VanessaMcMichael“I have a lot of passion for what I’m doing,” relates Vanessa McMichael, Head of Corporate & Public Entity (CPE) Strategy at Wells Fargo. “I want to make the most of each day that is in front of me.”

McMichael shares her insights on finding her niche in the financial industry, using her voice to elevate and empower others, and being a single mother while working towards her career goals.

Putting in the Work

Speaking to what she has learned so far in her career, McMichael maintains, “you have to put in the work. There’s no substitute for it. Any leader that you speak with has put in the work and is still putting in the work. It’s something that I harp on a lot, because it is necessary. It certainly has gotten me to where I am today.”

McMichael is the first person in her family to go to a traditional four-year college, and she recognizes her parents as giving her the grit and work ethic to succeed. Her father, an African American nuclear engineer and small business owner, emphasized to McMichael throughout her childhood, “Vanessa, you have to work hard. You’re going to have to work harder than other people.” It was an important life lesson that aided his own success, and one that he passed on to her.

Giving birth to Vanessa in high school, her mother did not get the chance to graduate and subsequently worked in factories her entire life. When her parents split up when she was young, she witnessed her mother work hard to rebuild her life, demonstrating to McMichael that, “if you want it, you have to go get it. No one else is going to just hand you what it is you think you need.” And, even more importantly, she saw firsthand how women can do it all.

Moreover, Vanessa is a childhood cancer survivor, and this is one of the central reasons why she strives to seize each day. This is also a reason why she has to be mindful about taking on too much, “because it’s easy to do when you’re trying to make the most of every day.” And although her parents taught her how to work hard through leading by example, her experience with cancer was a significant contributor to her drive and work ethic. She highlights that going through an experience like that suddenly, with no prior family history, and as a child, “changes your perspective and stays with you.”

McMichael took these experiences to heart, and it gave her the drive to reach goals she set for herself. After studying Japanese in high school, she attended Howard University’s business school. Initially, she wanted to move to Japan and create commercials, and she thought business school was a good starting point. But instead, she discovered her path to the banking/financial services industry after listening to a presentation by Wachovia on campus. She remembers being struck by the diverse representation of people at the presentation and compelled by the work they described.

After graduating and working for Wachovia for a few years, she then went on to get an MBA from one of the top business schools in the country, the University of Chicago Booth Business School. Following her MBA, she joined a rotational program at Wells Fargo on the trading floor where she had the opportunity to explore different areas of the business. It was during that program that she “stumbled” into the strategy group, an area she has been working in ever since.

Finding Her Niche

Working in the strategy group at Wells Fargo for over a decade, McMichael points to the value of finding your niche and a role that is a “good” fit. In particular, she highlights the variety of work she does day-to-day and the relationships that she has made as what keeps her role fresh and interesting.

“With our clients, who are corporations and public entities, my job is to equip them with what they need to make informed fixed income decisions. So, with that, my day-to-day is always different. I can talk to five retailers in one day, all in the same industry, but the conversations are varied.”

Vanessa added that although each client situation is unique, there has been a shift in the broader conversation with clients this year as the rate environment falls. “We are no longer in an environment where organizations can sit back and earn interest on excess cash so easily.”

Harkening back to her high school dream of creating commercials in Japan, she recognizes that her career at Wells Fargo is maybe not so far off from where she thought she would start: “I’m not creating commercials, but I am creating stories. I’m telling the story of what’s happening in fixed income markets and how the narrative can impact my clients.”

Another element of her job that she enjoys is having the opportunity to speak at conferences that corporate and public entity clients attend. She adds, “That’s probably what I enjoy the most about my job, is getting on stage. I’ve even told folks that I’m probably more comfortable getting on the stage in front of a lot of people than having a one-on-one.”

McMichael recently had the opportunity to speak to a much larger audience when she was interviewed on Bloomberg TV, addressing money market funds and the outlook for 2024. As this was her first live TV experience, she was initially nervous about being on camera, but then she found her rhythm, and it turned out to be a lot of fun.

Mentorship and Sponsorship

McMichael recognizes mentorship and sponsorship as contributing factors to getting her to where she is today, particularly as they not only helped her learn the “rules of the road,” but also “what I need to know” to succeed.

“I’ve had to build mentorship relationships to learn the rules of the road on the trading floor because the rules are not apparent all the time.” She adds that it is important to have both mentors and sponsors because, “sponsors are the folks who are telling me what I need to know and helping me take action to obtain it. I’m sharing projects that I’m working on or what I’m thinking, and they will say, okay, ‘you’re thinking this, you should go meet this person.’ That’s part of the role of a sponsor and the other part is speaking on your behalf when you’re not in the room.”

Using Her Voice

Reflecting on being a woman of color in the financial industry, McMichael believes that she is in control of how she is perceived, so it is important to use her voice to that effect.

“Going into situations, I’m very aware of who I am. I am a woman. I look different. I don’t think people automatically assume that I’m Black because I am mixed. So, I have a voice, and I use it. Instead of shying away or being self-conscious, I use it as an advantage. I want to be a good representative of women, of women of color, and of diverse women. We all have a voice, and we have to advocate for ourselves.”

McMichael takes action and uses her voice by supporting other women through the WomenGoFar network in Wells Fargo’s Corporate & Investment Banking division. While on the committee she created a speed networking event where women had the chance to meet five to ten new people within an hour. It was an impactful way for junior women to get a chance to meet women leaders, who might not otherwise have the time to commit to a longer networking activity during work hours. And likewise, the senior leaders appreciated interacting and hearing from junior women across business lines.

Taking her support for women in the workplace a step further, McMichael recently coordinated a wellness workshop on stress and the impact it can have on the body, particularly as women are often juggling many different demands on their time and energy. This topic is especially important to her given her health history. McMichael is thrilled this initial idea has developed into a Wellness Series and is looking forward to creating additional content to further promote the well-being of women.

In addition to taking action to elevate women, McMichael has a network of African American colleagues that she engages with regularly, whether through sharing job opportunities or articles of interest to keep the dialogue going. “We have Employee Resource Networks for diverse teammates, but this is a grassroots way that I’m trying to engage and educate particularly around internal mobility for our diverse talent.”

These projects demonstrate the value of creating a space for connection that supports the advancement and inclusion of a diverse workforce.

Being a Single Parent and Succeeding in a Career in Finance

Connecting with colleagues who can understand her experience was also an important part of McMichael’s journey, as there was a time that she balanced being a single mother and developing her career. McMichael remembers when she first became a mother, she met senior women around her with stay-at-home husbands, and so her confidence wavered as to whether she would be able to advance in her career without one. She worried that she would be “stuck,” because she did not have the same kind of support. But she met other single parents at Wells Fargo who could relate from a lifestyle perspective.

“That connection with people opened this new life for me. One where I went from feeling isolated and stuck to one where I felt empowered and supported.” She continues, “If I could speak to younger Vanessa, I would tell her not to feel that you can’t be successful in this business, because you’re a single parent.”

McMichael expresses her joy in motherhood and the exciting prospect of sharing her interests with her now older daughter. Recently, McMichael introduced her daughter to salsa dance, a passion she held before becoming a mom. They also enjoy traveling and exploring together. As she looks ahead, McMichael is energized to continue growing and challenging herself at work, while keeping up with her daughter and husband and their busy life at home.

 

By Jessica Robaire

Natalie GillNatalie Gill is responsible for helping drive the continued evolution of PGIM’s DEI strategy and deepening and broadening diversity partnerships both externally and internally, with a focus on the EMEA region. In addition, she focuses on developing global research and thought leadership to create positive change in the asset management industry.

“I’ve had a varied career, but now, as a DEI executive, my role is about celebrating diversity and amplifying the voices of those who feel unheard or unable to contribute to their full potential, due to cultural or systemic barriers,” says Natalie Gill. “I am motivated by the opportunity to influence change at a larger scale. Whilst my contribution in those moments is seemingly small, I am proud that it helps create a legacy for future generations.”

Charting A New Trajectory

“We’re accustomed to thinking that a successful career in financial services should have a linear, one directional trajectory working up through a hierarchy of corporate titles. But the path to my definition of ‘success’ – career fulfillment –is not always taken by climbing the corporate ladder,” says Gill. “My career has been a wonderful lattice of sideways, upwards and sometimes, even downward moves. Taking ownership of my career in this way has enabled me to build a unique portfolio of skills and expertise, and has ultimately led me to forge a successful, purposeful career doing what I love.”

Some of those career moves were intentional, with a clear objective to broaden her exposure or responsibilities. However, Gill has also allowed her decisions to be influenced by significant life moments. During the first eleven years of her career at Goldman Sachs, Gill’s priority was travel, and she jumped on every opportunity to expand her horizons. Then, with two young children at home, she elected to take a two-and-a-half-year career break. When she returned to the industry, Gill first picked up where she left off with a temporary consulting role at Morgan Stanley, followed by a role in regulatory reform at Deutsche Bank.

“Returning to financial services after a career break offered a pivotal window for me to pause, reflect and ask what I really wanted to be doing with my career. It was either a midlife crisis or an epiphany moment,” she says. “For me, having children really focused my career ambitions because I wanted to do something that would make them proud of me.”

Years earlier, she had encouraged and supported her husband to leave his job in investment banking to realize his ambition to become a firefighter, setting a precedent for making bold career changes. Having studied economics at Newcastle University in England, specializing in the economics of inequality and poverty and development economics, Gill’s passion for fairness, equity and inclusion had been a thread throughout her career.

So, in 2016, she made the decision to step away from financial services to join a gender diversity consultancy. “At the time, the consultancy was working closely with the UK Government’s Equality Office. I found it immensely rewarding, and after three years there, I decided to blend my two areas of expertise – DEI and financial services.” This led Gill to move back into the financial services industry as a DEI practitioner in 2019, most recently joining PGIM in her current role in 2022.

Why Being “Invested” Matters in DEI

“For me, the role of DEI is a vocational one,” says Gill. “If companies want to remain successful in the future, they can’t have a culture where everyone thinks the same and agrees with each other. We need alternative perspectives and different ways of thinking to innovate and deliver the best solutions for our clients. And I take it seriously that I have a responsibility to support and represent those at work who, perhaps, don’t feel as heard.”

Gill complements her passion for DEI with a love for numbers, enabling her to take a data-driven and evidence-based approach to her work.

“My background in economics has led me to approach DEI more systematically perhaps than those who have come to the profession through a more traditional route. I see data as critical to evidencing areas of inequity and accelerating change. It’s particularly important in the DEI sphere to remind people of the potential business outcomes and to measure progress and impact,” she says.

Compared to other DEI roles she’s held, her role at PGIM is both employee- and industry-focused. Part of her responsibility is to ensure the company culture is inclusive and enables all employees to thrive. Another piece is leveraging the opportunity for PGIM to play a role in driving change in the industry.

