing weakness was a sign of inexperience, but by focusing on my confidence I can see that failure is a part of every professional,” says WEX’s Renata Caine. “I know that imperfection is authentic, and that helps me promote an environment that allows failure when it’s used as a learning experience.”

Highlighting a Team Dynamic Internally and Externally

Although WEX is not technically her first job, Caine says it’s where she feels that she grew up professionally. “The virtual payments line of business is very entrepreneurial and fast paced, which gives people the opportunity to do things they haven’t before. I have learned a lot in a short period of time,” she says.

Her career progression began as an individual contributor, and she knew she loved building relationships; she now manages a sales and marketing team responsible for the acquisition and support of external customers. “To me, building an internal team is not so different to supporting external customers.” I feel that I’ve found exactly what makes me happy.”

One of the best parts of her current team dynamic is the respect they have for one another. The relationships between the team members allows for some good-natured fun: They never miss an opportunity to laugh with one another.

And that is the professional achievement she is most proud of: Working alongside her team and bringing value, building mutual respect and watching them grow, surrounded by people who have the same goals and sense of purpose. “Right now I’m leading a team that’s at full capacity and building them out to know their role in continuing to create a high-achieving cohort. Together we’re all working toward motivating each other and fostering success working together.”

When she first entered the corporate world, she thought there might be a culture of “every man for themselves,” and while that might be the case in some places, she finds that people at WEX are always happy to help one another. “Relationships are the core of our business and I see that played out within WEX and across customers as well,” she says. “Every aspect of building a team and working with customers and prospects has been relationship-oriented.”

In fact, over the years, she has appreciated the transparency that her clients have shared about their business and what they can accomplish together. This has allowed her to get glimpses into the inner workings of other companies, creating a better combined strategy.

Finding Success Through Modeling Others

Caine has had unofficial mentors throughout her career; some began organically and helped all along the way, while others came along during certain parts of her career and helped her grow in a specific situations or roles. “I’ve taken bits and pieces from so many people and that has molded me into what I’ve become,” she says.

By participating in WEX’s Integrated Leadership Development Program in May 2015, she allowed herself to admit where she struggled as a leader and see where others saw her strengths and weaknesses. “It was a valuable experience because as a group, we would celebrate what we did well,” Caine says. “I learned that my perception of myself doesn’t always match others’ perceptions of me, which forced me to be more self-aware. This, over time, empowered my development.”

But she hearkens back to her mother as her original role model. “Growing up and watching her work every single day, she seemed to have achieved balance with career, managing a household and raising two successful kids, never complaining, and always getting it done,” she says.

That ethic is mirrored in her work today, where Caine says that her success has come from hard work, combined with focus and commitment and letting others know she’s dependable and available to them.

Seeking Balance With Family

Caine finds comfort in a balance that supports work and home life — sometimes one gets more attention than the other, which is always a work in progress.

“As passionate as I am for my contribution to WEX, my passion for family exceeds it,” she says, of her son and daughter, ages seven and six. “I want them both to know equally that they can achieve whatever they set out to,” she says, adding that the times she’s away from home are opportunities to share the wonders of the world and diversities of culture. “I want them to appreciate all there is to find, and I hope it propels them to seek adventures in their own lives.”

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Voice of Experience: Kathleen Kelley, CEO, Queen Anne’s Gate Capital Management

kathleen kelleyBy Cathie Ericson

It’s vitally important for women to find a mentor early on who can help them navigate their path, says Kathleen Kelley. “I was lucky enough to find Paul Jones, who became my mentor, but that was a fortunate accident since I hadn’t set out with that as my mission. It’s important to think about who would be the right mentor and establish that relationship early on.”

After studying math and economics in college — which, incidentally, she believes that all women should take math courses whatever their career aspirations – Kelley became a portfolio manager at Tudor Investment Management. She spent 10 years there, initially doing research and then moving to portfolio management, where she ran a macro portfolio focusing on commodities.

She moved to Kingdon to run a macro portfolio for seven years and then took a year off and moved to London with her kids. When she returned, she started her own fund, Queen Anne’s Gate Capital Management, named after the street they lived on in England. While the firm was focused on the fund when she first started it, it has evolved to offer research as well.

Going out on her own is the professional achievement she’s most proud of, primarily because of the example it sets for other young women. “They need to see the opportunity set available to them, but they can’t if they don’t see other women taking those steps,” she says. “That’s one of the reasons it was important to me to take that risk and start my own firm.”

