Voice of Experience: Lori Fellela, Senior Director, TIAA-CREF

I’ll take it.

Lori FellelaThis simple, but powerful phrase has been the mantra of Lori Fellela, senior director at TIAA-CREF. “I’ve been fortunate throughout my career to have leaders who’ve given me feedback and the opportunity to take on more challenges, and part of that is because I have been the person who has stepped up and said ‘I’ll take it.’ It’s crucial to raise your hand and volunteer for the projects no one else wants, to get yourself outside of your comfort zone – that is how you’ll get to your next role,” says Fellela.

Fellela started her career — literally learning by doing — when at the New York Daily News, she was responsible for installing and configuring PC components. “Not only did I learn a lot about PCs, hardware and software, I also got a lot of insight into what not to do, since my manager did not hold back on providing pointed feedback,” she says.

After that, in a software development role at PepsiCo, Fellela worked with a talented management team. It was in this role that she realized software development was not the best fit — interacting with a keyboard all day drained her energy. She subsequently moved to a project management role, where she led an initiative to bring in the company’s first major database platform. She soon relocated to New England and signed on with Fidelity Investments.

Hired to provide production support for a niche piece of software, after six weeks Fellela concluded the role was not challenging enough. She walked into her manager’s office and told him the work required wasn’t a full-time job. Her manager offered her the role of managing the UNIX team – something that was outside of her general comfort zone.Recognizing her capabilities, attitude and expressed willingness to take on additional responsibility, her manager continued to offer her challenging opportunities to build her leadership skills. For example, when she learned that the firm had one year to replace an old piece of software, a project that no one else wanted to take on, she volunteered.

“That’s how you make a name for yourself, by doing something no one else wants to do. This approach has been a consistent theme for me, and something I credit for the trajectory of my career.”

The project ended up being highly successful, which cemented her importance to the team, a
cohesive group of four with whom she still stays in touch.

After 16 years at Fidelity, Fellela relocated to Charlotte to work for TIAA-CREF where she says she again has a wonderful manager who gives her plenty of leeway. “You have to show that you have confidence in your own decisions,” she says.

Technology at the Forefront

In her current role as executive infrastructure manager, Fellela has responsibility for end user technology for the firm. She is proud of the work she is doing and the team that she has built. “My bench of direct reports is very strong. They have had a huge, positive impact on how the employees of TIAA-CREF do their jobs, and ultimately service our clients.”

One aspect of the job that she is most excited about right now is the conversations that they are having about what the user experience needs to be. Concepts being discussed include how users leverage elements like social collaboration in the business place, and what physical devices they will want to use in the future. The goal is to drive flexibility in choice for the end users, while still maintaining best practices in security — which she acknowledges can be a dichotomy. “The common thread is around figuring out where our end users will want to be in a few years, and helping to get them there in a secure way.”

The Value of Networking

When TIAA-CREF wanted to launch a women’s council last year, Fellela again raised her hand to say “I’ll take it.” She came up with the out-of-the-box idea to host a “Food Truck Rodeo” event to provide information [and snacks] while getting volunteers to sign up for council activities – an event which received great reviews.

Fellela recommends that women take advantage of mentoring and networking programs not only by attending events such as the Rodeo, but also by volunteering to be part of the teams that make them happen. These opportunities offer employees the chance to raise their visibility because others can see you in action. This also helps one establish and expand on their firm-wide network. “I have made wonderful connections that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible without a reason to meet and work with these women outside of my day-to-day routine.”

She credits her current manager with helping her see the importance of developing a network. As a “master of relationships,” he gave her some wise advice: it’s important to know someone before you ask them for something or they ask you. She has since made it her mission to get out there and meet people and has seen a huge pay-off.

As a tool in the arsenal of networking, Fellela recommends people arm themselves with three questions to ask to start conversations; though she cautions that it shouldn’t be about what you need from them, but what you can do for them. However, she adds that it’s perfectly ok not to be an expert and for other people to know that. “I wish I’d had the self-confidence to ask people to explain things,” she recollects. “It’s important to learn to ask for information or help without concern for appearing weak.”

Family Ties

Outside the office, Fellela, a self-described gym enthusiast, says she loves to work out and is a weight lifting coach on the weekends. Her 22-year-old daughter has started enjoying it as well. “The whole coaching aspect is fun,” she says. “I work with a lot of women in the gym, providing technical coaching and encouragement, and I see how getting stronger really helps boost their confidence. They are all great — they just need to hear it.”

Her 26 year-old-son is a professional chef, and her daughter is finishing up her undergraduate degree in physical therapy and is planning to attend grad school. Her husband, an officer in the National Guard, is currently stationed in Kosovo.

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Voice of Experience: Alaina Percival, CEO, Women Who Code

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Alaina Percival“When you see someone doing a great job, applaud her,” advises Alaina Percival, the CEO of Women Who Code. “It’s more difficult for women to talk about their career successes, but if you don’t, no one will know to recruit you, ask you to speak at their conference or invite you to be on their board. Being able to publicly discuss your career success is crucial to advancement.”

