Voice of Experience: Libby Cantrill, Senior Vice President, PIMCO

LibbyCantrillBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“Don’t be afraid to ask and don’t be afraid of your own voice,” said Libby Cantrill, Senior Vice President at PIMCO. “A lot of times, women don’t think they deserve to be in the room, to have a seat at the table. They do.”

One of the key lessons she has learned throughout her career is the importance of asking for the career opportunities you want. “Women are often afraid to ask for things and put themselves out there. But all of the most interesting things and opportunities that I have experienced in my own career are the result of asking for them,” she said.

She continued, “The other thing I’ve learned is that no one will manage your career for you. I would advise women to be proactive and strategic when thinking about the next steps in their career advancement.”

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Voice of Experience: Liz Bingham, Managing Partner, People and Talent, UK and Ireland, Ernst & Young

lizbinghamBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“In order to attract and retain the best people, we have to make sure that we are looking at talent through a diversity and inclusion lens,” said Liz Bingham, Managing Partner of People and Talent for the UK and Ireland at Ernst & Young. “This is an area I am completely passionate about. As a school leaver (non graduate), a woman, and also an out lesbian, I tick quite a few gender diversity boxes.”

Bingham rose through the ranks at Ernst & Young as a member of the firm’s restructuring business, eventually becoming managing partner of the $150 million practice. Last year, she decided she was ready for a new challenge, and was appointed to the UK firm’s leadership team as Managing Partner for People and Talent. Now she is keenly focused on taking learning and development, diversity and inclusion, and employee engagement to the next level.

“I want to be sure talent in every shape and form is nurtured, to create a more meaningful experience for every individual who works for the firm for however long they stay with us,” she said.

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Voice of Experience: Kelly Williams, Group Head and Managing Director, Customized Fund Investment Group, Asset Management Division, Credit Suisse

KellyWilliamsBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Kelly Williams, Group Head and Managing Director of Credit Suisse’s Customized Fund Investment Group, believes that networking is critical in the private equity business – especially for women.

“Too many people focus solely on doing deals, and not as much on being part of firm building,” she said. “Networking and relationship development with both entrepreneurs and investors are equally important for building a sustainable career. That’s where women need help in this industry.”

Williams, whose group manages over $28 billion of assets on behalf of clients globally, is the founding chair of the Private Equity Women Investor Network, and believes that by playing a bigger role in generating business, women can raise their profile across the industry.

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Movers and Shakers: Jane Newton, Partner and Wealth Manager, RegentAtlantic Capital

janenewtonBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Jane Newton was drawn to Wall Street fresh out of her graduation from Tufts University. “What better place is there for an econ major who wants to learn about business in the Big Apple?” she asked.  “I wanted to learn from the smartest people around.”

Newton joined JP Morgan, working in investment banking for 12 years, then moving to private banking for another six. “Switching to work with high net worth clients was probably the best strategic decision I could have made – having that direct impact on the important people I work with and their families.”

She continued, “And moving to RegentAtlantic Capital seven years ago was the other best decision I’ve made professionally. The firm has fostered my leadership and created an environment where I can hone my focus and skills toward a specific market.”

Now Partner and Wealth Manager at RegentAtlantic, Newton is also an enthusiastic advocate of networking, especially for women. In 2010, she launched the annual Wall Street Women Forum®, an event designed specifically for high-level women on Wall Street to help them continue their professional success. “Conceiving of the Forum takes me totally out of my comfort zone. I created something from scratch to meet a need I identified. The Forum changes women’s lives in a way I didn’t expect from the beginning and it has touched a nerve. There’s a gap we’ve been able to fill for these professionals,” she explained.

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Voice of Experience: Maria Castañón Moats, Chief Diversity Officer, PwC

Maria MoatsAccording to Maria Castañón Moats, Chief Diversity Officer at PwC, simply acknowledging diversity isn’t enough to unlock its benefits – companies must engage with diversity to really experience its value. “I’m getting out there and talking to different people in practice about why it’s important for us to engage with each other when it comes to diversity,” she said.

“Think about behaviors – like inclusion. We need to understand not only how we are similar, but we need to understand how we are different.”

“Taking an interest in that difference and leveraging that makes us better as a team,” she explained. “If we could all behave as advocates for one another, think of how powerful that would be.”