Currently she specializes in consulting to complement her past 20 years where she has focused on investing and portfolio management. Commodity markets have always been her specialty, and she notes that the recent renewed interest in the space is promising. She also believes there is a trend for hedge funds and asset managers to meet in the middle: As the fee structure and performance of hedge funds have been maligned over the past couple of years, asset managers have been accumulating more of the assets as they broaden their reach. “I believe there are increasing opportunities for companies like mine that serve both hedge funds and asset managers,” she says.

Bolstering Women’s Career Prospects at All Levels

Her focus on the financial world extends to her philanthropic pursuits. Ten years ago she co-founded the High Water Women Foundation, which offers an annual impact investing seminar in the fall and trains volunteers to teach financial literacy. “We were early to the space, which has been growing like crazy, so the program keeps expanding to meet overwhelming demand.”

Kelley admits she is frustrated by the slow progress women have been afforded, especially when you consider the make-up of corporate boards and realize many companies have no women represented. She sees how the problem perpetuates itself: If a man joins a board and they mention they need another member, he’ll call his colleague. “We need to put the same buddy network in place to facilitate this process for women,” she notes.

To that end, she says that most of her friends in the industry are actively promoting other women but can always do more.

Closer to home, she continues to foster her kids’ interest in culture and travel. They are half-Spanish so they visit Spain regularly, and she and her daughter are training together to run the London Marathon.

Kelley serves on seven non-profit boards, including her alma mater Smith College and London School of Economics, as well as High Water Women Foundation.

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Voice of Experience: Victoria Park, Diversity & Inclusion Director at PwC Australia

Victoria Park 200dpi_4111_cropBy Cathie Ericson

Victoria Park believes there’s a real benefit in spending your younger years working with a larger organization where you have ample opportunity to identify your passion, and which allows you to stretch and broaden yourself early on.

She recommends that women surround themselves with a small and diverse group of genuinely supportive mentors and sponsors, formal and informal, male and female. “Rarely is there one role model with whom you identify completely, so ensure you are getting different perspectives to help you find your way.”

An Internal Program Bolsters Her Career

Park relocated to Australia in the late 1990s. “My initial step into financial and professional services recruitment provided the funds for travel en route to Australia and set me onto a different career path completely,” she says. Due to her evident passion for people, she joined PwC in Sydney in an HR role. Over the past 14 years she has built a career in HR at PwC, earned a post-grad diploma in strategic HR and started a family.

She says that in 2006 she found herself at a fork in her career and self-nominated for a development program called the Young Leadership Team, which consisted of five, three-day residential programs.

Park found it to be an incredible experience from the minute she put herself forward; having been with the firm only 18 months and not having the benefit of joining a professional services firm straight out of school, as many do.

When she was selected to participate, she took full advantage of making sure the entire process was beneficial to her learning and career advancement, not the least was just making the decision to put herself out there in a vulnerable way.

Then, she found that the robust feedback she received on her application and the process of interview prep helped her position herself and recognize some of the development points that would be useful for her, including how a breadth of thinking can impact the team. Park says this was one of the most profound experiences in her career.

Along the way she also learned sideways opportunities can be as beneficial, if not more so, in the long term, as you progress into senior leadership roles because diversity of experience is important for long-term success.

Expanding Programs to Support Diversity and Inclusion

Currently she oversees the firm’s Diversity & Inclusion strategy after stepping into the diversity and inclusion program director role 18 months ago, where she found her professional skills, purpose and passion have collided. She had a steep learning curve on some groups she wasn’t as well versed on including LGBT and Australian native groups.

This renewed focus gave the firm the opportunity to reset and look out to 2020 where some recent leadership changes have reinvigorated diversity issues. She notes that there is appetite from the new CEO to see that his legacy around diversity and inclusion is truly embedded in the organization and how they operate with clients and within the firm

“We have done awesome work updating some policies and will have even more success as we overhaul some of the other legacy systems we have in place,” she says, adding that they will be making dramatically different and sustainable changes.

Among the advances they are instituting are a culture change that emphasizes flexibility. The program was introduced two years ago and will be fundamental to their success going forward in attracting diverse workers.

“Organizations that don’t adopt a flexible outlook will miss out on talent,” she says. While there are large opportunities to be flexible in terms of where people work and how they choose to work, she acknowledges it can cause challenges in the short term in changing the standard five-day work week and traditional acceptance of longer hours.