“Currently, we are operating in a fairly polarized environment around the world when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion, which extends to the workplace. Given my global role, it’s imperative for me to have a deep understanding of industry, society and legal standards on DEI in every region we operate in,” says Gill. “For example, in the UK and Europe, there is an expectation for firms to take greater accountability in driving social change given local governments and regulators have identified a connection between conduct, culture and inclusion.” She continues, “Because of this, the broader impact of DEI becomes far more important as our clients and employees demand more from us.”

Using Your Voice and Broadening Your Perspective

A key part of Gill’s role is to challenge the status quo, to encourage leaders and managers to disrupt their default thinking. She takes a straight-forward, fact-based approach to communicating and tries to challenge people to think differently. But being direct didn’t come naturally. With a Royal Air Force pilot father and a mother who was a teacher, Gill grew up in a family where hierarchy, respect for seniority and deference were instilled. When she first entered the working world, she deferred to titles, but through her experience, she learned that titles and seniority aren’t everything.

“The best leaders are those who recognize you don’t have to be the most senior person in the room to bring valuable insight or perspective that drives change or helps to make the optimum decision,” she says. “We’re all here because we have a role to play and a level of expertise in a particular area. Part of my journey has been overcoming my discomfort when faced with resistance and instead, learning how I can better use my knowledge and expertise to address the differing perspectives in a room and influence people to see DEI as a business imperative.”

Gill’s learning curve has been building up a strong support network for a role that spans the organization and beyond. “Driving inclusive culture change touches every part of the organization, so you can’t do it on your own,” notes Gill. “So, taking the time to build the network of people who can support you is important.”

Inspired from the idea of creating your personal boardroom from Zella King and Amanda Scott, Gill identified the six to twelve people that will most help her to succeed in her role. For example, she seeks guidance from friends and mentors who she knows will challenge her thinking, highlight her blind spots and help strengthen her resolve. She also regularly leverages the opportunities to expand her perspective and circle.

“When I have the opportunity to go out and mix, either at an internal function or an external event, I actively and intentionally speak to people who I wouldn’t ordinarily know,” she says. “Sometimes you have to overcome the tendency to sit in safety and familiarity because building a valuable network is about breaking out of your comfort zone and putting yourself in a position to meet people who maybe have different experiences and backgrounds than you.”

How Different Experiences Inform Your Leadership

Gill’s work experiences at different organizations have been a boon to her success. Over the last 20-plus years, she has worked for British, American, German, Spanish and Japanese organizations, and each has had different systems, approaches, processes and cultural nuances, giving rise to different perspectives. Working across multiple geographical regions, she’s also gained insight into translating her message, so it lands effectively for a given audience.

Regardless of whether someone moves firms or stays within the same, one of the biggest experiences she learned from is having different managers.

“We talk a lot about what ‘good’ leadership is and how it should be role-modelled by the most senior people in our organizations. However, we’re most impacted in our day-to-day by our immediate managers and the people we work most closely with. Throughout my career, I’ve probably learned as much from poor managers about how I don’t want to behave as a leader as from those who were better at it.”

Several years ago, a respected manager imparted on Gill that their job was not to be the loudest voice in the room – but to amplify and curate the voices of everybody else in the room. Gill embraced this approach to leadership and believes that the best gauge for her success is whether the people around her are succeeding. This, she says, comes down to the privilege of being in a position where you can choose to create positive impact for others.

“To me, it’s not about how or why you are in a position of leadership. It’s about how you choose to use that privilege – recognizing, in the moment, where and how you’re able to positively support and influence other people’s careers,” she notes. “My success, as a leader, is about leveraging my privilege to uplift others—acknowledging different perspectives, viewpoints, and experiences.”

Taking Ownership of Your Journey

Gill emphasizes taking ownership of your own career, which includes seeking out people who inspire you to learn more. Rather than waiting on a formal mentor program, actively reach out to people who spark your interest and grow your own network.

“Too often, I see colleagues wait to be assigned a mentor through a random matching process. There’s much more to be gained from identifying someone who inspires you and reaching out to them directly. If you tell someone that you’re fascinated by the work they do, and you’d like fifteen minutes to learn more about what they do and how they got there, it’s incredibly rare for that person to say ‘no.’ If they do, it’s likely due to time constraints,” she notes. “Yet, we’re quite reticent, and maybe even more so culturally here in England, to knock on someone’s door and ask.”

The notion of taking control of and shaping your own career is one that Gill imparts to the many young people she mentors, including her own children. “I’m proud that my children have seen, firsthand, that it’s possible to pivot mid-career to get fulfillment. I hope they will be inspired to take similar action to achieve a sense of purpose in their own careers when the time comes.”

“Whether you opt for a more traditional ladder or a broader lattice of work experiences, it’s also important to find time to recharge. Early on, one of my closest mentors told me that I am solely accountable for the balance between work and the rest of my life.” Gill continues, “In a role like diversity, equity and inclusion, where there is always more to achieve, this can sometimes be difficult to switch off, but I know I am more effective, more influential and more motivated to succeed afterwards.”

In her downtime, Gill likes to stay active with Pilates and a women’s field hockey league. She also enjoys reading psychological thrillers with a traditional English cup of tea.

By Aimee Hansen

women in leadershipThis week, we continue with more words of wisdom from women leaders we’ve interviewed throughout 2023. Through the months, we’ve spoken to women who are impacting change, shaking up leadership and transforming perspectives. We’ve talked to women in top leadership positions and founders introducing their own new visions into the world.

Please make sure to check out Part 1 of this year round-up! Below we share more words of wisdom and inspiration. Thank you each for the gift of your energy, time and insight!

“I feel strongly about focusing on doing right by others. Ambition goes awry if you don’t have respect for individuals, and if you don’t think about what motivates them. I want to understand what’s important to the people with whom I work. I focus on treating individuals how I would want to be treated – including respecting their differences, talents and expertise.” – Alexandra Tyler: Managing Director, Digital Transformation Leader, Accenture Song

“Some people believe that passion will help you find what you want to do. I don’t really believe in that. I believe that you have to know what you want. Knowing what you want and doing something actionable towards it will bring the passion.” – Nadiya Kreynin: Chief Executive Officer, Forte DGTL and Chief Operations Office, Forte Group

“As leaders, we have to be willing to hear some difficult things and have better self-awareness, which isn’t always easy. If we do, we can become better leaders by being open-minded to making changes based on what people are telling us. This has enabled me to take pride in the leader that I’ve become.” – Tiffany Fleming: Vice President, Client Onboarding & Trading Documentation, PGIM Fixed Income

“I subscribe to the theory that the best leaders – not only with words but through their actions – encourage and inspire others to achieve their best. That is how some of the most influential leaders have impacted me in my career, and I aspire to have the same impact on others.” – LaShonda Fuselier: Head of Multi-National Corporations Subsidiary Coverage, Corporate and Investment Banking, Wells Fargo

“If you have the right skills and are prepared, don’t be afraid when the opportunity comes to you. No one can tell you it’s not possible… If you have the passion for the work, there’s always a way. Pick the right field, pick the right industry, pick the right job that you have passion for.” – Wanda Woo: Partner, Capital Markets, Shearman & Sterling LLC (Hong Kong)

“There’s an obsession with very young entrepreneurs, like Mark Zuckerberg, who quit college and go off to start their companies. But I think building a new scalable business is really, really hard. I don’t think I could have done it when I was in my 20s. There’s a lot of evidence that the most successful entrepreneurs are people who start their companies in their late 30s and early 40s. I started when I was 37. I think that coming to entrepreneurship a bit later, after I had done a lot of different things, made me much more prepared for the resilience and patience that was required and is still required for what we’re building.” – Sylvana Quader Sinha, Founder and CEO of Praava Health

“There’s power in the pivot. You can’t get stuck. You don’t want to plateau. You always want to stay fresh and connected. Pivoting is inevitable. You can’t not pivot, and if you feel like it’s not working, that’s your sign. For every single problem, there is a solution. You just have to spend enough time to let it present itself. Sometimes, the solution is a tweak. But recognize where you are – and be willing to turn where you want to go, in whatever you are doing, whether it’s a 180 or a few degrees.” –Sherin Dawud: CEO at Nura Co. and Co-Founder at Power Pump Girls

“If we’re having a discussion, my focus is on the topic. I’m assuming that we’re both focusing on the content. But, with time, I’ve learned that many people focus on the relationship, and may sacrifice items in the topic to protect the relationship. For example, they may not contradict. They may not bring up their ideas because they may be different from what somebody else in a more powerful position may be saying. They may feel vulnerable in expressing something. I make sure to say upfront I value the discussion of viewpoints and being contradicted.” – Liora Haymann: Managing Director, OBM International

“How constructively you approach anything is going to be the difference-maker for you and for all those who work with you and for you. When you hit those roadblocks and it’s tempting to pivot to feeling captive or negative, I force myself to remember that the only way out is forward. Approach issues constructively and that will help you rise above the challenge or circumstance, to focus on a solution.” –Vanessa Rodriguez: Head of Community Lending & Investment, Commercial Real Estate, Wells Fargo

“When you have different cultures, there’s a lot of things that can be misinterpreted. For example, I use my hands a lot and I might find certain hand movements mean something else in another culture that I did not intend. One thing that is helpful that I’ve learned, and work with my leadership team on, is to start with your intent. Because there’s a lot about communication that doesn’t land the way you want to say it. Often, simply leading with your intent before you even start the conversation can change the ability to have difficult conversations.” – Dr. Sheena Menezes: Co-Founder and CEO, Simple HealthKit Inc

“When you’re junior and hungry, you work late, so you can take it all on. However, I think it serves your growth to start setting boundaries as you advance. I don’t have children yet, but I am still going to sign off at a reasonable time and have a nice dinner with my husband. You need to set boundaries, and sometimes, it means saying no or that you’ll look into something at a later time – as your schedule and workload permits.” – Alison Taylor: Investment Vice President, PGIM Real Estate

“In my opinion, being a true leader is not just about managing up anymore or trying to get the next job. I genuinely think I should be judged based on the teams I build and how I encourage and empower them…When I was progressing through my career, a lot of it was about me and developing my technical skill set: I’ve got to manage up, I’ve got to manage sideways. I’ve got to manage down. All of those facets still exist. But that’s the big leadership pivot people don’t realize: You don’t have all the answers. You’re there to listen. You’re there to serve and support others to be successful.” – Lola Ninonuevo: International Chief Operating Officer, Wells Fargo

“So many big decisions have been made by people who were all thinking alike. I feel it’s critical to have different perspectives on solving problems, especially big problems. More than one thing can be true. I try to remind people that it doesn’t have to be either/or. It can be and. I like to consider how we can meld ideas to come up with a good solution. If there are two opposing ideas, rarely is one or both entirely wrong.” – Rhonda Johnson: CEO, Different Like You, Inc & Acting Deputy Director, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

“Don’t be afraid to take the road less traveled, because as you do, you will find new horizons that will take you to the next level. Finding something you’re passionate about is important because you’ll do better than if you’re forcing yourself into a career or role that isn’t the best fit for you.” – Helen Chang: Managing Director, Head of Asia Pacific ex Japan, Client Advisory Group, PGIM

“It’s a trap to believe there is a certain way we are supposed to be to be successful. For example, we equate leader mentality to an ‘early bird gets the worm’ mentality. I’m a night owl. My hours are more bartender than typical Corporate America. You’re supposed to wear heels. I can’t wear heels. You’re supposed to not talk too much about your kids. That’s the most important thing in my life! The more you can just be who you are, the more powerful that is. Whatever it is that you have that’s different, it can be something that truly makes you unique, but you can’t be scared of it. You have to let that difference shine and that takes courage and vulnerability.” – Lindsey Roy: Hallmark Cards, SVP Strategy & Brand & Motivational Speaker

Interviewed by Aimee Hansen

women in leadershipThis year, we’ve interviewed impact leaders, change makers and women who are shaking up senior leadership and creating new roles. Once again, it’s our honor to amplify the voices of the women who are becoming the change they want to see – whether that’s recalibrating leadership approaches to shift the paradigm, birthing their own vision tangibly into the world, or elevating the voices that remain underrepresented.

