Thought Leader: Alison Maitland, Future Work – Moving to an Output-Oriented Work Culture

Alison MaitlandAlison Maitland is a business author, speaker and conference moderator who specialises in leadership, diversity, and the new world of work. She is Director of The Conference Board’s Europe-based Council for Diversity in Business, a Senior Visiting Fellow at London’s Cass Business School, and co-author of the prize-winning book Why Women Mean Business. Alison, with co-author Peter Thomson, recently published the second edition of Future Work and she sat down with theglasshammer.com to share her views on why future work is a critical part of an organisation’s long term success.

The Glass Hammer: How is future work different to flexible working?

Alison Maitland: Flexible work arrangements tend to be tactical initiatives by HR, targeted at individuals and disconnected from any strategy being pursued by the organisation’s leadership. They do not fundamentally alter the current work model.

What we call “future work” is a business strategy to move away from focusing on inputs to viewing work as an activity that produces desired results. The focus is on performance and outcomes, not hours spent in the office, and people have much greater autonomy and choice about how, where and when they carry out their tasks.

Communications technology is of course the great enabler of this. Future work is about giving everyone the tools, information and objectives they need and then letting them get on with the job in the way that works best. To become a core part of a company’s culture, it needs to be driven by leaders across the organisation – IT, finance, communications and real estate as well as HR and leadership development.

TGH: Why is future work important now?

AM: The new workforce is looking for something very different from the traditional career and work model. The International Women’s Forum UK recently celebrated its 25th anniversary with a survey asking current and emerging female leaders about success, including what they would do differently if starting again. While many of the senior women said they would not do anything differently, some wished they had said “no” more often during their careers or been less hard on themselves. One said “We have to change the concept of work to make it more relevant to a woman’s life.” The responses from the younger women placed strong value on balance, happiness, fulfilment, and the need to pace and prioritise carefully. These trends are supported by a global ACCA/Mercer survey, which we reference in Future Work. The survey asked over 3,200 millennial finance professionals how they felt about their jobs. It found that this generation wants a much broader range of benefits from working life and that making more money is a less important factor in career success than it was to previous generations.

What does this mean for organisations? Employers can no longer assume that employees will put up with having to work at rigid times in a fixed location if it does not make sense to do so. If employers don’t offer greater autonomy and choice, they will struggle to attract top talent. Future work also allows companies to draw from a broader and more diverse talent pool, which in turn should lead to more innovative organisations. Future work is not a nice-to-have – it should be a viewed as a priority by leaders looking to deliver sustainable success.

TGH: Are leaders really convinced about the benefits of future work?

AM: Those we feature in the book definitely are! But many managers still fear that people won’t work if they can’t see them sitting at their desks around them – hence the jacket-on-chair syndrome. In reality, most people are more productive and motivated when they feel empowered and trusted by their managers to get the work done, regardless of time or place. Through a combination of surveys and case studies, we’ve shown that there is a wide range of benefits for business, including increased productivity, more reliable business continuity, faster access to market, and reduced costs. Organisations need to do a better job of measuring these benefits to see what a difference future work can make.

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Women in Tech: Leaders of Tomorrow | Whitepaper

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It seems like today women are better positioned than ever before to rise to leadership roles in technology. Not only do companies have many kinds of support structures in place, such as women’s networks and leadership development courses, but there is an increasing number of women at the top who can serve as role models or inspiration. Externally, groups like the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, Girls Who Code, and other organizations aim to support women in the industry and increase the percentage of women entering the tech space as well.

Nevertheless, women are still a distinct minority in the technology workforce – and an even smaller proportion of corporate leadership. In the 1980s, women represented a peak of between 35 and 40 percent of the computing and information technology (IT) workforce in the U.S. By 2011, that percentage dropped to about 25 percent, according to NCWIT. This coincided with a decrease in the percentage of women majoring in computer science degrees in college.