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Intrepid Woman: How I Got My Career Back on Track as a New Mom

kellycepedaContributed by Kelly Cepeda

I lost my job at Goldman Sachs in the midst of the 2009 economic meltdown, and soon after, I found out I was expecting my first child. Taking a break from work to spend time with my baby was something I had always looked forward to, so I thought the timing was perfect. It wasn’t until the start of 2011, when my son turned a year old and I felt that he was ready to be “let out into the world,” that I realized how much time had actually gone by.

As I began to revise my resume and speak to people in the financial industry, I realized how far I had fallen behind my peers. The gap in my resume was daunting. Would someone really want to hire me after I had been away from the corporate setting for such a long time? I realized that choosing to be a stay-at-home mom had taken a toll on my self-confidence, but there was no way I was going to get anywhere feeling sorry for myself. I had the relevant experience, and I had worked for excellent firms, including New York Life, Bears, and Goldman Sachs, and I had an unbeatable enthusiasm about returning to work. Why not hire me?

Well, I can tell you, not too many people appreciated that I took leave from my career to be there for my son, in his first year of life, and most were not shy to express this. To make matters worse, there were those who poked fun by calling me a big dreamer for believing that I could still have a career. If my so-called friends thought this way, then what would actual employers say? One friend even suggested that I lie about the reason I chose to take time off – to actually deny having my baby! To me, choosing to be a stay-at-home mom was a gift. I was very proud of having made this choice, and there was no way I was going to hide it.

Hearing these negative voices made things even more challenging. I have always been a dreamer, a trait that has enabled me to visualize the life I want to have and follow the right path to make those dreams come true.

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Movers and Shakers: Lynne Laube, President and COO, Cardlytics Inc.

LynneLaubeBy Robin Madell, San Francisco

Tradition may come to mind before innovation when thinking about the financial services industry. But for Lynne Laube, president and COO of Cardlytics, Inc., innovation has consistently come first. “I have always been excited by innovation and knew that was where I wanted to focus my career,” she explained.

After starting her career at Bank One and then spending 13 years at Capital One, most recently as vice president and COO, Laube decided to take a more entrepreneurial route. She co-founded Cardlytics, which offers targeted advertising within banking, in the summer of 2008 with Scott Grimes, Cardlytics CEO. Yet even while serving in her earlier roles in banking, Laube was always on the lookout for opportunities to innovate—and found several.

Over the years, Laube worked on products that have since become ubiquitous in the industry, but at the time were cutting-edge, such as balance transfer, micro-business lending, and private-label lending. “I love creating new products, building new businesses, and trying new models,” she said. “When I joined Capital One, they were at the forefront of innovation within consumer and business lending.”

Toward the end of her tenure, she began focusing on payment innovation, and played a major role in the creation of decoupled debit, a groundbreaking and controversial product. While the product ultimately was unsuccessful, Laube’s work in this area helped her see the potential for other innovations with financial services. “I suspected it would be easier to innovate from a new company rather than within the walls of a very large bank, and that is when I left Capital One and started Cardlytics,” she said.

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Thought Leaders: Cynthia Steer, Head of Manager Research & Investment Solutions, BNY Mellon

thought-leadershipAccording to Cynthia Steer, Head of Manager Research & Investment Solutions at BNY Mellon, the benefit of a mentoring relationship comes down to learning. “You always learn something from sitting down with someone else,” she explained. “Women are always managing something else – whether it’s your job, your marriage, your family – and there’s always something one can learn about. It’s very simple.”

“I’ve always been a mentor and I’ve always learned more than I gave,” she continued. Steer explained that she quickly figured out the value of cross-generational relationships when she began her career on a team managing foreign exchange rates. “The team was made up of new kids on the block like me and seasoned individuals – and I saw that every perspective was valuable, but the combination was more valuable than the discrete parts.”

“Portfolio management is like fashion in that it always needs to be remade at the edges, with new thinking or new foci, and having multiple generations’ perspectives furthers that.”

She added, “Also, I think it’s vitally important for women like me at this point in my career to stand up in front of the room and be counted. I’m always humbled by the opportunity to do it.”