Looking across our leader profiles in 2023, we share words of wisdom and inspiration from each woman we’ve talked to this year (look out for Part 2 next week). Thank you for the gift of your energy, time and insight!

“Get in there early with a contribution to the discussion. Other people feel relieved and appreciate it when somebody says something first and are likely to even build on it. And I learned that contributing early liberates you to relax and enjoy the discussion, because you’re not beating yourself up about not having said anything yet. You may find you are building up to something even bigger to say, but at least you feel good because you’ve contributed.” – Ruth Harper: SVP, Chief Communications & Sustainability Officer, ManpowerGroup

“We’re all drops in the ocean, but together we can move the moon. Small things matter. Because if we all do one small act, together, collectively and as a community, we can move mountains, and that’s always been the case. I think we each create a ripple in the water from just a drop, and that if we all work together, this change can really occur. It’s not just one thing that’s going to be the answer to our issues, it’s going to be an ecosystem of many things working together to create resilience.” – Alice Chun: Female Inventor, Founder and CEO of Solight Design, Inc.

“We are all humans having a human experience and so you ought to be able to connect with anybody on some level. Different perspectives are something to embrace, not something to close yourself off to, because they help you to think and see things from different perspectives.” – Loretta Pearce: Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Shearman & Sterling LLP

“I have walked into several rooms where I wasn’t invited, but I acted like I belonged. Then what are they going to do except welcome me? You walk into a room, and you act like you belong. Take a seat at the table. Not in a chair along the wall, but at the table. And then raise your voice when you speak so you can be heard.” – Avis Yates Rivers: CEO at Technology Concepts Group Int’l., LLC

“I walk into every new thing I do with an understanding of ‘I know what I know’ but ‘I know what I don’t know,’ too. I’m comfortable about being vulnerable enough to ask people to help me. Women put too much pressure on themselves by thinking they have to walk into a role fully capable and qualified, when the reality is that long as you have the core of what you need to do the job, you can build and learn. As long as you’re willing to be vulnerable enough to admit that you’re going to need help or to learn new skills as you navigate, you can take on those bigger jobs.” – Judith Barry: Co-Head of Global Equities, Wells Fargo

“Somewhere along the way of observing women progress in their careers, I realized that no one ever got very far if they cared too much about: What do others think? How did I come across? Was I likeable? And so on. You get to a certain place because you channeled that energy not on worrying about whether people like you or your answer, but on asking how do I get the job at hand done?” – Marcella Sivilotti: Chief Strategy Officer, PGIM

“Confidence is so important, yet sometimes ‘confidence’ can be felt by women as a negative because we don’t want to come across arrogant or as a know-it-all. We need to take these words that have negative associations and switch them into positives. There is also a huge amount of negative connotation around the phrase ‘being selfish.’ But it is so important that at times you put yourself first. Prioritize your own development, personal learning journey, self-care, and look to make choices that help you, not just other people all the time. I think it’s breaking those associations in our head that suggest ‘If I’m confident…I’m perceived as arrogant’ or ‘If I’m selfish… I’m a mean person.’ It can feel very uncomfortable, but it is these simple things that can make a massive difference and it is not about changing your values, just your priorities.” – Loretta Franks: VP, Chief Data & Analytics Officer at Kellogg Company

“I’ve had many experiences where I felt uncomfortable raising a topic but I did it anyway, because there was merit in it. If we’re going to have diversity of thought, then as leaders and as professionals, we have to evaluate the things that make us uncomfortable and really decipher, what is this individual trying to say? What is the goal here? Because if you believe intentions are good, you might want to tune your ear and try to better understand what is being said, versus dismissing or disqualifying it.” – Melinda Cora: Principal, Head of Product Implementation and Project Management at PGIM Quantitative Solutions

“Many people have idea ‘sparks,’ small or large, and too many people squash their sparks. But it’s with those sparks that you can improve organizations and improve yourself. It could be as small as a change in process or as massive as complete transformation. Being able to embrace the spark is the essence of organizational and personal development.” – Geneviève Piché: Head of Sustainable Finance and Advisory, Corporate & Investment Banking, Wells Fargo

“Part of a leadership vision includes incorporating a learning curve in how you get there. None of us are always right and we’re all going to make mistakes as we go along. But the objective is still the right objective. You’ve got to move and learn along the way how to best make it where you want to go.” – Kelley Conway: Head of Corporate & Digital Strategy, Northern Trust

“I think that we have to fight. I think that we need to ask for what we need. I think we need to stop apologizing. I think we need to not think something is wrong with us and instead see the system as broken and demand for it to change.” – Reshma Saujani: Founder and CEO of Moms First

“Many women in leadership roles still don’t give themselves enough credit that we are, indeed, leaders. We feel like we never get ‘there.’ The first time someone reached out to ask for time on my calendar, I had to take a step back and realize I have gone through this 25+ year career path and people are interested in connecting with me as a leader. But I also know it’s a two-way street. There is always something we can learn from each other, no matter what your level is within an organization.” – Tiara Henderson: Corporate and Investment Banking Head of Women’s Segment and Commercial Real Estate Head of Diverse Segments, Wells Fargo

“By focusing on internal gratification, I’ve naturally been given more opportunities without necessarily focusing on what I have to do to get to the next step or to get promoted, because those are external focuses. By doing what I want to do – to grow and to learn and to do it for myself – I’ve just had those opportunities come to me…Everyone’s way towards internal gratification is different, but I feel that when you do things for yourself, you exude different energy and attract more of what you want.” – Mikaylee O’Connor: Principal, Senior Defined Contribution Strategist, PGIM DC Solutions

“In my team, we’re all scientists and we want to get things done and we want them to be perfect, so we give our best and go above and beyond. But I always like to remind my team that the job is important, but so are your health and family. While there are times when you may have to work extra hours to meet your objectives, doing so is never sustainable in the long run.” – Fabiola Gutierrez-Orozco: R&D Director, Global Nutrition Science, Reckitt

“The more I go through life, the more I realize we do not know what challenges people have every day. So above all, we need to practice kindness towards ourselves and others.” – Graciella Dominguez: Vice President of Investment Operations, Operations and Innovations, PGIM

Interviewed by Aimee Hansen

Lindsey Roy“A couple of things are true for everyone. One, every person will experience hardship. It’s the human condition. Two, no one invites or wants or desires hardship. But three, the art of living is to find the space in between those two things.”

We talked to Lindsey Roy, SVP Strategy & Brand at Hallmark Cards. At 31, she was named vice-president at Hallmark, one of the youngest VPs in the 100+ year history of the company. Five years later, at 36 years old and with two young children, she was nearly killed in a boating accident and left with an amputated leg and severe limb injuries. In 2017, after years of recovery and adaptation, she delivered a TEDx Talk entitled “What Trauma Taught Me About Happiness.

Then, at 44 years old, having already fully adapted to several major life changes with the support of her husband Aaron and two children, Roy was diagnosed with a rare and progressive disease that destroyed the blood vessels in her lungs, requiring a double lung transplant in the summer of 2022. The road to recovery started once again.

Across 24 years at Hallmark Cards, Roy has held 12 positions while raising two children, having two life-saving surgeries, adapting to life changes, and recalibrating her dreams. In her book, The Gift of Perspective, she shares “Wisdom I Gained From Losing a Leg and Two Lungs.” She seeks to build our collective wisdom of how to walk the challenges we each face while also lifting each other up. Her story has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, O Magazine, and Working Mother.

On what to do when “why me” comes up in the midst of challenge:

“I have learned there is zero wisdom in asking, ‘Why me?’ It is a road to nowhere. It is a circular reference, infinitely looping. I have spent hours and cycles learning that. In my latest journey with my lungs, when that sentiment would come up, I would mindfully stop my brain from going there. If it would start to wonder there, I would make my brain stop mid-thought and actively think, I’m not even going to entertain the thought.

Others would also say to me, ‘I can’t believe you’re going through this. You’ve already been through so much. It’s not fair.’ But I wouldn’t entertain that. I would try to shut it down, and say, ‘Everybody goes through things. I just had the National Enquirer (sensational) version of problems. That doesn’t mean they’re harder. Problems are relative.’

I would redirect, because ‘why me?’ is simply the biggest waste of time. You’ll never solve it, so shut it down. I’m also a person of faith, so the question was also, ‘Why not me?’ How am I supposed to know how my life was supposed to be when only God knows that?”

On whether challenges shape us or reveal who we are:

“Both. I do believe that as humans, there’s a lot of ‘who we are’ that is already predetermined and pre-established from formative experiences. Those things often are latent, or even unknown, to ourselves, so there is an element of revelation: I might not have known I had those pieces. And that’s akin to the quote from Bob Marley: ‘You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice.’ There’s a lot of truth to adversity revealing parts of yourself.

But, there is definitely also a shaping piece. I now know things that you cannot know because of my experiences. I truly do believe that’s the point of sharing – because you’re never going to know what I know and I’m never going to know what you know. That’s why my purpose is to share: it adds to our collective wisdom. How beautiful that we can each pick up a gem of wisdom from someone else’s path to help us each walk our own.”

On how being confronted with adversity has impacted upon her outlook:

“Honestly, there weren’t many circumstances in my life that had put me in the empathetic seat to feeling otherized. In many ways, I had traditional ‘pathing’ and a more privileged set of circumstances. Then, I was suddenly thrown into being a member of the disabled community, the sick mom at school events, the person missing at work due to a disability situation. All of the sudden, I was a member of a lot of new clubs. I was an amputee, for example. That is a club I never expected to be a member of. I never expected to have a handicap parking pass in my 30s.

Being thrown into this world made me realize a couple of things. One, I learned something about what it feels like to be a part of a community that is not the majority. It gave me a different window into that experience. Two, it made me realize that no matter how hard I try, I’m never going to fully understand the lived experience of someone who is in another category of otherized groups of people. I won’t claim to have a full understanding, but I have a different viewpoint than I would have had without these experiences.”