But, by genuinely looking at how teams work, they can offer flexibility for everyone, including supporting males in the role of caregivers. “Flexibility and support for men will allow greater female participation in the work force.”

She finds that work/life balance challenges for women in professional services are impacted by the strong client service ethic, where they assume they need 24/7 accessibility. This has spurred another unintended consequence of limiting the number of senior role models available to show the pathway to younger women coming up.

She herself has been involved in or designed a number of different female leadership programs over the past 10 years.

“The main benefit I and the cohort got from all of them was the opportunity to broaden and deepen the female network,” she notes. She says that they also spent time considering the concept of “swimming against the tide” and acknowledging the feeling most women have encountered where they are in a minority.

Finding Her Own Balance

As technology has evolved over her career, Park has realized the need to consciously consider categories such as hobbies/philanthropy/family/travel as part of how she plans her life. “The distinction between work and home gets increasingly blurred when we consider the traditional working week model we still broadly operate in. By being conscious I strive to ensure that these critical elements of life get the right time and focus to ensure I feel fulfilled.”

As a wife and mother of two boys, ages 9 and 7, she wants to raise them with a positive mental attitude and health, which means being actively involved in their lives and finding time to build a strong connection.

One way to blend the two is to link hobbies to health and family, so they all enjoy running, ocean swimming and sports. She and her husband met working in the wine industry and wine, food and cooking continue to be interests they share.

Over the past few years they have started to share their love of travel, taking the boys on a last-minute trip to Beijing when she was travelling with work, and using the opportunity of trips to the UK to see family and to travel around Europe.

Her philanthropic activity also centers around shared family passions. In 2015 she participated in a fundraising trip to Everest Base Camp to raise money for OzHarvest as her husband is passionate about food wastage at home. “Unfortunately we got caught up in the earthquakes and missed the goal by one day, but luckily we returned safe and unharmed,” she says. More recently she has completed her Bronze Surf Lifesaving qualification and enjoys supporting the local community when on beach patrol.

Through work and outside activities, she wholeheartedly lives this charge: “Have fun, enjoy what you do at least 80% of the time, or change what you are doing.”

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Voice of Experience: Carey Halio, Partner, Finance Division, Goldman Sachs

Carey HalioCarey HalioBy Cathie Ericson

“Your career is a marathon, not a sprint,” notes Goldman Sachs’ Carey Halio, though she admits that while she received this advice early in her career, she didn’t always take it to heart.

“Many of us are hard-driving individuals who want to make an immediate and constant impact, but it’s vital to remember that your experiences, skills and network build upon each other throughout your career.”

Even though she was recently named partner, Halio finds that she still needs to remind herself of this advice, and likens her career to training for a real marathon. “When I first started running, I could only handle one mile, then two, five, and so on, and your career builds in the same incremental way. But, it’s hard to keep that in mind because you don’t have the benefit of hindsight when you’re in the moment,” she says.

Helping the Firm Embrace New Challenges and Growth Opportunities

Before beginning her career in finance, Halio served as a member of the Peace Corps, where she learned the importance of resilience as she worked in Guatemala without access to basics, such as running water and telephones. That experience instilled within Halio the belief that she would be capable of “figuring it out” in any situation, and she was able to overcome her initial intimidation upon joining Goldman Sachs following business school.

“I now see how hugely beneficial my time in the Peace Corps was in teaching me to be resilient and confident to know that things will work out even if you don’t have all the ideal tools readily available. This has been very important in my career and life,” she says.

Halio spent the majority of her tenure in the Credit Risk Management & Advisory Group within the Securities Division before joining Goldman Sachs Bank USA as Chief Financial Officer in 2014.

She notes that her role in Goldman Sachs Bank USA is an exciting position, as the bank was formed relatively recently and now offers consumer lending and deposit products, an area of the financial sector that Goldman Sachs had not traditionally been involved in. “It is very exciting to be part of completely new activities within an institution that has been in business for 148 years.”

Having been in the financial services industry through its ups and downs, she looks back on the tumult as a time of growth. “While the financial crisis was scary, I know that it helped me become a better risk manager, as I was running a team covering companies that failed,” she says. “I grew professionally in multiple ways, learning how to maintain composure in the face of uncertain circumstances.”