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Thought Leader: TJ Huntley, Managing Director, Internal Audit, Citi

TJ HuntleyThis month, TJ Huntley, Managing Director of Internal Audit at Citi, celebrates 22 years of working in the financial services industry. She remarked, “This industry allows you to make a difference with customers and clients and simultaneously engage in various analysis of key risk, independently assess the design and operating effectiveness of key controls, and engage in various operational process initiatives.”

As the financial services industry has evolved over the years, so has Huntley. Throughout her career, she has always embraced change and new challenges. This, she noted, is a key component of professional growth and development. Huntley advised, “You cannot survive as a leader if you are not equipped to handle changes that may be required in your strategy, vision, or leadership style. Innovation requires change.”

Huntley added, “You have to believe that you can contribute at a fast pace in an environment full of change, like the financial services industry, where so much is happening from a regulatory perspective.”

Navigating the Regulatory Environment of Financial Services
According to Huntley, the challenges presented by regulatory compliance are currently a key focus for senior level executives in financial services. “Right now, various organizations are going through a series of transformations, looking at what they do and figuring out how to do it better. Having a strong and independent internal audit department is important for interpreting, assessing, and identifying the gaps within an organization, and advising the boards on the risks and independent audit assessments associated with different business practices.”

Regulators have what Huntley referred to as heightened expectations for large national banks and federal savings associations to strengthen the minimum expectations and force organizations in the financial services industry to look at their risk management practices, which include assessing the controls to mitigate risk and demonstrating sustainability of those controls. “These expectations are driving the actions of all the critical banks,” said Huntley.

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Thought Leader: Pamela Ravare Browne, National Chief Operating Officer, ALPFA National Office

Pamela Ravare Browne

“I consider myself to be a southern girl with big dreams and a lot of faith that they would come true,” said Pamela Ravare Browne regarding the career journey she embarked on before joining ALPFA as the Chief Operating Officer in 2010. She continued, “I have been very blessed as an executive leader with over twenty years of professional experience to utilize my skills and talents as well as my passion for non-profit.”

Ravare Browne was born in California, but spent her childhood in Germany. “This was my first introduction to the international world and gained the perspective that the world is so much bigger and broader than what we see,” she recalled. After growing up overseas, Ravare Browne returned to the United States and completed her undergraduate degree in Marketing and graduate school education at Louisiana State University, earning an MBA with a concentration in Marketing and International Business.

An Unlikely Career Path

“I recognized my desire to pursue higher education and became very passionate about it after being one of the few members of my family to complete a MBA degree,” said Ravare Browne. She continued, “I worked in the corporate arena for a few years at General Motors, IBM, and Proctor and Gamble in the marketing division at each firm.” While Ravare Browne felt very privileged to be working at these Fortune 100 companies, she felt like she was not tapping into her true passion. She explained, “There was something from a contribution standpoint that wasn’t quite gratifying for me.”

After spending some time in China, Ravare Browne came back to the United States and accepted a visiting professor position at the University of Miami-Ohio and began to consider the option of returning to school herself to pursue a Ph.D. “I realized that I loved sharing knowledge and giving back to younger individuals who needed guidance and mentoring,” she said. Ravare Browne continued to pursue her teaching career, accepting positions at other universities across the country, including the University of Dallas. Here, she became the Director of the Pre-MBA program where she had the opportunity to interact with international students from over ninety countries.

Within years, Ravare Browne was promoted to become the Executive Director of International Relations at the University of Dallas. This appointment set the stage for Ravare Browne to spend a lot of time working abroad in different countries facilitating the process of getting international students to come to the United States for their graduate education. “I fell in love with working in a non-profit and academic arena,” said Ravare Browne.

Once again, she started thinking about the possibility of furthering her own education by earning a doctorate, but these plans were placed on the backburner when she was approached by The National Society of Hispanic MBAs, ALPFA’s sister organization, where she accepted a position in the office of the CEO.