On how challenges are relative and only internally defined:

“People will start to say to me, ‘My hip is really hurting.’ And then they’ll stop and say, ‘I’m so sorry, that’s nothing compared to what you’ve dealt with.’ I hear this all the time: ‘I’ve got this challenge. No, wait, I shouldn’t even say this to you.’ Even though it’s well intended, I find serious flaw in that thinking. First of all, nobody wants to win the lottery for having the worst problems. Nobody wants to hear, ‘You win: your problems are worse.’

But even more importantly, challenge is so relative because it’s infinitely dimensional. No one knows what your support system is, what resilience you’ve had the opportunity to build or to not build, or what you value most in life. For instance, if someone loses their hair to chemotherapy, that might be much harder on somebody who’s always had beautiful hair as part of their identity versus someone who’s always hated their hair. No one knows how much you value that particular dimension of life. I could name a hundred of these frames, because it is all so relative. So don’t feel shameful about sharing something that’s hard for you. Don’t default to believing that someone else’s challenges are harder. Challenge is relative and depends on so many things. You just can’t compare, and it’s not healthy to do so: it’s another road to nowhere.

Here’s my own little example of not comparing: I always have finger pain because having an extreme version of Raynaud’s Syndrome is one of the common traits of my specific autoimmune disease. My fingers have been in pain on and off for over a decade, lacking the necessary blood flow to keep them warm and high-functioning. I will get skin ulcers on the tips of my fingers or lose part of a fingernail from time to time. You would assume annoyances in your fingers would pale in comparison to having half a leg or an incision across my entire chest from a lung transplant. But on many days, it’s actually been worse. I doubt many people would guess that pain comparison correctly. It just shows you cannot know about somebody else’s challenges. That’s why I find it helpful and connective to talk to other people about what we’ve collectively learned even though our challenges are very different. I heard a profound notion the other day: I may not know your specific pain, but I know pain. How very true for so many of us.”

On navigating hardship through acceptance and beyond:

“The first thing is to know that it’s inevitable that hardship will happen and second, you will despise it. Third, it’s about coming to acceptance. Acceptance is the bottom of the pyramid of dealing with hardship, and even getting to that point is a huge challenge.

Once you can accept and even embrace that a hardship ‘is what it is’ and it’s not going to change, you then have two choices: to either dwell in a negative cycle or to try to create something beneficial out of it. If you can arrive to those points of acceptance, and get your brain in a place where you can spin something good out of it, beautiful things can happen.

I’ve gone through this cycle two big times and many little times. I’ve learned so much about how to make those pathways a little shorter and a little easier that I want to share with others. By no means is it easy: it’s very difficult. But if you know the path, it makes walking it slightly easier. I’ve found doing so is much better than the alternative.”

On why perspective is “the most powerful untapped resource”:

“Here’s a visual metaphor for perspective. Imagine an amazing pool of fresh water that’s the perfect temperature for drinking. It’s a perfectly clear, beautiful mountain stream. We all thirst for that, but we only get to sample little teaspoons here and there. We don’t normally choose when we sample those, because we usually only sample perspective in reaction to other people’s trauma, struggles, and pain. So every once in a while, we’ll hear something that makes us taste that water and all of our surface level worries dissipate. Then we think, ‘Wow, that puts things in perspective.’

I’ve found this water is always available as a resource to us, but you have to choose to walk over, bring a cup and drink. You have to actively do things. For example, the metaphorical walking over is sitting and thinking, ‘this situation looks like a horrible situation, but there’s a thousand things that are going right’ or it looks like asking ‘how could this be worse?’ That’s picking up your cup and taking active steps towards that water. But if you’re the kind of person passively sitting back and waiting on someone to throw you a teaspoon or shower you with a couple of drops, you’re not ever going to really tap into the resource of perspective. It’s actively doing even these exercises that seem so mundane and so silly. But in practice, in the wake of hardship, that’s exactly where the magic happens. You just have to understand how to walk over to that amazing pool, time and time again.

It’s almost like someone saying, ‘You want to be healthier? Exercise and eat well.’ That may be the simplest advice in the world. But it’s very different to hear it than to do it. It’s the same with sustaining perspective.”

On the power of putting perspective into practice:

“I have so many visual, visceral memories of being alone in middle of the night in hospital bathrooms in my rawest, most lonely moments. And I would say aloud, ‘How could this be worse? What is going right?’ And I would make my brain answer the question, and it was so enlightening and powerful, but very simple. It’s very hard and humbling to do that in those raw, raw, raw moments. But it is about making yourself feel vulnerable and silly, and go through the process anyway.

I would come up with things that would buy me enough resource to make it through the night or next day. I would think things like, ‘What’s the worst thing that can happen here?’ Many of those answers could get pretty dark. But then I would say, ‘Okay, let’s think about how that would be.’ I would let myself go to those worst places and instead of fear them, I would walk in those rooms in my mind. Sometimes, I would just try to let go of the control I was trying to grasp and do the thing we proverbially say, ‘Give it to God.’ That helped me more than words can say.

In short, I’ve found that you have to continually work at shifting your perspective to keep your brain focused on anything but those enticing negativity traps. The more you can focus on creating neural pathways that are more positive in nature, the more you train your brain to get better at this type of thinking.

I think it’s also important to add that you don’t have to be perfectly positive every day. There have been countless days where I have wailed or banged my fists or struggled to get out of bed. That’s ok too. But you have to find a way to keep moving forward, and actively shifting how you see things is incredibly powerful in the midst of hardship.”

On overcoming resistance to practicing perspective:

“First of all I would invite any individual to introspectively ask: what stops you from actually exercising your perspective? One suspicion is that I think people feel dumb doing these very simple things because they do seem so mundane and unhelpful until you actually do it. I think some people dismiss that sheer thought of the power of doing this stuff, but it can only be experienced by doing it.

I’m guessing, too, that negativity bias can take over. It’s taken over in my life so many times. You have to hold off that negativity bias to even create the space to ask these silly questions. That negativity bias is an 800 pound gorilla. It will come at you. Your brain is so wired for that. Just having the fortitude to fight that off for five minutes is no small thing.”

On the strategy of “borrowing perspective” in hardship or everyday life:

“When you’re in the middle of hardship or facing a certain fear, you can try ‘borrowing perspective’ from anybody who has gone through a similar situation and arrived to the other side. From where the stand, you can borrow their perspective and say, ‘If they can do this, I can.’

For example, witnessing what Amy Purdy had overcome and achieved with her two prosthetic legs (from world champion para-snowboarder to Dancing With the Stars finalist) became a lifeline of inspiration after my boating accident. I could see beyond the moment I was in. But consider even the more common experience of having a baby. When I was pregnant for the first time, along with all the excitement, I had some fear of childbirth. But I would remind myself that billions of women have had babies throughout history. If so many women had done it before me, surely I could.

There’s also ‘borrowing perspective’ as a daily practice so you don’t slip into taking things for granted. This is harder. When you’re in hardship, you’re searching for coping mechanisms. But when you’re going about your daily life, and things are going well, we often just coast. In those coasting moments, borrowing perspective would be to pause and recognize things we often don’t give any thought to, such as, ‘Wow, I live in America today instead of a war torn country’ or ‘I was just able to walk into the baseball game with functioning legs and lungs.’

Right now, we’re talking about my hard stuff, but I have a million blessings. For example, I grew up in a home where my parents loved each other and offered me love unconditionally. I have a wonderful husband and two amazing kids. I’ve always loved my job. There are a million gifts that we take for granted simply because we haven’t had to experience the broken version of that experience.”

On why authenticity and vulnerability are essential to leadership:

“It’s a trap to believe there is a certain way we are supposed to be to be successful. For example, we equate leader mentality to an ‘early bird gets the worm’ mentality. I’m a night owl. My hours are more bartender than typical Corporate America. You’re supposed to wear heels. I can’t wear heels. You’re supposed to not talk too much about your kids. That’s the most important thing in my life!

The more you can just be who you are, the more powerful that is. Whatever it is that you have that’s different, it can be something that truly makes you unique, but you can’t be scared of it. You have to let that difference shine and that takes courage and vulnerability. Being vulnerable feels like being exposed, being naked, letting someone see that part of yourself that you don’t think you should show. But that’s where your authenticity will make others appreciate you even more and where you can find your special sauce to add value to any team or situation. It’s important to find the space where you’re comfortable and have that courage to bring in more of yourself.

For myself, I’ve always been the same person whether 10:00 at night or 10:00 in the morning at work. But I’ve learned it’s also about sharing the ugly parts of yourself in the right setting, in the right way: that’s where connection happens.

Being vulnerable is connective. When someone has been vulnerable with you, you trust them more. When you take the lead and show vulnerability, it engenders trust. I have seen this so many times, and most recently, after speaking in a manufacturing plant in Kansas City. Most of the audience were men and they were telling me the most beautiful, vulnerable things that had happened in their life, because I threw it all out there first.

Vulnerability is a flywheel. Somebody has to take the lead to get it moving.”

On letting who you truly are authentically guide your path:

“There’s this type A personality model we’ve pedestaled where you have the calendar, menu and schedule planned. To some degree, that behavior is necessary and awesome. If you’re authentically that kind of person, great. But it’s also okay if you’re not.

When I was starting, people used to give me the advice to map out my career. Later, they’d advise to do three years of this project or take this lateral move to gain an experience for promotion. I would secretly dismiss that advice, even as a young professional, because it was never my mentality to do those things. I would also borrow perspective by looking at others who’d never worked in that division, or sought out a masters degree, or whatever – and were doing great. Today, I don’t have a masters and I didn’t do jobs I hated. I was in an environment of great mentors: being in fertile soil helps.

No one set of advice works for everybody. You don’t have to take advice that you don’t want to take. There are things that will unfold for you that maybe no one else could have predicted. Let that happen. Just be you, let go a bit, and see what happens.

Everyone is going to give you advice. Even in medicine, I’ve learned that if you ask ten different people the same question, often you’re going to get two to ten different answers. Many questions don’t have a precise singular answer. Now, if you get ten out of ten same answers, maybe you should follow that advice. But if you get nine one way and one the other, then you get to weigh your decision with that in mind. I think there’s a lot of power in that. But it’s vulnerability inducing to even entertain those thoughts.”

On the power of being able to let go of the plan and embrace the now:

“When I was 20 years old, I thought the perfect age to get married would be 26, the perfect age to have a baby would be 28, and the perfect place to live would be X…none of those things happened. That movie did not play out. Now when I look back at my life, I didn’t know the perfect age to do this or the right way to do that.

People say ‘this is more than I ever imagined.’ That can absolutely be true, but it can only be true if you let go of your preconceived notion of how it should be and realize there is no perfect plan. There’s only what actually plays out and how you embrace that. But there’s so much value in letting go of what was and being okay with what is.