A Supportive Environment

In addition to her fulfilling day-to-day work, Halio enjoys the firm’s culture, which encourages mentoring. New female partners are encouraged to pay it forward: She herself has reaped the benefits of a network of women who have been generous with career advice as well as thoughts on childcare and work/life balance. “We need to do the same to keep that spirit alive with our younger colleagues,” she says.

While working at Goldman Sachs, Halio has been active in her division’s Women’s Network, appreciating the opportunity to hear from noteworthy speakers and develop supportive relationships with peers with whom she has “grown up.”

Integrating Balance

While women continue to make major strides in the workforce, childcare and balance remain areas of challenge. As Halio says, with two young boys, no matter how much responsibility she has at work, when she’s home, she’s mom. “I love my work and am proud of what I’ve accomplished but I am still focused on creating a close, engaging family.”

On that note, Halio cites the book “Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection,” by Debora Spar, the president of Barnard College and former Goldman Sachs board member.

Referencing the book, Halio cautions, “You can’t have it all; you have to pick and choose what’s important to you at certain times.” She notes that there are a million things she would like to do, from spending more time with colleagues, to cooking more meals from scratch, but it’s not practical to expect to be able to do everything. She adds that over time your priorities change and you have to make meaningful tradeoffs and have the confidence to make tough choices.

For Halio, that means carefully choosing her outside activities. One that she spends some of her time on is serving as an active board member of her alma mater, Whittier College in Southern California.

She, her husband and sons, ages 3 and 7, enjoy spending their weekends together and reinforcing the family dynamic that can be hard to achieve during the week. They deliberately chose to live outside the city and invest in their community. “I want to provide my sons with a stable, strong foundation and we enjoy hanging out and being part of our town.”

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Voice of Experience: Jewelle Bickford, Partner, Evercore Wealth Management

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By Cathie Ericson

In the workplace, many women don’t know the right questions to ask, but the more questions you ask, the more you’ll learn. “At first it might seem negative to others, but it won’t be long before people will value that spirit and curiosity,” Bickford says.bickford

She has benefited from her exposure to cultures, having lived all over the world. “When someone would say, ‘this is the way it should be,’ I would wonder why and in the end, these questions would have great strategic value. By asking questions, I saw opportunities that others didn’t,” she notes.

Finding Ageless and Timeless Career Success

You could call Bickford’s successful career path a bit delayed. She didn’t have her first paying job until she was 38, and at age 70, is still working. “I just got a late start to work,” she says, noting that she had two daughters by the age of 23, so she spent the first years of her adult life as a housewife and volunteer. She took those roles very seriously, working at them as though they were a paying job, which helped pave the way for her future political and corporate life.

Her first paying job was in the Koch Administration, and she then went to the consumer services group of Citibank, where she says she got fired within nine months. As part of the bank’s outplacement services, she took a battery of tests, and found out she was a natural-born investment banker. She was transferred to Citibank investment banking group, left to join Dillon Read’s investment bank and when Dillon Read was bought by Travelers she was designated a key employee. With her bonus she opened up her own firm in asset securitization which at the time was a new industry.

She sold her firm to Rothschild in 1994 and joined them at Rothschild Inc. as the only female global partner in the United States. She cites this as one of the professional achievements she’s most proud of since investment banking is a tough field and very few women have excelled in the business. In fact, she was so focused on helping other women get promoted that she was dubbed “Head Girl” for her efforts.

In 2009, she retired, and, as she says, “flunked retirement.”

She returned to the investment world at GenSpring, where she created the women in wealth educational template for wealthy families across the United States. After, she left to join Evercore Wealth Management where she became a partner and wealth advisor. She says:

“If they recognize your talent, and feel you can make a contribution to the organization, it doesn’t matter your age,”

Volunteer Work Guides Her Path

Over the years, she has also served on more than 30 non-profit boards. This volunteer work in partnership with her business has been good for her mental health and also for building friendships and networking opportunities. She noted, “being the only woman in many work situations can be lonely, and my volunteer work helped, as much of it was focused around helping women.”

One notable appointment was serving as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the founder of the Council’s task force studying the role of women in economic and political development in the Middle East and Southeast Asia. “Women are well suited for conflict resolution and stabilizing communities in the developing world,” she notes.