Ravare Browne was eventually approached by ALPFA, and three years ago, she moved out to their headquarters in Los Angeles to serve as the Vice President of Strategic Initiatives and was quickly promoted to her current position as Chief Operating Officer. She said, “My journey has been a fabulous mix of corporate American, academia, and non-profit.” She attributes her success in all of these different fields to the cross-functional skills acquired in business school, but ultimately Ravare Browne knew she would be the most effective in the industry for which she is the most passionate. “I found my niche in the non-profit sector because I had the desire to give back,” she explained.

Carrying Out ALPFA’s Mission

“The mission of ALPFA to build Latino business leaders is very clear,” said Ravare Browne, “and I was very attracted to the work ALPFA was doing, especially in the graduate space.” With 22,000 professional and student members, 41 professional chapters, and 120 student chapters, ALPFA is not only the largest Latino business organization in the United States, but also the oldest. “We build leaders through the work that we do,” explained Ravare Browne, “and ALPFA is a safe space for our members to develop their leadership skills and take on professional roles that may not be available to them yet within their own companies.”

Ravare Browne is proud that ALPFA is able to develop leaders who can then go on to work for some of the biggest companies in the world. “We provide talent to major corporations and they view ALPFA as the premier organization for recruiting Latinos in accounting, business, and finance,” she said. “On the other hand, we also bring in the best of the best in executive leadership to our programming. Our members are exposed to top leaders from many different industries.”

Women of ALPFA is one of ALPFA’s core programs that was established about ten years ago and has been instrumental in developing Latina business leaders through networking, training, and development. “We are continuing to expand our programs to serve our female members,” said Ravare Browne. She noted that fifty percent of ALPFA’s national chapters have female presidents.

ALPFA began as a professional organization that evolved to include programs for students at the high school, community college, and university levels. ALPFA also has over 2,000 members who are in graduate school. “We have outreach programs that impact all levels of the pipeline,” said Ravare Browne.

Career Advancement Tools for Latino Business Leaders

According to Ravare Browne, any non-dominant group will face challenges in their professional careers. The mission of ALPFA is to equip Latino business leaders with the tools they need to advocate for themselves and move forward in their careers. “Communication and relationship building are two hurdles that our members encounter, especially our student members,” said Ravare Browne. “Learning how to network as a professional in a room can be intimidating for anyone. It is a common anxiety, but a very real one that can hold someone back in their career if they don’t master these skills.”

One of ALPFA’s goals is to have a positive impact on the percentage of Latino leaders at the highest corporate levels. This underrepresentation results in a somewhat limited network for emerging leaders in the Latino business community. Ravare Browne said, “ALPFA helps to tighten these networks and helps members facilitate valuable business relationships and connections.”

Ravare Browne places a lot of emphasis on the importance of sponsors to the career advancement of high potential talent, and this is a message she works hard to deliver to the members of ALPFA. “Many of our members don’t have that inside edge, so we provide mentoring and coaching in addition to connecting them with individuals who will be sponsors for them within their own companies,” explained Ravare Browne.

She continued, “Culturally, it is not common for Latinos to self-promote themselves. By creating this mentoring and sponsorship concept within the organization, it helps them to see the importance of having both in order to advance in their career.”

Going forward, Ravare Browne hopes that ALPFA will continue to grow and evolve as much as it has since it was established 41 years ago. By continuing to focus on building strong executive leadership programs, she is confident that ALPFA will be increasingly instrumental in ushering strong Latino business leaders through the leadership pipeline over the next 40 years and beyond.

The Glass Hammer is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month by featuring profiles of Hispanic Women Business Leaders all week long!

By Michelle Hendelman, Editor-in-Chief

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Thought Leader: Suzanne Penavić, Director of Employee Engagement, SunGard

Suzanne PenavićSuzanne Penavić, Director of Employee Engagement, SunGard encourages women to recognize the generosity of the network around them, and to actively reach out and make themselves available to it. “Networking played a big part in making my shift into diversity, inclusion, and engagement successful,” said Penavić. “That is one thing I wish I had realized earlier in my career.”