Also, it’s human nature to compare. But if you’re going to compare, don’t let your brain compare things to a state that you can’t control. You can’t control when you fall in love, when someone hires you, or the result of a physical accident. So do not let yourself compare to some preconceived notion or some past, because it is another circular reference to the path to nowhere. It’s fruitless and futile. You will never be able to get out of that hole.

Rather, what you can do is say that didn’t happen. This did happen. What can I attach myself to now? To use a metaphor, imagine you’re swimming down the river because you fell out of a boat. You might want to be back in that boat, but that’s not an option anymore. So you better grab a tree to hold onto. May you’ll find that tree is cool and beautiful, and you’re going to hang out there. But you can’t compare to things that you thought had to happen. I’ve failed many times, but the consciousness of this line of thinking is what’s important.”

On learning how to trust in and surrender to your unique life path:

“I’ve had to work really hard on growing my trust, and for me that means having faith. Of five brands of belief I have identified that have supported me, that’s the most important one. It’s so easy to say it, but very different to really open yourself up to that relationship where God is truly in control. For me, trusting really is letting go and realizing that there is a path I’m supposed to walk. I don’t get to pick that path, but I can find joy in walking it, no matter what it looks like to others.

Years ago, we had the traveling Titanic exhibit in Kansas City. When you walked in, you received a secret little envelope. At the end, you were told your fate based on math. Are you someone who drowned? Are you someone who survived? It was just based on the math of the event and the math of the people walking through.

God handed me this little secret envelope that I’ve only read 20% of or 40% of, or who knows, and I don’t get to change what’s in that envelope. But the more I embrace what’s in that envelope and realize that once again, I’m not in control, the better everything is. It’s believing deep down that whatever it is, it’s going to be okay, so give up the control. I’m constantly reminding myself to go back and find my center there. And when I do, it is the most freeing feeling ever.”

Interviewed by Aimee Hansen

Helen Chang“Don’t be afraid to take the road less traveled, because as you do, you will find new horizons that will take you to the next level,” says Helen Chang. “Finding something you’re passionate about is important because you’ll do better than if you’re forcing yourself into a career or role that isn’t the best fit for you.”

Chang shares her journey about the benefit of international perspectives, taking on new opportunities to evolve and inspiring yourself and others through passion.

Growing Your Career from Outside the Comfort Zone

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Chang went to boarding school in the UK, attended college in Canada and then started as a trainee at JP Morgan Chase where she gained exposure to various areas of banking. She then obtained her MBA at Yale University. Living abroad at an early age, she developed an international perspective and a high degree of adaptability in connecting with multicultural people from different backgrounds.

While at Yale, Chang worked on Wall Street for a summer before returning to Hong Kong with Credit Suisse. She then decided to take a major career pivot from sell-side (lending and credits) in the private sector to the buy-side (investments and policymaking) in the public sector by joining the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) (the de facto Central Bank in Hong Kong). Eventually, she was promoted to lead the internal direct investment team, where she gained deep insight into asset management and the investment decision-making process. She also went onto work in international relations, working with central banks and sovereign wealth funds in the region. It’s safe to say that Chang built a solid growth platform to build upon with her deep knowledge of central banking over nearly a decade.

After leaving HKMA for a brief stint with Standard Chartered Bank, Chang went back to the private sector with Principal Global Investors in asset management. There, she was charged with building the business and investment profile across North Asia. In this role, she grew the business from scratch and was instrumental in raising assets, increasing headcount from one to eighteen by the time she left to take on a new and exciting role with PGIM Fixed Income in 2020. Beginning in her new role just two days before the COVID-19 pandemic, she embraced the opportunity to lead a broader regional remit.

“As an Asian, I was brought up in a culture where my parents told me to be modest. So, we’d often say we’re not very good in doing certain things, when in fact, we were,” says Chang. “In interacting with so many diverse backgrounds internationally, I’ve learned you need to believe in yourself, and you need to be open-minded and have the courage to get out of your comfort zone.”

“I was courageous enough to make many career moves even when people advised me not to make those changes,” she says. “In hindsight, I feel I’m a more well-rounded professional and person for having experienced both the private and public sector as well as both buy-side and sell-sides.”

Embracing Vast Opportunities to Develop and Grow

Chang encourages taking a long-term approach to career development, advising others to prioritize new opportunities and experiences. While there may be detours on a career path, all experiences will contribute to one’s future career trajectory. She provides two examples from her journey.

First, in broadening her exposure and knowledge base during her tenure in the public sector, Chang experienced the biggest culture shock of her journey. The long and painstaking decision-making processes and lobbying to many stakeholders were a major adjustment to her private sector background. Even though this challenged her patience, she also feels it was one of the most rewarding experiences and enhanced her ability to get to where she sits today.

Second, Chang learned about what she wanted to do when she took on a new role at Standard Chartered. In what she now judges as too early, Chang says she took on a senior management role, which comprised of sitting in executive meetings, reporting progress and focusing on developing people internally. While she enjoyed parts of this role, she found herself missing her active strategic role in developing and growing the business. She had the big title. She was competent. But it simply didn’t get her heart beating or her blood pumping to be so far removed from the strategic work she loved doing, so she knew she had to move on.

“I’ve always enjoyed building business, and this is where I know I add the most value,” she says.

Using Your Voice with Confidence in Your Knowledge

Often the only woman in the room, Chang has been fortunate enough to have coworkers and mentors from diverse backgrounds who helped shape her leadership style and showed her the value of speaking up.

“Like most Asians, we can be shy and were taught that speaking up may not be courteous, but in reality, it’s not the case.” She notes, “I’ve learned from these leaders, and a lot of them have become very senior executives, in the United States and across Asia.”

Being comfortable voicing her opinions was something that happened slowly for Chang. Early on, she was more conservative about using her voice, but as she advanced, she began to realize that she was hesitating to speak when others who were unafraid to use their voices in the room simply did not possess the same expertise she had.

“You build up your confidence. Once people know you know the business, they respect you and are more open to hearing what you have to say,” she says. “But you need to work hard and know your stuff: you can’t bluff. Because once you start bluffing, people don’t believe you.”

Inspiring Others to Enjoy Work and Grow

“As a leader, gone are the days when one can be bureaucratic. When I started my career, some leaders would say, ‘I’m senior, your job is to listen.’ Things have changed. Many of my team members are younger than me and have a different mentality when it comes to leadership and management styles. Using an old-fashioned management style won’t work – nor is it beneficial to the business,” she says. “It’s important to have connectivity with your whole team, to be able to joke and laugh with them, which helps contribute to them enjoying being at work and enables them to produce a high-quality of work. We’re no longer talking about how many hours you spend in the office, but how much you deliver.”

The successful leaders who have inspired Chang are people who were never afraid to take calculated risks and knew how to inspire a team. They have a passion for their work and for making a difference with their contribution, even in the face of adversity.

“If you love and are passionate about something, you’ll be able to do well. Sometimes there are even these hidden abilities within yourself that you didn’t know,” she says. “So, when you see passionate leaders doing what they love and bringing out more of themselves, it inspires you to think maybe I can as well.”

Nurturing Diversity to Thrive

True to her own international perspective and tasked with the challenge of working across cultural nuances in building relationships with clients and counterparts in the region, her team of direct reports is diverse. She appreciates the cultural transparency in advising clients honestly on what will and will not work, and the focus on long-term business building.

“I have always believed in diversity to help the team grow and build business,” Chang says. “I encourage people to speak up. No one will get punished if they don’t speak. It’s just more engaging when the team share their perspectives and what’s on their minds.”

Having experienced various company cultures, too, Chang appreciates how PGIM is team-oriented, encourages diversity and is respectful of people, which she thinks drives firm loyalty and longer tenures. Even though PGIM is one of the largest asset managers in the world, Chang says that it doesn’t have the same grueling workplace culture that other NYC-firms she worked for has and encourages flexibility while also getting the job done.

The Importance of a Refreshed Perspective

When not traveling for work, Chang enjoys spending time with her family. She also enjoys cooking, hiking and personal travel.

Chang emphasizes the importance of recharging and taking good breaks to rejuvenate yourself to start the week with a clear head and on a positive note. Coming back with a fresh perspective is important to making a stronger impact and contributions to her job, as she continues to do.

By Aimee Hansen

Rhonda Johnson “I like to view people as generally good. Without a tool to understand when you’re doing something that causes harm, you may not even know you’re doing it,” says Rhonda Johnson. “In the corporate world, we have tools, training and social pressure to moderate our bias and behavior, but not as much in small businesses. Without a tool, how can we address it?”

Johnson speaks about the unfolding of her DEI journey from Wall Street to Washington, D.C., being part of the founding team of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and launching Different Like You, Inc and the Sacki App to weave the principle of inclusion deeper into the social fabric of small businesses and our daily lives.

A Culture Change from NYC to D.C.

Growing up as a New Yorker in a diverse neighborhood, Johnson was struck by the lack of diversity when she entered into Wall Street, often as the only woman or woman of color in the room.

“Different perspectives add value to the solution. If everyone was coming from Harvard or Stanford or Ivy League schools, I felt there wasn’t enough diversity even in the way people think, because they’re trained how to think at these schools,” she recalls. “I was interested in diversity of thought and experience and felt we needed to do something different.”

At James D. Wolfensohn, Inc., a private equity firm, Johnson began recruiting at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), too. Quickly, she witnessed how diversity shifts the culture. She observed how bringing in people of different economic, educational, and ethnic or racial backgrounds disrupts group think and status quo approaches to problem-solving, which also introduces tension.

“At that time, nobody was confronting these questions. What does inclusion look like when you bring in different types of people if we don’t operate on the same plane?” she was asking. “How do we solve this problem?” Diversity was being addressed but inclusion was lacking. Over the years this became a nagging question.

In November 2009, during Barack Obama’s presidency, Johnson moved to Washington D.C. to work in the Office of the Under Secretary for Domestic Finance within the U.S. Treasury. Her boss Jeffrey Goldstein, then chairman at Hellman & Friedman, was nominated to the post and brought her in. She served as a review analyst for two years, during which her passion to advance inclusion increased.

“Back in New York, even though diversity was limited within financial services, I didn’t feel isolated or marginalized, as it was a melting pot. If you work in NYC you are exposed to different types of people as part of daily life. D.C. felt way more polarized. Even where people lived was very racially divided. I was frankly shocked at the difference in culture,” she notes. “It started to slowly change because people of color from across the country were moving to the area to work for Barack Obama, so more racial, ethnic, cultural and economic diversity was being infused into the DC area and the federal government.”

Johnson moved on to become a founding member of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) in 2011, initially as D&I Program Analyst and then as Senior Advisor, Office of Minority and Women Inclusion, before stepping into the deputy director role as of April. Now she focuses on assessing diversity and inclusion within financial services, essentially going full circle to help financial institutions address the challenges she identified early in her career.