Percival knows from experience the importance of shining a light on your strengths. She began her career in the footwear industry with a job at Puma running their niche products division, which included collaborating with designers and overseeing any major projects that weren’t shoe related.

While there, she learned an important skill – having to secure deliverables from people who were far senior to her in the organization. That dynamic meant that she couldn’t tell them what to do, so she had to figure out how to make them want to do it. “It was a skill that has translated well to my current role, since Women who Code is a volunteer-driven organization,” Percival says. “We can’t tell people what they have to do, we have to inspire them to want to work toward its missions.”

After Puma, she decided to return to school to earn her MBA and then went to a small women’s performance shoe company as corporate brand manager for women-specific volleyball and basketball shoes. Her major challenge there was helping the niche company compete with brands like Nike, only without their resources.

From Footwear to Tech

Eventually, she decided to move on from footwear, and begin to consider cities where she’d like to live. She chose San Francisco because of its many opportunities in the tech industry. “It was a struggle because I’d always worked with footwear, but I felt like I needed to switch gears and start over and find my path.”

She started consulting with tech companies and then became engulfed with Women Who Code, just as it was getting started. After teaching herself how to code, she began organizing events and finding sponsors; she found that her background in community development lent itself well to scaling and it became a passion project for her. At the time, she was working for a startup, and then when it got acquired by Yahoo, it provide the opportunity to bring Women Who Code into her next day job, where she was running the charitable arm of Riviera Partners.

“I was working with a lot of engineering executives, but fewer than 5 percent of them were women. I saw the experiences and opportunities they had and started bringing those into Women Who Code’s programs. That is where Women Who Code’s mission of inspiring women excel in their careers was formed and how I knew we could make a difference.”

Within a few months, she had filed for non-profit status and a trademark and built out a budget, and then realized that in nights and weekends, she was essentially running a huge organization that deserved the opportunity to shine. She decided to leave her day job and focus exclusively on Women Who Code.

Making a Difference Through Women Who Code

And that is the achievement she is most proud of so far: the impact Women Who Code is having on the careers of its leaders in the tech industry – their careers are ascending with awards, board appointments, press mentions and invitations to speak at conferences.

“The most exciting part is that the Women Who Code leaders whom we are helping empower are women who are dedicated to seeing other women excel. Their influence will impact the industry exponentially,” Percival says.

Looking at the industry as a whole, she sees that Women Who Code holds an important role in the landscape: already, they are seeing the benefits of reaching out to women and girls to showcase technology careers. Although they have made huge strides in attracting talented women to the field, they are still leaving at too high of a rate. “The conversation now needs to be about creating a better place for women in the industry and helping them navigate their career path. When women do enter the industry, there are not enough role models and they don’t see women well represented at the individual contributor level.”

The group has a weekly publication called Code Review that highlights everyday career successes of women – whether they have won an award, landed a new job or promotion or launched a new product. “We want to champion these women and create the feeling that it’s normal to share your successes, since it can be harder for women.”

Advice for Young Women: Code

According to Percival, all industries are becoming “technology industries,” whether it’s finance or footwear, so increasingly future executives will be those who have a background and understanding of technology. She herself wishes she had learned to code earlier and she urges women to learn the basics, by even taking one coding class. “In areas where women are underrepresented, the issue will only be exacerbated as we see top jobs going to those with a background in tech. It is essential they learn skills like coding as early as possible.”

In addition, she advises women to always set goals, whether they are clear on what they want to do or not. “Lay out that goal and work toward it; you can always change your mind later,” she says. And she underscores the importance of building a network authentically. “Approaching networking as relationship building is key, because then those people become more than just contacts: they become friends and your allies whether you need help in two weeks or two years.”

How Companies Can Win In the Talent Quest

She also believes that companies have a responsibility in the drive to bring more women into the field, and she advises them to really spend time thinking through how they can attract and retain women.

One key area is to make sure they are paying women fairly. She recommends companies analyze salaries and make changes if there are discrepancies that are gender-related. “If there’s an across-the-board percentage of people getting paid less, it’s expensive not to balance that out,” she says. Otherwise, companies will lose out on the women in the last 15 years of their career when they can provide the most value to the company and act as role models and mentors.

“You can’t afford to lose them when they’re the most experienced.”

By Cathie Ericson

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Voice Of Experience: Pam Dunsky, Managing Director, Client Services Technology at TIAA-CREF

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Pamela Dunsky“In today’s business of constantly adapting to keep pace with the rapid growth of digital technology you have to stay centered to be successful on this dynamic journey called a career. With all of the different twists that you encounter over the course of your career, there’s a lot that can throw you off track,” says Pam Dunsky, Managing Director at TIAA-CREF.

Dunsky knows that keeping centered in thoughts, energy and mood is an important discipline to find both in work and in day to day life.While for some this may be achieved through yoga, meditation, the gym, or music, for her being centered has come through her training in martial arts. Dunsky elaborates, “Tying together my personal passion, with my business life, has allowed me to use my training to keep perspective and balance dealing with it all— both personally and professionally.”