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Voice of Experience: Nicole Arnaboldi, Managing Director and Vice Chairman of Alternative Investments, Credit Suisse

nicolearnaboldiBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“While I’m not normally a fan of sports analogies, there’s a great Wayne Gretzky quote,” began Nicole Arnaboldi, Managing Director and Vice Chairman of Alternative Investments in Credit Suisse’s Asset Management division. “It goes something like ‘Head for where the puck is going to be, not where it is.’ When you think about your career, think about where the world is heading, and go to where the tide is rising.”

“I think asset management is one of those areas where the puck is heading,” she pointed out, considering the rise in global wealth.

“This advice isn’t limited to young people. Even as you have become more senior, take a step back and think about where the world is heading, and about what the opportunities are for you,” she continued.

Having spent almost 30 years rising through the alternative investment business, Arnaboldi shared her advice and expertise, based on her career of “going to where the puck is heading.”

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Intrepid Woman: Marie Colvin (12 January 1956 – 22 February 2012)

MarieColvinBy Jane Carruthers (London)

How do you define a thoroughly modern heroine? Brave, candid, funny, kind and fantastically good at her job? Well, that’s certainly part of it. It was a job that demanded Marie Colvin took more risks than most people would consider sane, and one that she made peculiarly her own. By her sheer professionalism, personal bravery and awe-inspiring energy Marie Colvin became a legend in the hard-bitten world of war reporting. The newspapers and websites are abuzz with praise for a woman who lived her life to the maximum, working in places closer to a vision of hell than many of us can imagine, and telling the stories of ordinary people so that the world could know about the horrors and the atrocities they faced on a daily basis.

Along with Kate Adie, Christiane Amanpour, and Janine di Giovanni, Colvin crashed the almost exclusively male world of war reporting. Ground-breaking in the latter part of the last century, these women have shown the way to other women who want to pursue their chosen careers without fear of discrimination. Colvin did not do so as a quasi-male. She brought her own brand of femininity to her work, and liked nothing more than having a ritzy manicure and a night out in designer clothes, partying with her large circle of friends when home from an assignment.

Her friends and colleagues speak of someone full of fun, who knew the world’s darkest corners but also how to party – hard. East Timor, Sri Lanka (where she lost an eye), Chechnya, Libya. A roll-call of the horror centres of recent years, and she was there, telling it like it is, like always. Syria was to be her downfall. Murdered in a run-down press HQ in Homs, along with her French photographer Remi Ochlik, she had ‘one more story to file’ and died doing it. Two of her colleagues are still stranded in the bombed-out press centre, injured and desperate to get out.

Yale educated Colvin started her career as a night police reporter with UPI, eventually moving to Europe where she worked in Paris as Bureau chief. She moved to The Sunday Times in 1985 and became Middle East correspondent in one of the most turbulent periods in the region. She could be relied upon to get the scoop, even winning an unheard-of interview with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Award-winning and highly respected around the world for her hard-hitting coverage, her successes came at great personal cost: she lost an eye when she came under fire from the Sri Lankan government forces in an RPG attack, and suffered post-traumatic stress disorder for a year, requiring hospitalisation. Her three marriages failed. Vaughan Smith, founder of the Frontline Club in London, where Colvin and her friends would congregate to relax between assignments, said: “She had a tough time. You cannot live a normal life with her job.”

Friend Virginia Bonham Carter, who knew Colvin for over 30 years, said that she managed to combine being brave and serious with incredible joie de vivre and energy for fun: “Marie connected with virtually every person she met.”

Colvin was not shy of using her considerable style and charm to gain entry to some of the most influential offices in the world. When working in the Middle East, she followed the more modest dress code required. A Moslem friend taught her how to tie the hijab around her neck properly, but Colvin insisted that she got better interviews if she showed a bit of cleavage. With Colvin, it was never a sacrifice of personal integrity – but she would – and did – push with every fibre of her determination to get the quote, get the story, file the scoop.

To ask the question “what does it mean to be an intrepid woman?” you need to little more than to read Marie Colvin’s resume. She embodied excellence, passion and humanity.

Much of the coverage of her death dwells on her gender, which is perhaps not surprising given her working world. Perhaps the greatest honour we could do her would be to ensure that it is not her gender for which she will be remembered, but her professionalism and her passion.

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