Why Diverse Perspectives Bring Creativity

“I am curious about people. I want to hear about your story. I want to know about you, what you’re doing, where you’re trying to go,” says Johnson. “I also want to hear your perspective about solutions we’re working on. I feel no one person has the answer, and all products and solutions can benefit from different perspectives.”

Meeting people where they are and valuing collaboration, she is a furtive gatherer and proponent of the creative value of multiple perspectives.

“So many big decisions have been made by people who were all thinking alike. I feel it’s critical to have different perspectives on solving problems, especially big problems,” says Johnson. “More than one thing can be true. I try to remind people that it doesn’t have to be either/or. It can be and. I like to consider how we can meld ideas to come up with a good solution. If there are two opposing ideas, rarely is one or both entirely wrong.”

She gives the example of a mechanic looking at a problem in the medical field. Their opinion may be invalidated because they’re not a doctor, but being outside of that frame also gives the mechanic an opportunity to see a totally different solution which the doctor may not be able to consider from his vantage point within it.

“When you have diversity of thought, I genuinely believe you open the door to much more and many creative solutions,” emphasizes Johnson. “I often think the creativity lies not necessarily in the subject matter expert, but in the person who is looking at the problem for the first time.”

Raising Her Voice To Advocate for Inclusion

Johnson has always valued giving employees a voice – through surveys with disaggregated data results, through ERGs, and diversity councils. She also had to raise her own voice to make sure that happened.

“I’ve always been that person to fight for the underdog. I don’t like unfairness,” says Johnson. “So anytime I saw unfair treatment, I was definitely always willing to speak up, even in an environment where I didn’t feel like I had a lot of power.”

Early on in her career, Johnson focused on being observant, listening, learning and working hard, not so much on her voice being heard. Until it became necessary. Compared to the NYC culture, where people were more forthright, Johnson found the culture polite and evasive in D.C.

“There was a disconnect between what people were saying and what they were willing to do,” she observed, “I take people at their word. If you say you support this, I expect your efforts to reflect that, and so when that didn’t happen, I would confront the person. I found out people weren’t used to being challenged on what they promised in this space,” she says. “So I had to find a different way than directly calling people out. That’s when I shifted my approach, I started to dive deep into the research to ensure that my colleagues could better understand the importance of diversity and inclusion initiatives being proposed, I began sharing the data behind the strategies, and working collaboratively to gain buy-in and then documenting the commitments people made. It often requires more work to help people understand the importance of equity, so it became more socially acceptable to also hold them accountable.”

Launching a Social Inclusion App

Her professional focus on DEI and the culture shock of moving from NYC to D.C. also spurred Johnson on an entrepreneurial journey. Whereas in the NYC melting pot, she could go into any restaurant and see diverse customers, when going out with friends in D.C., she often experienced being treated differently.

“People take their biases everywhere and if there’s no incentive to check them, they won’t change. We are imperfect and the result of so much we’ve experienced,” she says. “In the corporate world, we get training to check our biases. But I’m not sure that happens at small businesses, merchants, apparel shops, gift stores and restaurants. I felt there was a need for more communication around how different groups of people are being treated – whether it’s because of race, language proficiency, or size.”

She launched differentlikeyouinc.com and the Sacki App. Sacki is similar to Yelp with a diversity matching dimension. Consumers are invited to create a profile and share positive and constructive reviews on their experiences with merchants. Sacki matches consumers (based on their demographic profile) with relevant review data.

In 2015, she first began to frame out the App but then got stalled on development setbacks. During the lull of the lockdown, she decided not to watch television and found that she was re-energized in her passion for developing Sacki.

She notes, “I began to research the impacts on mental health and physical illness from the stress of life for groups of people – Hispanic people, black people, people with disabilities, obese people. All these interactions they have on a day-to-day basis cause so much stress and affect health and mortality,” she says. “How people are treated on a day-to-day basis while going about their lives has such a massive impact on our society, daily micro-aggressions result in anger, frustration, depression, that lead to decisions and behaviors that affect all of us. The goal is that everyone should be treated with dignity and respect.”

Johnson’s Sacki App will hold people accountable in smaller, less formal business settings that also contribute to day-to-day interactions. Currently, the Sacki App is in beta in Atlanta. Sacki will go national to major cities within a year and international within a couple of years. Currently, she is in the process of learning how people behave with the App and what modifications need to be made.

Dealing with development, technology and design, Johnson has been stretched by launching an App, but her entrepreneurial spirit had already been there.

“When I went to the CFPB, I had the opportunity to be super creative informing our office, our function and our role,” she says. “There was a lot of opportunity to be innovative and bold because we were just launching and building the agency.

Building A World Without Shells

“I have always been extremely sensitive, and I think I built this shell around myself because it wasn’t working for me,” she recalls, giving the example of a female colleague once stealing the idea Johnson had shared with her and presenting it to their boss. “I felt so naive. Different incidents in the work culture broke my heart. That hardened me. I didn’t trust people.”

Though part of her feels putting a guard up was necessary, she also knows operating with a survival mechanism is not the same as thriving, and she doesn’t want to do it to herself, anymore.

“What’s for you no one can ever take away. Stay true to yourself. Maintain your authenticity,” she would say she has learned through the years. “I think my authenticity is important. Sometimes you have to figure out whether you’re in the right spaces for who you are, who you truly are,” she muses. “Without the shell, I may not have survived in certain environments. Being authentic may lead you to different places and even doing different things. It sounds cliche but I think people should follow their heart.”

Now Johnson is expanding into more of who she truly is while enjoying the culture and nature of Washington D.C., too. The Sacki App, based on inclusion, is her way of trying to impact the world so people can be who they are everywhere they go.

By: Aimee Hansen

Lola Ninonuevo“As a leader, it’s less about you the more senior you become. It’s about who you lead and being available, honest and authentic with your teams,” says Lola Ninonuevo. “It is a pivot to realizing you’re here to serve people and you have to make time.”

When she was twelve years old, Ninonuevo told her mother she wanted to travel internationally, see the world and become a business woman. Growing up speaking Spanish at home, she then studied Japanese while obtaining her economics degree, began her career in a Japanese bank in New York, and has spent the last 25 years working out of London in global positions, joining Wells Fargo in 2020 to help lead the international business strategy.

Finding a Bigger Reset in London

From early on, her Puerto Rican mom and Cuban Puerto Rican father impressed upon Ninonuevo the value of a good career. She was drawn to banking for the multicultural, international environment and the financial security. In 1991, she took that first trading assistant job with a small Japanese bank in World Trade Center in New York. As the only woman on the trading floor, she both served tea but was empowered early on to take on additional responsibilities such as cash management for the branch and representing the bank at industry round tables hosted by Paul Volcker, former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank. Having gained experienced in the fixed income market, she then joined BlackRock, which at the time was a start-up and small boutique asset manager, and worked with the founding partners to set up the middle office and trading support functions.

In 1996, she was approached by HSBC to help build out their Global Markets business. She was attracted to their global footprint, and in 1999, she relocated to London with HSBC and went onto work for 23 years across a variety of global roles in the Corporate and Investment Bank. London offered her international travel, a strong learning curve and new career prospects. But what London also provided was a reset and new freedom of self, supported by now being a part of a multicultural global and diverse organization.

“I had not been ‘out’ in the workplace in New York, and that was hard. It impacted my decisions and ability to bring myself to work, for example talking about what I had done over the weekend and attending corporate events with my partner,” she recalls. “I felt more at home in London where I felt comfortable to be more open about my personal life, because I could be Lola, the American woman who moved. Not the Puerto Rican woman. Not the gay woman. It was just Lola.”

Two decades later, in 2020, Ninonuevo was approached for the COO role at Wells Fargo. While still based in London, returning to a U.S. work culture has felt like a homecoming. She notes that John Langley, CIB COO and Head of International, has been a fantastic leader, support and sponsor. Ninonuevo has found a welcoming, collaborative and optimistic culture at Wells Fargo and enjoys connecting with both international colleagues from different backgrounds as well as reconnecting with American colleagues across the US.

“I can be an American advocate while bringing my international perspective to the table to help drive the Wells Fargo global strategy,” she says. “It feels like coming home, and it’s fantastic to be back.”

Creating a Brand of Speaking the Truth

When it comes to rising up to the executive level, Ninonuevo notes self-awareness is critical – including knowing what you’re good at and what you’re not and building a team that complements your strengths and weaknesses. Resilience and being a powerful collaborator are also essential.

“In banking these days, with both the complexity and risk management challenges we’ve had since the crisis, connecting the dots and bringing people together to solve problems is a key part of what I bring to the table,” she reflects. “I really focus on building relationships. I’m honest and candid in my approach.”

Her willingness to be incisive, which found a home in British culture, helped Ninonuevo to breakthrough to the C-suite in 2012. When HSBC was in a crisis with compliance issues, she stood up and spoke truthfully about what was going well and what was not going well. That became a turning point in her career, catapulting her into a global role leading the firm wide compliance transformation across 60 countries.


“When I came in and talked to the board and the regulators, they knew they were going to get honest and balanced feedback. And that became my personal brand – a person with integrity that got the job done. In my opinion, since the crisis, the role of women in banking has become very important in C-suite jobs. Because I personally think we are more inclined to ask difficult questions, be honest, and not just go along for the sake of going along. And that tribal mentality of going along was a pitfall in the industry.”

Pivoting to a Collective Leader Mindset

“In my opinion, being a true leader is not just about managing up anymore or trying to get the next job,” says Ninonuevo. “I genuinely think I should be judged based on the teams I build and how I encourage and empower them.”

This involves a greater level of willingness to let go and let learn.

“When I was progressing through my career, a lot of it was about me and developing my technical skill set: I’ve got to manage up, I’ve got to manage sideways. I’ve got to manage down. All of those facets still exist,” she says. “But that’s the big leadership pivot people don’t realize: You don’t have all the answers. You’re there to listen. You’re there to serve and support others to be successful.”

Visibility has been the major factor that distinguishes the C-Suite from other levels of leadership, and again asks one to evolve.

“The visibility and impact you can have as a C-Suite leader are multiplied. It’s so important to be aware of how you behave, how you treat people, and how you react under stress.”

The Obligation of Being a Voice

“With all the learnings on how important it is to have diversity and diversity of thought around the table, and often being the only woman in the conversation, I feel it’s my obligation to ask those difficult questions and make sure we’re challenging ourselves to do the right things and to hold ourselves accountable,” says Ninonuevo. “So I’ve used the difference as an opportunity to have a voice, to be honest and to say it like it is.”

Ninonuevo has reflected with compassion, too. “When firms are in crisis, they are driven by fear. And when you’re afraid, you basically hire in your own image because you trust it and it’s what you know. Taking risk is hard when you’re in a crisis.”

When it comes to managing your career, Ninonuevo emphasizes to be your own advocate, communicate your ambitions to your stakeholders regularly, focus on your transferable skills and don’t be afraid to go after challenging roles.

“As Citi’s Jane Fraser has spoken to, your career is over decades. It’s not the be-all and end-all. There’s periods where you can really lean in and put 100% into it, and there’s periods where you can’t, and that’s okay as long as you stay connected.”