Trained in martial arts for more than 20 years, Dunsky travels regularly to Japan, and she and her husband own their own school where she teaches and trains. She enjoys the physical aspects but also the discipline and value of lifelong learning. Dunsky sees many parallels between martial arts and the business world, and uses that thinking to strategize and help others navigate the day.

Starting Out Strong

Prior to delving into the martial arts, Dunsky graduated from the University of Dayton with a degree in computer science. This led to her first position as an intern with Mead Data Central (now LexisNexis). The company was such a good fit that she worked there three different times as it grew from 300 employees to 4500, and alternated stints with AT&T in the interim – flexibility was crucial at that time as her husband completed medical school.

Dunsky had a well-rounded early career, moving across all technology delivery groups with positions including: development, project management, management of software delivery, applied research, infrastructure and data systems. Additionally, she acquired experience in a diverse set of industries including electronic publishing, telecommunications and financial services. Landing in financial services with Fidelity Investments in 2001, Dunsky joined TIAA-CREF in 2011 because she loved the firm’s values, and its commitment to its clients’ financial well-being to and through retirement.

Overseeing a Transformation

Since joining TIAA-CREF, Dunsky has taken on a challenging role as a transformative leader, and was recently promoted to the IT Leadership team. With over 800 staff members in her organization, she is excited about spearheading the expansive efforts to transform the firm’s operating model in the retirement space. “We are making great progress with this effort.Transformation requires a focus on customers and a strong collaboration between business and IT when it comes to envisioning, planning, designing and executing the type of changes that impact across the entire organization.Change is hard and it takes leadership at many levels every day to make it happen,” she says.

Dunsky has been focusing on process leadership, change management and agile delivery models.She recognizes that this is a constant learning process, but knows that collaboration, strategic thinking and pragmatic customer-centric actions will keep her team on the right path. What we need to deliver through technology is rapidly changing, but so are the ways we work.And women have unique and very effective skills to bring to many of the emerging models.

Advice from the Top

Dunsky does not shy away from a change or challenge at work, nor does she overlook the importance of building networks and having coaches and mentors. “Over the course of time you get a full appreciation of the importance of a diverse network and building relationships with people from whom you can gain continual support and dialogue over a long career.”

She urges women not to sell themselves short, but to always be ready and prepared to go after opportunities, even before they arise. “While you may not be clear on what’s the next best step, being open to lots of possibilities and in dialogue with leaders around the organization to make sure your talents, contributions and interests are known really helps,” she says. “The best opportunities come from people making the connection to you when they hear of projects or positions that make them think of you, but they have to know you and know your capability and brand for that to happen.”

Women Make it Happen

Smart companies embrace women in technology, believes Dunsky. “We bring valuable, diverse perspectives. We are highly organized. We are able to lead, collaborate and deliver in all aspects of design and execution.”

Dunsky has been involved in TIAA-CREF’s IT women’s network, as well as in its Women’s Employee Resource Group (ERG), for which she is starting a new chapter in New Jersey. Both organizations have shown the ability to drive tremendous engagement and forward the development of women in business and technology. Dunsky also devotes significant time to mentoring and coaching other women in the organization. She recently participated in the kickoff event for a group mentoring program to share experiences and to encourage other women to join take advantage of mentoring opportunities.

“We have to continue to find and leverage talented women in technology. The number of women coming into IT from universities has been declining, but there are more diverse roles in and around technology in the digital age than ever before.IT has been a tremendous career opportunity with challenging work and extremely bright and capable colleagues.

“Lean In discussions over the past few years have done a lot to reenergize the conversation of women — for clarifying their ambitions and seeing all the opportunities around them.We have so much to offer to the company and to each other in our unique journeys and that is one of the things I love about my work every day,” Dunsky says.

For growth of women in technology to continue, she sees a serious need to engage with schools and support programs to encourage technology as a possibility for young women.Young women are often entrepreneurial, confident and not afraid to try new things.Helping them get their start can be rewarding for both parties.

Dunsky is optimistic about the opportunities for both young females, and herself, in the evolving world of technology.

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Voice of Experience: Leah Guggenheimer, Director at Burford Capital

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Leah Guggenheimer“You can always recover from being wrong if you have enough of a track record of overall success, but you can’t recover from no track record at all,” says Leah Guggenheimer, a director at Burford Capital. She recommends that professionals get outside of their heads and jump into discussions, believing that if you do it often enough, you’ll have enough opportunities to be right that it won’t matter if you miss occasionally.

This viewpoint has been honed over the many career paths that Guggenheimer has taken as a master of reinvention. “My unusual career path might appear random, but there actually was a method in place,” she says.“I curated each job to build on my proven skill sets and find new experiences.”

Guggenheimer began her career as an attorney, where she represented plaintiffs in employment and consumer fraud class actions – work that she eventually found tedious, due to the slow pace with which anything was accomplished. She wanted to transition to a new career, and with the realization that it was up to her to explain her transferrable skills, she was able to parlay marketing work she’d done on her firm’s website into a position in marketing and business development at a 100-person intellectual property firm.