Helping Women Achieve Their Goals – Financial and Work-Related

Currently, at Evercore Wealth Management, she enjoys working with families. Since women live longer than men, often much longer, they try to prepare women to manage their finances so they will know the right questions to ask their financial advisor and only select products that will help women achieve their goals. Women will control 14 trillion dollars of assets in the near-term future. “A revolution is occurring, but most people are unaware that women tend to use their money to achieve their goals,” Bickford says. Whereas a man will typically ask about performance, a woman has never asked that in the first meeting. She says they want to know about risk, if they can maintain their lifestyles and what they can do with the money around goals and values.

Whereas she’s found that in the investment banking world men don’t see women as the “man for the job,” the wealth management industry is much more user-friendly for women, as a lot of the natural skills women possess, such as insight and nurturing, dovetail well with the skills needed. At Evercore, they have several female portfolio managers and wealth advisors. Bickford notes, “it isn’t lonely at all.”

They also excel in dealing with complicated issues, such as how money is equated with love, especially in blended families, making it an excellent field for women to pursue.

Overseeing “Paradigm for Parity”

This December, Bickford helped launch this coalition, which she says is part of the continuum in bringing men and women together who are committed to achieving a new norm in corporate leadership. While the ideas for unearthing unconscious bias and sponsorship aren’t new, her group is going about it a new way, she says. They have developed a five-point action plan to hand to a CEO or diversity officer and when implemented concurrently, the steps will reinforce each other.

“If they commit to implement the points all at once, they will see vast progress in a thorny situation,” she says.

The steering committee boasts CEOs from many top companies and Bickford says the fact that the plan and the measurements for success were developed by people within the very companies that need the change will help ensure it will succeed.

Bickford says that her husband has been a guiding force in her success. “When your work life is complicated, you need someone who can support you and help you find the right balance between business and family.” She adds that those who don’t find that in their family can turn to their network to find those people they can trust.

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Mover and Shaker: Stefanie Stewart, Vice President, Senior Real Estate Portfolio Manager, Voya Investment Management

stefanie stewart featured“Hard work doesn’t go unnoticed. It’s important to be aggressive and vocal, but respectful. People won’t always agree with you, but in a relationship business, upholding your reputation is essential.”

Conquering a Male-Dominated Industry

These words of wisdom have helped propel Stefanie Stewart through her ascent in a traditionally male-dominated industry.

A finance and real estate major in college, Stefanie worked in student housing, which sparked her interest in commercial real estate.

A professor helped connect her with ING (now Voya) and she started as an analyst eleven years ago, working her way up through the ranks. Seven years back, she moved from an analyst to a production role with her own territory, which she names as the professional achievement she is most proud of so far – her success in exceeding production goals.

“That win was particularly sweet,” said Stefanie considering an experience she had prior to joining Voya – where she has enjoyed being supported throughout her career.

“I was given an interview as a courtesy. At the end, the male manager said, ‘The commercial real estate industry is a good ol’ boys network, I don’t think it’s a place for a young woman.’” Stefanie used the experience to motivate her.

“It is a male-dominated industry, and when I made the transition from analyst to producer I wondered if I would be as successful as the guys at building external relationships. Typically, at first, you start with people lending their relationships, but then you have to build your own book of business,” she notes. Stefanie is proud that she’s been able to succeed and build a reputation for herself in the industry, with the support of her team.

Building Relationships to Build Your Career

A member of Path Builders early on in her career, she has also taken advantage of a variety of women’s networking events.

Stefanie has found sponsorship to be important in her career, with managers who have been committed to putting her in front of senior managers. She says she was fortunate that she was part of the mentoring program while making the transition, which was great timing to help her navigate the waters professionally and even politically.

She also credits much of her growth to managers in the group who have given her opportunities that she acknowledges she often wasn’t yet ready for – some of which filled her with fear, whether it was being in front of senior managers, a complex deal or participating on a panel. In hindsight, each was pivotal in her career. “They have only made me better, and now I look forward to some of these situations that make me uncomfortable, because I know they will give me the opportunity to continue to grow.”

She has had many role models along the way too, and knows that sometimes they can serve as a model of as much what not to do as what to do. “I’ve learned a lot by observing how people handle things under stress or react to criticism, and it has helped me remember that you can always learn from positive feedback.” External role models who are navigating similar challenges, from different sides of the equation, can also be helpful as a sounding board.

Her experience in the real estate program at Florida State University prepared her well for the real estate business, and she now serves as a mentor for recent graduates of the program, as well as visiting to provide case studies for the classes and sitting on a real estate trends conference planning committee. “If I can help a 22 year-old find their way, that is very gratifying to me,” she says.

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