Voice of Experience: Natalie Horton, Head of Synthetic Equity Trading for North America, Deutsche Bank

nataliehortonBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Natalie Horton, Head of Synthetic Equity Trading for North America at Deutsche Bank, has spent seventeen years learning the business. And her biggest piece of advice comes down to building relationships.

“Network – I could say it a thousand times. It’s so important. Above you, around you, and below you,” she said. “Get to know everyone. That’s how you learn. If I have any sort of problem, maybe I don’t have the answer, but I know who does,” she explained.

Horton has built her career by taking risks and making connection with others – and, she said – she wants more women to feel comfortable doing the same.

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Voice of Experience: Jennifer Fitzgibbon, Managing Director, Treasurer, Americas, RBS Global Banking & Markets

jenniferfitzgibbonBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“Think about how you are going to distinguish yourself in this industry,” advised Jennifer Fitzgibbon, Managing Director and Treasurer, Americas at RBS‘s Global Banking and Markets division. “What are the things I can do to stand out and establish myself as a go-to person?”

This is something Fitzgibbon has worked hard to do throughout her career. She recalled attending an off-site ski trip in Austria early in her career. She didn’t know how to ski but managed to connect with a colleague whom she had not previously met). He convinced her to ski down the black diamond slope with him.

“Later, I found out he was actually our new global head, and subsequently had recommended me for a large role because he thought I could handle anything. That’s the importance of putting yourself out there and taking a risk. Just try to do it without so many bruises!”

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Voice of Experience: Kim Stafford, Executive Vice President, PIMCO

Stafford_KimBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“One of the challenges women face in financial services is the overall number of senior women we have as an industry. There are many amazing women at PIMCO, and in the industry broadly, but there are fewer of them than men,” explained Kim Stafford, Executive Vice President at PIMCO.

She continued, “But I’m actually quite heartened that this is changing. We’re actually seeing many more female leaders in the industry and that’s exciting.”

After eleven years at the firm, Stafford recently joined PIMCO’s executive office, working on firm-wide strategic, financial and operational initiatives. Also an enthusiastic supporter of women in the industry, Stafford is a member of the steering committee for the firm’s Women’s Leadership Network.

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Intrepid Woman: Learning about Effective Leadership by Rappelling Waterfalls

laurabergerContributed by Laura Berger, Executive Advisor and Founder of The Berdéo Group. She is also Director of Corporate Programs at Tiara—Exceptional Women’s Coaching.

While living in Costa Rica, I learned to rappel waterfalls from great heights. I overcame what I thought was an insurmountable challenge – my fear of heights.

When my husband and I went on our first rappelling trip, I was instructed on the techniques for gradually rappelling without having to plunge into the water from the precipice 110 ft up. Rappelling reduces the acceleration of gravity, thereby avoiding the crushing clash of two surfaces—one being part or all of the adventurer’s body and the other being the rocky pool below. Fortunately when done properly and with control, rappelling allows you to enjoy your surroundings during the gradual descent and exercises the brain by learning new techniques to be applied to the next rappelling experience.

Certainly, significant preparation is required. Our guides had rappel anchors with backups already in the trees at the top of the waterfall. Even so, they invested significant time and energy in retesting these anchors before our rappel. They also tested our knots, checked that the ropes were properly looped through our rappel devices and made sure that our ropes would not come into contact with any sharp objects during our descent for fear of their severing.

My rappel could only begin when I committed myself to angle my body 90 degrees so that I could walk on the wall face horizontally. This was extremely counterintuitive, but trying walk vertically as I was used to resulted in my body slamming into the wall face-first, very painfully.

The descent was controlled by grabbing the rope below my waste, not above. Since my body was hanging from the rope above, my natural inclination was to grab the rope hard above my waist with both hands to avoid a fall. Of course, this would only scour my hands raw, before I fell anyway. Truly, there is no strong grabbing required. Rather, lifting the hand outward away from the waist speeds up the descent and bringing that hand downward below the waist slows it.

Rappelling waterfalls is exhilarating on so many levels. First, realizing that slanting my back flat horizontal to the ground 110 feet below actually was safer was a thrilling paradigm. Then, walking a wall of orchids, mosses, insects, and other wonders gave the feeling of exploring uncharted territory. The brake hand is a fantastically unreasonable anomaly as well. That is, to completely stop and dunk my head in the waterfall or examine a plant by lowering one hand was complete defiance of natural laws.

Finally, arriving at the bottom of the rock face and seeing the wall above was organically awe-inspiring in that an otherwise unconscionable route was taken in a methodical, controlled manner. The unconventionality of the experience was a rush, even though there was never any true danger given the safeties in place.

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Movers and Shakers: Ellen Galinsky, Co-Founder and President, Families and Work Institute

EllenGalinskyBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“My biggest piece of advice,” said Ellen Galinsky, Co-Founder and President of the Families and Work Institute and a pioneer in the study of work-life issues, “is don’t think that tension will totally disappear. We will always have some work-life tension.”

Galinsky’s work has spanned decades and subjects – parents, children, men, women – and she’s gained key insight into the evolution of the problems faced by working parents.

“I think a lot of mothers worry about how their work will affect their child. But the fact is, the real impact on your children comes from the kind of relationship you have with them. Decades of studies have shown that work doesn’t have that much of an impact — you as parents do! So ask yourself, “what kind of parent do I want to be?”