Her aptitude became clear as she worked on a large technology and business transformation project, which put her on a career path in business process and operations management. Subsequent positions introduced her to all aspects of change management, from learning how to assess a business from top to bottom, to managing people and performance, budgets and profitability.
Those skills allowed her to open her own consulting practice, specializing in what she calls “punchy consulting projects” designed for a quick burst of operational growth. “It’s rewarding to come in and be the objective outsider, helping businesses grow by showing them what they can build on and how they can change.”

It all came together in her current role, which bridges both her legal background and her investment operations expertise. Burford Capital is a global finance and professional services firm focused on law, investing in commercial litigation assets via expense funding, monetizing of contingency arrangements, securitized debt facilities linked to legal claims, litigation-related insurance and judgment enforcement.After six years of rapid growth, Burford Capital needed someone who really understood both operations and complex litigation to help them grow and scale their business processes, and Guggenheimer had the perfect background to take on the challenge.

Make Your Own Way

Guggenheimer’s career trajectory is proof of the wide variety of professional paths that can be pursued for a rewarding career. “I would advise people to first figure out their strengths and what they like to do and then look for jobs that leverage those capabilities. Don’t get caught up on job titles or prestige,” she said. “Your core capabilities should dictate how you design your career.”

She also advises women not to feel pigeonholed: their skills are likely transferrable and they become even more professionally attractive by evolving their expertise. She herself was nervous when considering leaving law, but asked herself what was the worst that could happen. “If I didn’t succeed, I still would have learned something useful, and with every skill you develop, it’s that much easier to shape the roles that fit you and offer what you need to be challenged and interested.”

Stick With It

Guggenheimer’s career has been spent exclusively in law and finance, traditionally male-dominated industries. One barrier for women she has frequently seen is that they don’t have the confidence to speak out. Studies suggest that whereas a man only needs to feel 10 percent confident in what he is saying, a woman might need 80 percent confidence.

“This becomes a major issue in an industry where confidence in the face of risk is crucial to success. It’s imperative that women cultivate the confidence to believe in their inner voice.”

Recently Guggenheimer attended a roundtable for professional women with young children, some of whom were lamenting the difficulty of sustaining challenging careers and wondering if they should scale back. Her advice to anyone feeling like they want to quit is to stay with it a little longer. “You’re going to feel overwhelmed at first. But what feels insurmountable at first blush will get that much easier as you establish systems and routines.”

Over the years she has developed a core group of women to help support her own career, called “Ladies who Sup,” a nod to the fact that they were working so couldn’t have lunches together. The community was formed around where she lives, in New Rochelle, N.Y., rather than where she works. “It was a gift to have this community of working women who lived in my neighborhood and could provide the resources and community support we all needed,” she says. “Meeting for dinner was a great way to network and build friend relationships with others who shared the challenges of being working moms.”

Guggenheimer has a passion for travel, a bug she caught during a gap year after college and before law school when she backpacked around Asia. She loves to hike and SCUBA dive, preferring places where she can go off the beaten path to really get away and unplug. Her love of other cultures is evident in her philanthropic pursuits as well: for the last five years, she has volunteered for AFS, a leader in educational exchange programs for high school students, as a liaison as well as a host family for an exchange student from Thailand.

“The world is wide and is meant to be explored.”

By Cathie Ericson

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Voice of Experience: Kristen Garry, Tax partner at Shearman & Sterling LLP

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Kristen GarryKristen Garry will always remember the advice she received while interviewing for an associate position at Shearman & Sterling LLP.

“Do something you enjoy because you’re going to be spending a lot of time at it, and do it with a group of people that you’ll enjoy being with,” advised a firm partner.

Today, Garry, a tax partner in Shearman & Sterling’s Washington, D.C. office, is still enjoying her work and her time with fellow lawyers at the firm and her clients.

Unlike many successful professionals who take a bit of time to find their way, Garry’s path to becoming a tax partner was more of a straight line:She majored in government in her undergraduate studies at Cornell University, with an eye on law school, and gained exposure to the tax field before choosing NYU’s law school, top-ranked for tax, where she subsequently earned her LL.M. in Taxation.

After clerking for Judge James Halpern in the U.S. Tax Court, she decided to stay in Washington, D.C. and join Shearman & Sterling at a time when there were no women in the tax department in D.C. – though she was soon joined by another. She became a partner in 2008, an achievement she is particularly proud of since the firm has been such a perfect fit for her.

Always a New Challenge

Garry concentrates on both transactional and planning work, helping clients with IRS audits and appeals as well as with matters at the U.S. Tax Court. She recently had a victory on a highly technical issue where auditors had proposed significant adjustments – to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars – and she and her team were able to prove to the IRS that the client was 100 percent correct on the law.

On a policy front, the team is busy advising clients, including helping to interpret sparse IRS guidance in certain areas that continue to present challenging situations to clients.There is always ambiguity in the law, and tax law is no exception.As a result, the firm’s clients – both in the U.S. and globally – often struggle with tax rules that might be old or outdated and look to Garry and her colleagues for guidance.“You want to be able to offer your clients some level of comfort in a scenario that’s not cookie cutter, especially with respect to financial products,” she says.