Penavić graduated from Cornell University in 1987 with a degree in Developmental Psychology. “From a career path perspective I think I followed a pretty nontraditional path,” said Penavić. This is because instead of choosing a career related to her college major, Penavić accepted a job at JP Morgan on Wall St. She said, “I caught the tail end of the Wall Street Eighties boom and I joined JP Morgan the summer before the crash.”

Career Path in Finance and Tech

Although Penavić’s time as a banker was short-lived, she was first introduced to technology, as it relates to financial services, when the entire FX back office at JP Morgan was being replaced.

“I was in charge of the Payment Investigations portion of the project,” explained Penavić, “and after that I ended up running the middle and back offices of the derivatives operations. It was the early nineties, and it was definitely the Wild West when it came to swaps and options, but it was booming. I found myself having to put these very complex synthetic instruments into an infrastructure that wasn’t designed for it.”

It was at this juncture that Penavić decided that banking wasn’t the best professional fit for her and made a swift career change when she accepted a job with a privately held software company called Microbank. Penavić recalled, “There was forty five people at the company, software was a fairly new concept at the time, and my parents thought I was crazy for leaving my job on Wall St.” She continued, “It was an opportunity I did not foresee, but it had a huge influence on my career path.”

“I essentially grew up with Microbank,” said Penavić, “As the company matured, we started a client services organization separate from development, built out proper professional services delivery capabilities, and then took it to the next level by implementing a product management and strategy function, which I was in charge of.”

Microbank was eventually acquired by Sungard, where Penavić now serves as the Director of Employee Engagement after working in several senior level product management roles in the Financial Services division. Currently, Penavić is really excited about the work she is doing to build out SunGard’s corporate social responsibility, community investment, and employee volunteerism policies and programs. “It is such a huge lever for engagement,” explained Penavić.

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Thought Leaders: Chris Crespo, Inclusiveness Director, Ernst & Young LLP

Chris CrespoWelcome to Pride Week on The Glass Hammer — we’ll be profiling successful LGBT business women all week long!

When Chris Crespo was applying for her first job out of college, professional services firms hadn’t yet taken many steps to address diversity challenges. “When I started in the industry, we didn’t talk about diversity and inclusion. They made an effort to have a woman interviewer, if you were a woman. And that was it,” she recalled.

“Now we see diversity and inclusion as part of what we do to brand ourselves as leaders in the industry in terms of meeting client needs, learning new things, and doing everything we can to be as strong as we can in this area,” she explained.

Crespo has had a lot to do with that change. In addition to working as Inclusiveness Director at Ernst & Young LLP, she was the catalyst behind the firm’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) professional network, Beyond.

“The biggest way I’ve changed over the course of my career is listening more and figuring out what it is that I don’t know. It used to be very easy for me to argue with people,” she reflected. “It’s been an important lesson for me along the way that sometimes what seems so obvious to me is not obvious to other people. I needed to learn to ask more questions and find out the reasons behind why people were seeing something differently from me.”

She continued, “There were times on the LGBT side where it was easy for me to get angry – for example, ‘why don’t we have partner benefits?’ And more often than not it was a lack of other people’s understanding. It became evident to me that there are some things other people had never thought of. The Beyond network is a good example of that. We had a women’s network, a few ethnic minority networks, and I said, ‘Why don’t we have an LGBT network?’”

“And the next thing I know, I’m leading one,” she said with a laugh. “That’s the other thing – when you ask questions, be prepared to follow up on them.”

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Thought Leaders: Ranji Nagaswami on Leadership, Investing, and Managing Your Career

Ranji Nagaswami“I am very concerned and alarmed at issues of financial integrity,” began Ranji Nagaswami, former Chief Investment Advisor to Mayor Bloomberg and the City of New York when asked about what institutional investors see as the important issues facing the buy-side.

Nagaswami spent over two decades successfully climbing the ranks of the investment management industry in the private sector. Then, in 2010, she took a job with Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in the City of New York (NYC), where she would work on solutions to one of the administration’s biggest challenges: pension funding and managing investment risks of the NYC Retirement Systems’ $120 Billion plus in pension assets.

