“Focus on achieving your passion, not a job title” to achieve career success and happiness according to Lisa O’Donnell, Managing Director at Citi. O’Donnell knows this trick from experience. If she had defined her career by a particular job title, she would most likely still be wearing dark suits and selling mainframe computers – albeit with a bigger title. Instead, she has leveraged her skills as a builder and someone who “connects the dots” and created a career where she works to engage Citi’s retail banking customers all while reducing risk.
Kelly Driscoll knew she was in the right place to take on more responsibilities at State Street Global Advisors. She just didn’t know that her next step would involve moving to Asia; Hong Kong to be precise, to head up the broad Asset Management business for all of Asia ex Japan.
“I literally went there, sight unseen and I had never been to Asia before. It was such an exciting adventure to accept a great job and have the opportunity to experience the multiple cultures of the region.”
Christina Mohr describes herself as “solidly an M&A person,” a statement reflected by her 34-year career on the Street. One of the first analysts on Wall Street in 1978, she became the first female partner in Mergers and Acquisitions at Lazard Freres, prior to joining Salomon Brothers (which became part of Citi), where she has built her career ever since.
Though she has run different coverage groups – including retail, consumer and media – M&A is what she most enjoys and where she excels.
“The M&A business is focused squarely on our clients,” says Mohr. “I am proud of the fact that after 34 years, I still have clients who seek out my counsel. I consider it an honor and a privilege, and it’s what keeps the business interesting and fresh to me.”
Silvia Lucena Gosalvez has spent her entire career on the M&A team for PwC Spain, having joined 15 years ago after a short stint at a family business while finishing her tax advisement master’s degree. And for her that has been a perfect fit.
“Being on the M&A team has given me the opportunity to work on complex international projects, exploring the full continuum of deals — from restructuring to execution to post-deal integration.”
“Play the course and not the other players,” says Kristin Wells, when asked about her personal drive. “Don’t constantly compare yourself to others. Instead, focus on what you’re doing right, and improve on what you need to within yourself.”
Wells has embodied the definition of a ‘mover and shaker’ since she began her career as a Corporate Securities Associate at Pepper Hamilton. She became a partner the first year that she was eligible and had a baby that same year.
“Explore and learn about all the things you can achieve and then ask for what you want.” That’s the advice Priscilla Hughes of Thomson Reuters gives to women, whether they are novices or seasoned professionals—a lesson she had to learn the hard way.
Growing up in Brooklyn, Hughes didn’t know how many career opportunities were out there for women. “I thought that my dream job would be working for the telephone company,” she says. But thanks to hard work, good mentors, and a willingness to take risks and try new things, her dreams have been dwarfed by reality. Never did she imagine she would find herself as a leader in the legal field — as General Counsel Europe & Asia and Chief Counsel for M&A in Financial & Risk at Thomson Reuters.
“Clients want to do business with people they like and trust, and you can only build trust over a long period of time,” says Goldman Sachs’ Alison Mass.
Mass began her career in the fast-paced industry at Drexel Burnham after earning her MBA in 1981 from New York University. Then in 1990, Mass went to a competitor before joining Goldman Sachs in 2001 as a partner.
“I’ve been fortunate to have had the same client base for most of my career, and have seen the private equity industry grow almost from inception,” she says, recalling that when she started in the 1980s, there were few funds over $1 billion. “I’ve been able to grow with my clients and invest in relationships that span decades. It’s been a privilege to watch private equity firms evolve over that period of time. Most professionals don’t ever get that kind of an opportunity.”
After earning degrees in Business & Insurance Science and Business Administration from Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca in Spain, Belen Navarro began her professional career in April 1997 as an account executive at a brokerage firm in Madrid.
In 1997 she joined AIG Europe, where she held various positions of increasing responsibility in the finance area in Spain and Portugal for 12 years. In 2009, she was offered what she calls a life-changing opportunity: to join the Regional Financial Lines team for Latin America and the Caribbean. Navarro currently heads the Latin America and Caribbean Professional Liability and Cyber team for AIG with the responsibility for establishing underwriting strategy and implementing best practices across the region.
Lisa Carnoy, Division Executive for Northeast and Metro New York U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth Management, is a persistent and self-described optimist. Carnoy is pleased to have both “survived and thrived in” the multiple market and corporate changes over the years, including the end of junk bonds, the tech crunch, and the 2007 crisis.
This summer marks her twenty-fifth year in the financial industry and also marks another career milestone as she advances her career from Global Capital Markets to the company’s wealth-management unit. Carnoy, who started at Merrill in 1994, has emerged as one of the top strategists in the company and was recognized by American Banker as one of the 25 most powerful women in finance.
Fresh out of college, Amanda Tepper, currently a financial industry leader as founder and CEO of Chestnut Advisory Group, set her sights on a career in the radio industry. “And then one night, as I stood on stage introducing Ozzy Osbourne, I realized it was not for me. Time to get off the ‘Crazy Train’,” she says.
That wakeup call sent Tepper to the career networking office at her alma mater, Brown University, where she found a job on Wall Street at Mabon, Nugent & Co — and she has never looked back.