Earning the Recognition You Deserve

Garry advises young women who are starting out to remember that they often need to advocate for themselves.“It took me a while to realize it was OK to self-promote.I would know that I had done a great job, but then I realized I had to advocate for myself.You can’t always let your actions speak for themselves,” she says.

And, she emphasizes that careers are more apt to flourish when women are doing what they enjoy, whether it’s through a practice group or industry focus. “You won’t work as hard if you’re not enjoying it,” she says, “and if you’re only putting in the bare minimum, you’re not going to be as successful.”

Maintaining a Pipeline for Women

Since there are few women in tax at Shearman & Sterling and, generally speaking, in law, Garry has appreciated an outside informal tax study group where tax professionals meet to discuss financial products.“It’s an interesting group of men and women from both law and accounting firms,” she says.“It’s encouraging to see other women who have succeeded in the tax field.”

Garry has noticed that the numbers of women in senior leadership positions in law seem to dwindle as they climb the career ladder.“I look around and wonder why we aren’t better represented,” she says.She notes that while law school classes are roughly half women, only about 20 percent of partners in big law are women.She encourages her peers to join her in letting women associates know that it is possible and there is a path to partner if they want it.

At Shearman & Sterling, she has been active in the firm’s women’s inclusion network – WISER (Women’s Initiative for Success, Excellence and Retention) – since it formed nine years ago.Garry has also played an integral role in the Women Partners’ Initiative, which has steadily gained momentum over the past few years.At the firm’s annual partners retreat, for example, the Women Partners’ Initiative has evolved from a fledgling add-on session to become its own event as a mainstay of the larger partner gathering.

Two years ago the women partners held their first separate formal business session to define key objectives where the group could accomplish the most positive change.Now the program includes sessions focused on business development initiatives to learn more about each other’s practices, which creates the opportunity for cross selling and referrals.At the last meeting this past January, noted leadership expert Dr. Arin Reeves of Nextions discussed unconscious bias.Her presentation, which was open to both men and women partners, focused on how to be aware of the issue and overcome it when it comes into play.Garry is currently working on securing another compelling speaker for the upcoming meeting, which will take place in January in Florida.

Away from the office, Garry has found golf to be a wonderful way to unwind – and also an important outlet for networking. She first started playing when a tax client she represented was invited to a golf outing hosted by Shearman & Sterling.

“I did so much work for and with this client that I realized it was important to go, and I didn’t want to sit on the sidelines,” she says, adding that was the spark that first led her to pursue the game.

As she has gotten more adept at the game, she finds it to be a good way to relax and spend time outdoors.“Golf offers a great way to spend time with clients,” she says. “But social and business benefits aside, I am competitive and always want to improve.As all golfers like to say, I’m getting better!”

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Voice of Experience: Laura Martinez, PwC US Assurance Diversity Leader

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Laura MartinezOne of the best pieces of advice that PwC Partner Laura Martinez heard early on has carried throughout her career: how important it is to engage with as many people as possible. “Early in your career those people are peers, managers, mentors and coaches, and you need to build relationships and be open to their coaching and guidance,” she says. “You’d be surprised how many people are willing to help you if you just reach out.”

Martinez has spent 25 years at PwC, specializing in serving registered investment companies, investment partnerships, hedge funds and private investment advisors. Most recently she served as the San Francisco Financial Services market team leader. When she first started her career there, becoming a partner wasn’t yet on her radar. “I’ve had great mentors during my whole career, and as my seniority has increased, so have my goals. When I first started, most of my mentors were managers and senior managers, but as they became partners, I was able to hear more about that track and my interest developed.”

Named partner in 2004, she credits that as her most important professional achievement, but adds that now she has the opportunity to help support others through the process, which she finds extremely rewarding. She encourages senior women never to underestimate the important role of serving as a mentor and support for younger women.

Diversity Always a Focus

Involved in diversity initiatives from the beginning of her career, Martinez was recently named as the diversity leader for PWCs US Assurance practice, the largest audit and risk assurance practice in the United States. She’s proud of this new role where she can devote time to thinking about diversity inclusion and how she can help shape and lead diversity initiatives. “It’s key to engage all levels in the firm, from our partners down to our youngest professionals, to get them interested and involved in driving sustainable impact.”

She sees her role in talent management and cultivating a diverse workforce at all levels as vital to the firm’s overall strategy, as well as being an area in which she and PwC can provide guidance to clients who are also dealing with similar issues.

Reminiscent of her advice to build a network is her belief that it should include people who are not exactly like you. “We often search for mentors who are just like us or what we think we want to be, but that means we can miss out on learning from some great individuals who may appear to be very different,” she says. “That’s the beauty of a diverse and inclusive work force – valuing the differences will make you a better professional.”

Women as Part of Diversity Initiatives

Martinez is proud of PwC’s culture that supports women and diverse professionals and helps them succeed.

In fact, she believes that some of the challenges women face are about trade-offs. “Every professional has to make sacrifices, but women have a harder time reconciling those choices,” she says. “We struggle with them and place a bigger burden on ourselves, especially when women explore having a family and a meaningful career,” Martinez says, adding that women can overthink opportunities and worry about failure and the impact of our trade-offs first.