She was tasked with illuminating the administration and NYC Pension Board’s understanding of the drivers of the current pension crisis and successfully persuaded various stakeholders (with contentious mutual relationships to say the least), to restructure New York’s pension investments policy with an eye toward better balancing the long term risks. Having seen the buy-side from the unique vantage points of a manager and an institutional investor, she sees the need to change the tone of leadership in the investment industry as a whole as critical to furthering the interests of beneficiaries and shareholders – who, she says, “after all we are all in the industry to serve.”

“For over a decade now there have been deep issues surrounding our conduct as investment and financial services professionals. It is not just the conduct of the few who epitomized the worst behaviors during the accounting / insider trading / mortgage lending / leverage induced scandals, I am talking about all investors – research analysts, portfolio managers and financial advisors who bear our share of responsibility through our collective complacency in failing to enforce higher standards of due diligence and fiduciary behavior,” Nagaswami said. “We need to set a higher bar, a far more robust code of conduct for the asset management industry that sees improving end-investor outcomes as its ultimate mission. But to build a higher ethical culture we need leaders in the asset management industry who hold themselves accountable on this dimension. Thinking through standards to create accountability is deeply linked to the future of finance.”

“We need leaders who have the right values and prioritize integrity over asset gathering and profits.”

She added, “These may sound like easily said platitudes, but to many thoughtful investors it is very real and goes to the core of rebuilding confidence in the US financial system.” Nagaswami sits on the CFA Institute’s Asset Manager Code of Conduct Committee, but also uses her many public speaking opportunities to drive this issue home.

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Thought Leaders: Lisa Agona, Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, LexisNexis Risk Solutions

thought-leadershipLisa Agona describes herself as very thoughtful and very driven. After studying economics in college, she pursued a career in marketing for financial services and professional services companies. After climbing the ranks at Accenture to become the global marketing director for capital markets, she got a call from LexisNexis. “I actually wasn’t going to come – I loved New York City and I was satisfied at Accenture.” The role would mean moving away from the excitement of the Big Apple, and she also had the impression that the company might be a bit conservative for her tastes.

“But when I came and interviewed at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, I found it was anything but uninteresting,” she said. “The people were innovative – even ingenious. From a marketing standpoint, it was a place I could get my arms around and build transformation and new ideas into the business.” So she took the opportunity and made the move to Atlanta, unsure of what the outcome would be. That’s her first piece of advice on getting to the C-Suite – take risks.

“I was right. It was a risk that paid off. When I wake up in the morning, I can’t wait to get to work.”

Agona, now Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, shared her advice for women on breaking into the C-Suite.

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Thought Leaders: Moira Elms, Global Head of Brand and Communications, PwC

thought-leadershipA strong interest in gender diversity has not always been an inherent piece of my make-up. But throughout my career trajectory this interest evolved. I got to a stage in my career where there were not many working women around me. Lots of talented women were falling by the wayside. That was when I became passionate about gender diversity.

I felt I had to do something about it.

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Thought Leaders: Reshma Saujani, Founder of Girls Who Code

thought-leadershipTo Reshma Saujani, Founder of Girls Who Code, success means taking risks and pursuing your passions – even with the understanding that you might fail. In fact, in her new book, Women Who Don’t Wait in Line, she explores the importance of failure and its connection to risk, and what it means for today’s women.

“It’s about understanding what your destiny is and striving for it,” she explained. “When I ran for Congress, people said ‘it’s not your turn yet.’” Saujani’s run was ultimately unsuccessful. Yet, she explained, she learned a valuable lesson. “It’s embracing failure,” she said. “Often, we feel like we have to do the job to get the job.” By shedding fears around failure and taking big risks, more women could achieve their dreams.

She also learned about the value of sisterhood during her campaign, another theme of her book. “Women have the power to help other women. We have to create a culture where we help each other. I can’t tell you how many women leaders, when I was researching for my book, said they seek to hire women. I want to encourage women to do the same.”

“It’s in our own hands to crash through the glass ceiling,” she added.

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