Why Relaxing Into Yourself Makes All the Difference

Ninonuevo admits that for years, being gay and feeling unable to talk about her life outside of the workplace inhibited her ability to relate and feel belonging with colleagues on a personal level, but that also touches upon everything else.

“In the workplace, people relate and connect by sharing things about themselves, whether it’s their family life, their children, or what they did over the weekend,” she says. “I found it really hard to share because I was self-conscious.”

If she could go back and give her junior self some words to lighten the road ahead, she would advise to be more of herself at work, sooner. But, at times, she worried about how others would react and whether it would count against her. She even got a coach to seek out help in confidence-building.

“After a few seconds of work, he stopped and told me, ‘You don’t have a confidence issue. You’re confident. You know what you’re doing. People enjoy working with you,’” says Ninonuevo. “Then, he said, ‘You just need to be yourself and selectively find opportunities to do that and connect.’”

For her, this meant becoming more willing to bring her full self to work, despite the challenges she felt. As a change agent, once she becomes aware of something, Ninonuevo starts to move forward in a more effective way.

“Before that, I’m sure I was projecting a lack of confidence. But I was just closed with that part of myself. But the more that I was myself, the more I relaxed, my body language relaxed and people relaxed around me,” she says. “I started being more approachable, people enjoyed working with me more, and I got results from that. I actually had more gravitas because I felt relaxed and confident and became a better communicator, and it all started coming together.”

Ninonuevo is a dual citizen, practices pilates and enjoys walks. She loves spending time with her six year old daughter, traveling and good food and wine. After a month in Spain, she’s been inspired to get her Spanish fluency to where it was those years ago, back when she first professed to her mother that she would become an international business woman…let alone, fill a big seat in the C-Suite.

By Aimee Hansen

Ali Taylor“The best leaders I’ve seen have always made time for people – regardless of level and the topic of conversation,” says Alison Taylor.

Taylor joined PGIM Real Estate after graduating from the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of Virginia. She had an initial introduction to real estate through prior internships and coursework but found a home at PGIM, and she has grown within the company into a leadership role.

“The longer I worked here and the more I learned, the more interesting real estate became – especially the debt side,” says Taylor. “It surprises me how much I continue to enjoy and feel challenged by the work and the opportunities that have been afforded to me here at PGIM.”

Continuing to Learn Each Day

“No day and no deal are the same,” says Taylor. “Each day presents a different challenge, and I can truly say that I learn something new every single day.”

She loves the variety of her days, which has progressed by the shifting office dynamics during and following the pandemic. As a self-starter, Taylor works independently, pacing herself towards deadlines, which serves in her multi-faceted role. “I have a lot of different responsibilities and work cross-functionally with people across the business, but I’m able to keep on track, juggle a bunch of things and know what needs to be placed on the back burner.”

Taylor feels she brings realness to the table, but she proves that it doesn’t have to hit hard – that people can assert their own opinions while valuing others’.

“I’m very to the point, but not in an aggressive manner. When I was working on the originations side of the business, I was able to pass on a deal or let someone down nicely, but they would still walk away feeling good about themselves,” she says.

Lessons Learned Growing into a Leadership Role

As someone who was driven to grow into a leadership role, Ali shared several tips to help achieve the next level – and beyond – of her career, despite what tensions and challenges she faced.

  • Balance Approachability with Authority

In her ever-evolving role, Taylor notes that being approachable is not only important in showcasing her desire to learn and take on more responsibilities to senior leaders – but it is also important in demonstrating the importance of quality work and strong leadership attributes to her junior team members.

“There can be a double-edged sword as I weave my personal stories into my professional relationships, so I can build and continue to maintain them. I have this ability to connect with younger colleagues who may view me more as a friend while still being able to be taken seriously,” she says. “You need to strike a balance of approachability and authority, so that when we’re actually working on projects and dealing with teams, everyone sees that this is business. I expect very high-quality work and sometimes, we’ll be working late. But I’ll be there right alongside my colleagues.”

Currently, Taylor sees herself straddling the line between taking on the responsibility of seniority and still actually doing the work to show more junior members how it’s done and what’s expected.

“It can be a weird limbo state, where you’re not quite the final decision-maker, but you’re experienced enough to know what will drive successful outcomes for the company,” she says. “That can be a challenge day-to-day.”

  • Own Boundaries and Your Availability

As she has risen through the ranks, Taylor has started to learn the art of delegation and saying ‘no.’

“When you’re junior and hungry, you work late, so you can take it all on. However, I think it serves your growth to start setting boundaries as you advance. I don’t have children yet, but I am still going to sign off at a reasonable time and have a nice dinner with my husband,” she says. “You need to set boundaries, and sometimes, it means saying no or that you’ll look into something at a later time – as your schedule and workload permits.”

She notes this is especially important after working remotely during the pandemic, which created an expectation of 24/7 availability.

“It’s important to not always be accessible via setting clear boundaries, such as calendar blocks and/or letting colleagues know you’ll get back to them,” she says. “Once you’ve reached a certain point, where people know you are responsive and trustworthy, you can put those boundaries in place, and there’s something powerful about that.”

  • Find Power in the Pause

Recently, Taylor received the feedback that she needs to work on being too responsive. Rather than going with her gut reaction to respond immediately, she was advised that, ‘Sometimes, you need to sit on things to let both parties think. Once you have, you’ll come to a better conclusion.’

Receiving that advice was somewhat liberating, as Taylor has realized some matters work themselves out over a walk or a ponder, without needing immediate response or engagement. Plus, she notes her initial gut response is not always the most thoughtful or comprehensive.

Leading with Connection and Collaboration

“Everyone talks about how male-dominated commercial real estate is, but I feel like I’ve worked at a company with better gender balance and that helps grow and support female leaders, which has been amazing,” says Taylor. She has been shown that it’s okay to leave work for a priority at home or family activity to attend to.

“The best leaders I’ve seen have always made time for people – regardless of level and the topic of conversation,” she says. “When meeting with senior leaders, I feel like they’ve given me their undivided attention, which shows me they care and want to help me learn and succeed.”

In fact, even though she often finds herself in back-to-back meetings, Taylor makes relationship-building one of her top priorities, dedicating time to foster connections – no matter the workload.

When it comes to the PGIM work culture, she enjoys being surrounded by smart people who are willing to put in the work to get the job done, while also respecting personal boundaries and valuing work-life balance.

“The structure is not very hierarchical in that everyone is very accessible up to the MD level. For being within a Fortune 500 company, it feels like a lean entrepreneurial structure,” she observes. “Everyone is trying to advance our initiatives and share information, so it’s a very collaborative environment. It fits well with my personality, which is probably why I’ve been here for more than a decade.”

Acting As a Chameleon – Leveraging Her Strength of Adaptability

When thrown into new situations, Taylor remembers what a previous manager told her – that she adapts well to a new environment because not only does she take her responsibilities very seriously and make intelligent decisions, but she also knows when she needs to ask for help. Although some may find asking for help to be a weakness, it’s something Taylor considers to be a strength, enabling her to better understand her work or situation she is facing.

In her career thus far, the ability to assess and adapt to situations has enabled her not to stress the small stuff as much. She admits that it used to bother her if she wasn’t invited to a property tour or closing dinner after a deal she’d worked hard on, but after a few years, she realized that more than enough invitations will come along – so there’s no need to covet them.

“At a certain point in your career, you’re being asked to travel to this and that. You’ll have too many things to attend and will be pulled in different directions,” she says. “It’s a thirty- or forty-year career, so you don’t have to do it all within your first couple years. Just put your head down, do the work and form those relationships because it’s a small sector and everyone’s paths cross again.”

Be Yourself, Everywhere

When it comes to looking ahead, Taylor aspires to continue rising into leadership roles and gain more people-management experience. She also hopes to continue doing the things she loves, such as traveling to new places, curling up with a good book (her most recent read is Rules of Civility, after reading A Gentleman in Moscow by the same author) and working out – all activities that she attributes to keeping her mental health strong.

She loves traveling and planning international trips and visited Dubai and the Maldives in January for her own honeymoon.

Morning workouts are an important part of her routine to maintain balance, and she especially enjoys boxing as an energy outlet.

Taylor once heard that the most successful people are the same exact selves in their personal lives as professional lives.

“You don’t have to come in like a professional bulldog and run the show if that’s not really your personality. You can still be successful,” she says. “The mentors that have most inspired me blend both worlds and stay true to themselves.”

By Aimee Hansen

Sheena Menezes“Healthcare is one of the spaces where it is so vulnerable, so precious. It’s your health; it’s your life,” says Dr. Sheena Menezes. “Knowing that what we build here at SHK can really impact people’s lives – is what wakes me up every day.”

We talked to Dr. Sheena Menezes, co-founder and CEO of Simple HealthKit, the first and only human-centric healthcare platform that delivers at-home diagnostics, treatment and follow-up care. A rare example of genuine female-led diversity and inclusion nestled right in Silicon Valley, 70% of SHK employees are women and 80% are people of color.

Born and raised in Kuwait, with Indian-Portuguese roots, Dr. Menezes has often spent family holidays focused on social service, empowering young girls at orphanages in India. Early life exposure to vast inequities, as well as loss and health challenges in her own family, inspired her to want to build healthcare solutions that bridge socioeconomic gaps and impact the trajectory of people’s lives – regardless of gender, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, or geographic location.

Simple HealthKit empowers people through early detection with physician oversight, knowledge and access to support through an end-to-end system, tackling global health challenges such as STDs, chronic conditions such as diabetes, and the tripledemic.

As of June, Walmart has partnered with Simple HealthKit, making these at-home diagnostic tests now available at the largest retailer in the world. Dr. Menezes believes world-class healthcare is a right, not a privilege, and so SHK addresses high-need and high-impact health challenges in all communities.

On what personally inspired her to launch Simple HealthKit (SHK):

“Some founders have the ‘aha’ moment. For me, it was a journey of multiple forces that made starting SHK happen. From my childhood, I’m an immigrant, or refugee, during the Gulf War. So I’ve seen what it’s like when the lights are turning off, like what’s going on in Ukraine, and people are trying to escape and in camps.

Then, I also have the perspective of living in different countries and seeing wide disparities – some who have everything and some who don’t have anything at all. I was born and raised in Kuwait. I have Indian-Portuguese roots. And then I’m here in the United States. Back in the days while living in different countries, you’re expecting the US is just going to be great. Then you come here, and you realize there’s so much disparity here as well. So that’s one reason.

Also, it’s been having the support system of amazing family and believing we can do something that can really make a difference. Healthcare is one of the spaces where it is so vulnerable, so precious. It’s your health; it’s your life. Knowing that what we build here at SHK can really impact people’s lives – is what wakes me up every day. Think of early detection of STDs or getting an early HbA1c test and how that changes the course of people’s lives. Because often STDs are curable if you know. And with diabetes, with exercise and diet, you can get people back into good health. That’s really changing someone’s trajectory of health.