And that’s why she encourages women to realize that they have limitless opportunities and they must be fearless about looking for them and taking advantage of resources firms offer to help them develop the skills and the network that will further a career. Whether women are at a junior or senior level, she sees that there is always an opportunity to grow and improve.

She attributes much of her success to the fact that she has always taken advantage of the resources offered, including those for gender and ethnic diversity, which have enhanced her skills and helped her develop into a better professional.

Over the years she has seen the offerings evolve to be more relevant to women’s needs as they also evolve, mirroring the changes in Corporate America through Lean In initiatives and other conversations about developing more diverse and female leaders, as well as gender equality. “We’re highly focused now on sponsorship, enabling early career success and career flexibility, all the while working to come to a better understanding for why such a gap exists among women leaders in Corporate America.”

She cites the “He for She campaign,” which supports PwC’s drive to not only be visible out in the marketplace but encourages people internally to support these causes.

Multi-Tasking in Her Free Time

To make the most of her off hours, Martinez participates in hobbies she enjoys that her whole family can do together – whether it’s golf, movies or travel.

Philanthropy is important to her – she has led PwC’s national recruiting efforts at her alma mater, University of California at Berkeley. And, even in her charitable endeavors she does double duty. “I love to partner on community service efforts with my team and my clients,” she says. “I can engage with my colleagues while giving back to the community and having a whole lot of fun in the process.”

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Voice of Experience: Jacqueline Lawand, Vice President and Senior Real Estate Portfolio Manager, Voya

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Jacqueline lawand“When hard work and results aren’t recognized by others, which will sometimes happen, you have to advocate for yourself.”

That is the lesson Jacqueline Lawand has learned during her rise at Voya, where she is proud of the fact that she has been able to drive business, and exceed goals, no matter what geographic area she was assigned or their subsequent challenges.

Describing her career path as largely linear, Lawand earned a double major in finance and real estate, completing three internships in the field during her college years. An active member of the Finance Management Association and Real Estate Society groups at her college, she first became familiar with Voya, previously known as ING U.S. Investment Management, during a joint field trip in her senior year. After meeting with the management team, she stayed in touch and ultimately joined the firm right out of college as an analyst.

For the past 11 years she has worked her way up through four different positions, to the one she holds now as vice president and senior real estate portfolio manager.

Along the way she has taken on international assignments, twice spending two weeks in Santiago, Chile which she believes helped pave her way to her current role. Fluent in Spanish, Lawand spent part of her childhood in Honduras, which offered her an international perspective she appreciated exploring through those assignments.

She also earned her MBA at the University of Georgia while working, part of her goal to make herself more valuable to the company. “One key path to success is to recognize your gaps and weaknesses, as well as those in your company, and seize the opportunity to grow and advance by filling those gaps.”

Lean In, Be Yourself to Succeed

One lesson she wishes she had learned earlier in her career is the importance of “leaning in.”

“I wish I hadn’t pulled back but had developed the confidence earlier to volunteer for challenging projects, knowing that I was equipped to handle the curve balls along the way.”

Lawand says that one of the keys to her success has been the sponsors both within and outside the company that have wielded influence and helped her become better established both at Voya and within the industry as a whole.

“It always came to me as a surprise when someone would say, ‘I’ve heard great things about you,’ when I wasn’t even aware someone was advocating on my behalf.”

She also credits robust programs at Voya that foster women leaders with training programs and initiatives and mentoring opportunities.

Both a mentor and mentee, she has found them key for learning new perspectives. “I would definitely recommend that others participate in mentoring programs, whether formal or informal, as the benefits are well worth the time invested.”

Describing the real estate industry as “still very much  predominantly a man’s world,” Lawand says she initially tried to be “one of the guys,” but realized that wasn’t sustainable. “I started to be more authentic and transparent and, as a result, was able to forge better relationships and earn credibility. Being ‘you’ can really help your career.”

Finding Balance

As a new mom, Lawand is learning the challenge of juggling a growing family with a prospering career. “I want it all, but it requires balance, which has been a learning experience for me,” she says, adding that her husband is a good advocate. “He believes in a collaborative approach at home which helps me manage career and family life.”

She and her husband run half marathons together and also enjoy traveling. They have visited South Africa and much of Europe and South America, and the family recently took a trip to Alaska.

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Voice of Experience: Anilu Vazquez-Ubarri, Chief Diversity Officer and Global Co-Head of Talent Development, Goldman Sachs

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Anilu Vazquez-Ubarri“I wish I had known earlier in my career that the most rewarding experiences would come from the more unexpected opportunities.”

Reflecting on her career, Anilu Vazquez-Ubarri says that her path might seem to be carefully designed, but in reality what has led her to where she is today is her appetite to try new and different roles at critical points in her career, the wise counsel from mentors and her belief in facing challenges head on.

Analyzing Talent for Individual and Firm Benefit

Vazquez-Ubarri began her career as an executive compensation and employee benefits lawyer, advising clients on employment matters in the context of corporate transactions. Even at an early stage of her career, Vazquez-Ubarri enjoyed advising clients and understanding every aspect of their business to provide holistic solutions, particularly with respect to the people side of the transactions.