Galinsky’s most recent work shows that more men are reporting work-life conflict than women. The Institute’s new report, The New Male Mystique [PDF], examines the reason behind it – and why it’s important for women.

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Voice of Experience: Liv Sandbaek, Managing Director, Technology, Accenture

LivSandbaekBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

In her 20 year career in technology, Liv Sandbaek has climbed the ranks at Accenture to become Managing Director of Technology in the company’s UK office. In fact, she’s become so well regarded that she was recently awarded by Science and Technology award at the CBI and Real Business’ 2011 First Women Awards.

According to Sandbaek, women have the skills to get ahead – but often lack the confidence to take charge. She said, “Women need to feel 100% confident to do a job before they accept, but men will volunteer for anything. We need to take a few chances here – it’s all to do with the confidence you feel inside.”

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Rising Star: Kelly Widelska, Knowledge Leader – Global Transaction Advisory Services, Ernst & Young Global

By Cleo Thompson (London), founder of The Gender Blog

For London based Kelly Widelska, an Associate Director at Ernst & Young, knowledge really is power and has led to global opportunities. Following her Masters in Information Management from the University of Sheffield, Widelska joined the accounting giant’s EMEIA management consulting division for two years, prior to moving to Cap Gemini following the sell-off of E&Y’s consulting practice. A year later, she returned to the Ernst & Young fold and headed to China and Hong Kong, where she helped to set up and develop the Centre for Business Knowledge, an internal function for knowledge management, providing programmes, techniques and technologies to help E&Y staff share what they know.

After three years in China, her role expanded into the Far East, after which she returned to the UK in 2005 to a transaction advisory role in a country knowledge management capacity. Her next move saw a shift to a broader cross-firm position, supporting Global functional teams in areas such as Tax, Climate Change and Sustainability and People teams with their knowledge sharing needs. Widelska has been in her current role as Global TAS Knowledge Leader since 2009 and now leads a team of ten as part of a highly matrixed knowledge organisation.

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Voice of Experience: Stephanie Ruhle, Managing Director, Relationship Management, Deutsche Bank

StephanieRuhleBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“It’s an interesting time to be a woman in this business – you have the opportunity to be a pioneer and affect change. Women might be on the verge of real change thanks to women supporting women. There is a sense of urgency to promote and empower,” said Stephanie Ruhle, Managing Director in Relationship Management at Deutsche Bank.

Ruhle thinks more women are entering the discussion for senior roles on Wall Street. She spoke enthusiastically about the opportunities afforded by the field, as well as the importance of senior female role models to empower the next generation of women.

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Intrepid Woman: Helping Women Connect and Create Opportunities

vanessavallelyContributed by Vanessa Vallely, Founder of We Are The City

Back in 2008, I was a frustrated career orientated mum of 2. I realised that if I wanted to move on in my career I needed to seek other development opportunities outside of my Corporate environment. It only took me a year or so to work out that developing my career was not at the top of my bosses’ agenda and that my boat wasn’t going to come in, I had to swim out to it.

I had heard of women’s networking groups before, but, to be honest I had bought in to the stereotype that these were feminist gatherings where they burned bras and effigies of men. How wrong could one be?! And who would have thought that my frustration would not only lead me to create a solution to the problem, but through that process I would become such a huge advocate of women’s networks.

Despite my original preconception about their value, researching women’s networks in more detail felt like a sensible place to start. I reverted to the old fashioned Google search, and what appeared was nothing short of information overload. There were multiple groups offering all different kinds of support. Some were industry specific, some were senior Women only, others wanted hard cash for what I could see was little in return. My frustration was the amount of information I would have to wade through in order to make an informed decision about where I invested my time and what I would get in return.

What I actually wanted was a one stop shop that could provide me with a synopsis of all of the City Women’s networks, a centralized place where I could see what events were running in my area, a place where I could read articles written by experts that would contribute to my development or spark my creative juices and if possible (as we are women after all) provide me with a bit of City lifestyle guidance, e.g. where to entertain my clients, where to drink with my colleagues, where to shop in the concrete jungle and perhaps even where to get my nails done!

Despite searching, I quickly found no such website existed. So after a bit of convincing from my husband and friends that this was a good idea, coupled with the results of our market research, www.wearethecity.com was born.

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35 Under 35: Stephanie Niven, Portfolio Manager, Javelin Capital

StephanieNivenBy Cleo Thompson (London), founder of The Gender Blog

Twenty-seven year old Stephanie Niven is aiming high. As sole Portfolio Manager of the Fundamental Strategy of the Global Equity Strategies Fund at specialist equity boutique Javelin Capital LLP, she has already been named both the Young Professional of the Year at the Women in Banking and Finance (WIBF) 2011 Awards and as one of Management Today’s 35 Women Under 35.

The list, published annually, showcases the UK’s highest achieving young women, acknowledging female talent in a variety of industries and disciplines. Nearly half of this year’s list includes women involved in the successful start-up of new corporations, with Stephanie’s inclusion reflecting her role as part of a three person team from Goldman Sachs who established Javelin Capital in 2009.

A self-described “geek”, albeit one who also competes in triathlons, Niven’s career indicates how it’s possible to find success in the City without the typical background of an economics or finance degree. She has a double first in History from Oxford University and describes history as her “passion, rather than a vocation – but the skills that I bring from an arts degree, such as assessment and the ability to constantly be learning, are very useful in a stimulating environment such as the City.”

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