That’s our ‘why.’ That’s the culture here at Simple HealthKit. What’s your ‘why?’ Why do you want to do this? And it has to be a reason bigger than you. It has to be for people and the fact that you can make a big impact.”

On the difference Simple HealthKit is bringing to people:

“When you think of diagnostic tests, especially the earliest ones like the pregnancy test, you just got a test result. So, you are positive if there’s an extra line there. Now what?

From early on at SHK, we have always believed in the vision that we never want to leave someone disconnected. You want to be able to do a test, and if you’re positive, have that whole journey experience. Whether it’s via phone, tablet, laptop, whatever digital device an individual has – how do we empower that person? Today, for STDs, we did just that. If someone is positive, they are going through Telehealth and they’re getting a prescription. So we are able to impact that individual’s life – not just showing the person they are positive and leaving them with questions such as What do I do? and Where do I go? That’s such a daunting zone to be in.

How many times has each of us felt that Where do I go? And for the first time, we’re creating that seamless sense of “We got you.” We started with STDs. We’re doing that with diabetes and kidney disease, and we’re starting to solve at least the high-impact, high-need use cases and in the best way we can. Sometimes it might simply be a nurse to guide you on the other end of the line and tell you what you need to do next. The whole journey happens with a QR code.”

On what has prepared for her success as a biotech founder:

“There is a lot of training that I had before arriving to this point. I hold an undergrad in computer science. I ended up doing a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Bioengineering at University of California, Santa Barbara. I wanted to do something that’s impacting lives and building tools. And so, for my Ph.D. days, I was able to utilize computational bioinformatics, discover a whole new protein (a novel tRNA methylation enzyme) and create a new arm for my Principal Investigator (PI). I had to figure out a lot of unknowns and do it very thoughtfully and methodically, following all the steps in getting publications out. That was definitely good training.

Further, being in any industry, it’s about learning what you must do and working with regulators. You need to understand everything because healthcare is a space where you need to know what you cannot do and what you can do. I’ve had that journey of learning what you must not do and what you must.

I would say that my journey has been to see two sides of a coin. I’ve seen two sides of a coin in my childhood. But I’ve also seen two sides of the coin in healthcare. From that lens, technically, with the right set of people and the right teams – people who are humble, have empathy, have the right experience and can execute – you can do it. Because you could have a dream, but if you can’t execute on the dream, it’s over. You really need to get the smartest, kindest people in the same room and say, ‘let’s get this done.’

It’s never one person. I always say it’s not about one human. It is really about the SHK team that’s able to execute and make SHK what it is today.”

On the team diversity of Simple HealthKit leadership and staff:

“I have been in teams where I was the only woman at the table, let alone the only woman of color at the table and in the leadership role. I do recall there were moments when there were opportunities for women to move up and there were not that many people at that table giving that opportunity. That’s drawn me to a sense that, as a leader, I do have the opportunity to do so.

Also, now that I’m a mom, I see how strong mothers have to be too really do it. And immigrants and people of color, they’ve often had it so hard. They already know what resilience is.

Back in the day when there was only one seat available at the table, potentially, there was competition for that one seat. Now, I really believe in bringing the smartest people onboard, people with resilience, people who can take a ball thrown and get back up. And I feel that is the composition of our team.

And I wanted to make more seats at the table that increase the diversity of leadership and teams. It starts sometimes at the top-down and sometimes at the bottom-up, but you need the leader’s leadership to support that. I’m definitely a strong believer in women, minorities and people of color at the table because diversity is healthy. They say the best teams are the ones who have a diverse team because you’re seeing so many viewpoints and you’re able to capture others’ blindspots. I feel that is what defines the SHK team.”

On the importance of “intention” in bridging differences:

“When you have such a diverse team, there’s going to be language and cultural barriers. Different cultures that have to interact and work together. I used to be president of International Students back at UC, Santa Barbara. When you have different cultures, there’s a lot of things that can be misinterpreted. For example, I use my hands a lot and I might find certain hand movements mean something else in another culture that I did not intend.

One thing that is helpful that I’ve learned, and work with my leadership team on, is to start with your intent. Because there’s a lot about communication that doesn’t land the way you want to say it. Often, simply leading with your intent before you even start the conversation can change the ability to have difficult conversations.”

On her biggest personal growth area as a co-founder and CEO:

“The biggest stretch has been learning multiple hats and learning different subject areas – marketing, sales computer science, quality control, regulatory – and understanding what you need for those elements of success. That’s been amazing and exciting because I’m a learner.

It’s definitely been an exciting journey of learning and you also build more tools of resilience. It’s not all green grass and roses. On different levels, it’s a very humbling journey. Having empathy for yourself and for your team is important. If someone falls down, you have to say ‘let’s get back up, we need to solve this, we need to execute.’ So it’s about being able to do that without reacting.”

On being a female, and women of color, founder in Silicon Valley:

“It’s hard on many aspects. The numbers are there on how many women get funded, how many founding teams have women in them, people of color in them, and other diversity dimensions. Those numbers are real data and it’s true.

But, I also believe differences are our strengths and not something we have to hide behind. So being different but also being super-technical and data-driven changes the conversation. When that inevitable question comes – “What are your numbers? – for me, it’s being really strong about it and being thoughtful in what you answer. It’s keeping the stance that this is not about me. This is about the impact we’re going to make in people’s lives.

I would emphasize again it’s about leading with intent – even, the intent I set for myself going into those rooms with VCs. Right now, we’re so blessed. We have amazing VCs. And that’s evident because as the company is succeeding, they’re succeeding. So we’ve got a lot of trust with a great set of VCs. It’s very important to pick the right board and right VCs as part of your team. That can be hard for some founders, but we are in a very healthy and happy position.”

On championing girls and women to take the leap:

“I have a young daughter. I am blessed by that because it’s almost like you see a little ‘you’ in some aspects of the motherhood journey. I’m super passionate about women’s empowerment. I really believe women and people of color have had to build resilience. But I also think it’s so important to not hold yourself back. Too often women say, ‘I don’t know if I can do it. Maybe I need to study this. Take one more course. Wait one more year.’ And I’m like, ‘no, you got this.’

You need to have a support system that pushes you farther but also telling yourself that you have this. Since college, I’ve inspired people to learn, learn, learn. Learn, because you’re the product – what you’re learning, what you’re building – but also you have to also give yourself that strength. When women feel like they can’t do something, I challenge them to go ahead and take an attempt at it. Don’t say ‘no’ upfront. Go ahead and take that attempt to give yourself that time to bring it and then, come up with a plan. Maybe you’ve never done it before. But before you say ‘no,’ go try. Don’t give up too fast. Take a stab at it. Propose something.

I’m happy that I get to be both a cheerleader and support system for women. I’m happy to do any amount of inspiration, because I think there’s a lot of women holding back. Can I be a mom and be a founder? Yes you can. Trust me, you can. So I’m all about championing the ‘yes.’”

On why overcoming challenge means you are very strong:

“This is simple but a super powerful set of advice. A lot of times people feel nervous or fearful. Maybe you even think nobody knows you or that deep inside, you are weak. But your core is a really strong core. That’s what’s been able to get you through those tough times when you were falling but also able to get back up. So remind yourself, you are strong. You did the hard work. You got through. Remind yourself of your successes. Remind yourself it’s just another challenge. If you’ve gone through hardship and you’ve endured an emotionally hard time, then what got your here today is actually your strength.

I’m also Christian, so I was always raised with that spiritual sense of knowing I’m going to do good and God’s going to take care of me. I was also encouraged by my Mom telling me that if you really work hard and put your mind to it, you can get it done with God’s grace. So that’s generally who I am as a person and I have an amazing support system.”

On making a greater impact on lives:

“The vehicle of SHK is massive right with our recent announcement with Walmart, the largest retailer in the world, and the reach of Walmart in rural America and health deserts. It’s literally creating that front door access point for some who never had access. They can get that diabetes test online or at the store, and now it’s telling someone they aren’t tracking right and we have resources that can help them for a lifestyle and nutrition change.

We’re excited about that partnership because of the impact. In America, 40% are pre-diabetic; 80% don’t know. With STDs, one in five adults have an STD and one in two under the age of 24. So it affects young people, college students, young professionals and even among the baby boomers retirement community, we see a spike in STDS. We’re really solving for high-need, high use cases but we also know that early detection can change the course of a life.

Internally at Simple HealthKit, I believe people have also perhaps seen two sides of a coin in the workplace. Maybe they’ve seen healthy and toxic. They’ve seen hurtful and painful and successful and happy. What I hope to create is almost a professional family. Similar to family, it’s not going to be all roses and green grass. We’re going to have things thrown at us. And it’s so important at that moment to get back up, get back to work, figure out what to do and create that bond that is like no other with such a diverse team. I want us to be that exceptional team in Silicon Valley that has more women and women of color at the table delivering and executing on the mission that we set out to do.

For me, creating impact is also about teaching simple things like remembering the strength in your core and having intentions around conversations. My intent is to inspire with those tools. I feel those tools are like your belt of strength for anything – your journey at your work, your journey as a future leader.

I love seeing that one of our leadership team started as an intern and then moved from scientist to associate scientist to taking a leading position in the company. For me it’s so amazing to see growth in individuals and then watch them inspiring another set of leaders. So I feel we can only pass the love, the tools, and the resilience to each other. We can create that spiral effect to the next generation of young leaders.”

On deriving more meaning and fulfillment in work:

“When you wake up, do you feel like this is what you set out to do? Are you happy? You spend a lot of time at work. Like with any relationship, ask yourself, Are you happy? Does it bring joy?

Also, are you doing the right thing? I think it’s important to ground yourself. Do you feel you’re doing good? You’re now in a place where you have a platform, so how can you bring others with you?

Also, think of all the different ways you specifically want to create impact. Go-getters can be racing and have a goal. But, pause. And ask, am I running in the right direction? It’s okay to pause for a good minute, and take that time to think about is this what makes you really, really happy?

For my daughter’s first birthday several years ago, we were at a shelter celebrating with young girls who were rescued from the streets in India. That experience was so amazing, because these young girls have a chance, and that mission was inspiring.

With healthcare, it combines the skills I had and it’s also mission-driven. So, can you combine your passion with your skillset? That’s why I feel like I’m happy, because I am doing exactly that with SHK.”

On gratitude and being present:

“Gratefulness is a big quality in my home and household and my team. Kindness and gratefulness, especially when you’ve seen disparity on the other side of the table. Look at what you have. Start with gratefulness.

My daughter is six years old and my son is three. I love spending time with my kids. I just love their joy. The life and sparkle in their eyes. all the way from doing science experiments at home – they’re super fascinated by that – to going to the beach and parks and swimming.

More than anything, just being present. Because with digital devices, it’s so easy to be distracted. It’s so important to be present. When I am with my children, I am present.”

Interviewed by Aimee Hansen