This led to her first job at Goldman Sachs in Employee Relations, where she provided advice to managers and employees on how to navigate their careers and manage conflict.She then became chief of staff for the Human Capital Management division and is now Chief Diversity Officer and global co-head of Talent Development.In her current role, she is responsible for evolving and integrating leadership and the talent and diversity priorities at Goldman Sachs.

“Had I known this type of work existed I would have gone into it earlier, since my current position is a perfect match for my interests and allows me to apply the knowledge I have collected throughout the years in the different roles I have held,” she says.

Building and leading this new group has also presented an entrepreneurial opportunity for Vazquez-Ubarri, which she considers to be one of the more rewarding aspects of her job. “I appreciate being allowed to lead and innovate in a space that is so important for the firm and also to have the opportunity to build new career paths for the people on the team. It is a privilege to be part of their professional development,” she says.

As part of this entrepreneurial mindset, she and her team are looking at the firm’s practices with a fresh approach.They have continued to build on the firm’s data-driven approach, using people analytics to identify priorities in their talent strategy.In addition, they use a person-by-person approach to design customized solutions for different talent pools. Realizing the crucial impact that managers have on someone’s career, the firm has also reinforced its emphasis on manager effectiveness as a driver of performance.

“Women Should Feel Inspired About Their Chances for Success”

Vazquez-Ubarri believes that what may have historically been perceived as challenges for women in particular are actually questions and challenges that men and women share. “At different points in our career, we all question our ability to manage our personal and professional responsibilities and interests,” she says.

Vazquez-Ubarri observes that it is critical in those moments for employees to have a support system at work that encourages them to discuss their situation and also take advantage of the resources available to them.“I had just returned from maternity leave a few days before being promoted to managing director at Goldman. It was of course a very important time personally and a significant milestone in my career, and the flexibility and support I received from the firm made all the difference.”

“Women should enter the industry in full power, with the expectation of success and confidence in their abilities. They should pursue opportunities that put them in the middle of the action, where problems need to be solved, where challenges exist and where they can contribute in a meaningful way,” she says.In addition, Vazquez-Ubarri believes that developing strong relationships with clients and mentors has been crucial to her career trajectory.She equally believes that Hispanics/Latinos should be proud of their heritage and seek work environments that embrace their difference as an asset.

“My cultural background and upbringing has had a major influence on how I approach situations of ambiguity, how I build relationships with people with different points of view and how I manage a team – all things that have been crucial in my career progression,” she says.

Offering Guidance to Others

Vazquez-Ubarri knows that managers and sponsors play a critical role in developing and retaining talented people, and she highlights how important it has been in her career to have managers and sponsors who believed in her and provided tough feedback along the way. “Their belief in me has driven me to want to deliver for them and to make them proud of their investment in my career.”
She recommends that those starting out do their research, be intellectually curious and challenge themselves to expand their horizons as they consider career paths.he suggests that they network to find out information about different sectors and industries, but also so they have different examples of how to achieve success as there is not just one path.

Regarding her responsibility to mentor and sponsor women and Hispanic/Latinos she says, “We have to reach out to the next generation and remember what it felt like to be new and unsure of your next step or how to complete a project for someone you really wanted to impress.” This is particularly important when it comes to women and Hispanics/Latinos, she noted. “We need to be visible and accessible to them in order to continue to build a diverse talent pipeline.”

She urges her peers to spend an extra 10 minutes with more junior colleagues after a meeting or in their office. “To you, it’s only 10 minutes, but to them it makes such a difference,” she says.

Outside of the office, Vazquez-Ubarri spends her time with friends and family, including her husband and two sons. A competitive swimmer growing up, she has passed on that passion to her two children, ages two and ten, during treks to the pool each weekend – time that she makes all about being with her loved ones.

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Voice of Experience: Natalie Eckford, Managing Director, Cambridge Associates

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Natalie Eckford“I am a black woman from Jackson, Mississippi, and that experience gives me a valuable, unique perspective. I shouldn’t shy away from that difference,” says Natalie Eckford. “I’m using my education and my skills to make my stamp on justice and equality, and I’m really proud of that.”

Eckford describes her career path as traditional – developing a solid background in finance by joining an investment banking firm right after earning her undergraduate degree. She then moved back to Mississippi, where she worked for WorldCom in its broadband division. “Even though I was still in finance, my work at WoldCom was completely different. In banking, I worked with prebuilt models to try to make the deal fit, but at WorldCom, I had to build the model to fit the situation. I was learning how to run a company.”

In addition, she had much more interaction with people, which was lacking in her former role as an Investment Banking analyst. When evaluating potential M&A deals for WorldCom, she had to understand how every department would be affected. “I actually had to get out of my chair and talk to people,” Eckford says, adding that it was an important development in her career skills.

After attending Harvard Business School, she landed at Cambridge Associates, which was the perfect fit for her. At Cambridge Associates, Eckford helps institutions navigate the global markets, access profitable investment opportunities, and grow their endowment capital. “My role here takes all the skills I’ve been building and utilizes them to help further missions in which I really believe,” she says. Her clients include nonprofits that work in education, community development and civil rights advocacy.

Eckford feels she is following the model set by her parents, both of whom earned their degrees during the Jim Crow era and used them to combat inequality and poverty. “The example they set was that I had a responsibility to use the privileges with which I had been blessed to try to help someone else, and I’m proud of what I do to help my clients access capital to further their important missions.”

The passion for the work she’s doing has its roots in her undergraduate thesis on women-focused microfinance as a means for broader economic development. She says that she has always been interested in how you can make investments that have a double bottom line – not only are you making an impact that is visible, but you are doing it through a market orientation. She says that she is seeing a broader use of impact investing in portfolios, though it’s still in the early stages. “There are more funds being created to bridge the gaps in income inequality and education through new technology, and a growing number of these funds are being led by women. It is a very exciting time.

Learning To Speak Up

Eckford recognizes the power of sponsors, citing that advocacy as the reason that she earned her initial spot on the real estate investment banking team. Someone for whom she had interned on another team championed her, alerting the decision makers that Eckford had really made a difference on their team and had potential to be a value-add for the group. “I’m very thankful that I have had advocates, but we also need to do it for ourselves – we need to shed the fear of telling our colleagues how we’ve added value to the company.”

And she says that young women should not be afraid of taking risks. She looks back on her business school experience and how most of the women in her class took jobs within very established companies or industries, whereas many of the men were looking for positions with independent groups, angel investors or start-ups. “They were not afraid to go to a place that had been unproven and because of it, many of them have been able to benefit from valuable experiences learned when you are part of a small team working to grow a business or when you have an individual investing in your career because your success is tied to the business’s survival.” She cites her time working for a start-up group at WorldCom as a risk like that: “I was coming up with the ideas and that really impacted my viewpoint on the rest of my career.”

“They were not afraid to go to a place that had been unproven and because of it, many of them have been able to benefit from valuable experiences learned when you are part of a small team working to grow a business or when you have an individual investing in your career because your success is tied to the business’s survival.”

Over the years, Eckford has learned that it’s not enough to just work hard – that women need to promote themselves and develop a network of allies who will help promote them. “As a black woman I had worked so hard to just fit in over the years, it felt unconscionable to try to stand out,” she says, “and yet, you get to a point in your career where it’s critical if you’re going to progress. Most likely, your male counterparts are not holding back.”

She says that speaking up and sharing your unique perspective is what will make people remember you. “I’ve worked so hard to get the seat at the table, and when I got promoted to managing director I really thought about how I wanted to use that.” Eckford knows that even if was her stellar resume that got her in the door, it is the sum of her experience that differentiates her in meetings.

She knows that her clients appreciate the different perspective and voice that she can bring and believes that all organizations can benefit from incorporating diverse perspectives to their governing bodies. She firmly believes that women need more board representation. “Even as we look for more diversity in portfolios, that decision tends to be determined at the board level. We have to have a more diverse board calling for diversity in our portfolios.”

Walking the Walk

Eckford is active in a group at Cambridge Associates that founded a Diversity Council, which encompasses employees of different ethnicities, genders and sexual orientation through all levels of the firm.

She knows that her firm is interested in the business case for diversity – and that clients care. She says that in the past year, they’ve talked frequently about the barriers for women and minority managers. “We’re making progress, but there’s a lot of work to be done,” she says.

As if her busy professional life wasn’t enough, Eckford also makes time to give back outside her firm. “Nonprofit boards have always been a passion throughout my life.”

By Cathie Ericson

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Voice of Experience: Stephanie Cohen, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs

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Stephanie Cohen“What makes the difference between people who are good, great and world class at their job are small things, and you only find those out if someone points them out to you,” says Stephanie Cohen.

“Even if you are just a little bit off at a certain point in your career, it’s that much harder to get back on track, so it’s vital that women actively ask for, and receive feedback.”

That advice has been crucial to Cohen’s success throughout her career.

As a “lifer” at Goldman Sachs, Cohen is quick to point out that even though the firm has been her only full-time employer, she hadn’t necessarily intended to stay this long when she joined. But the opportunities continued to come. Her first position was as an analyst in Mergers & Acquisitions in 1999, and she was then promoted to associate in the Industrials group, where she has spent the majority of her career. She did a stint in the San Francisco office as a vice president, where she worked in M&A with a broader array of clients, until she was asked to return to New York to oversee Conflicts and Business Selection in the Americas during the financial crisis. She then became sector captain for General Industrials in the Global Industrials Group and a member of the Merger Leadership Group in the Investment Banking Division. She was named managing director in 2008 and partner in 2014.

Building a Business

Just this spring Cohen was tapped for an exciting new assignment – creating and heading a new group, Global Financial Sponsor M&A. Cohen says she is proud that her team’s success in driving financial sponsor M&A for the Industrials Group was recognized such that she was given the opportunity to build this broader business across the company.
“It’s really exciting to be building a team, while being an active part of the current M&A deal environment, which is once again near its previous peak,” she says. “My group is able to assist clients in navigating this complex environment and achieve maximum value for their businesses.”

From a deal perspective, Cohen is proud of her work on the team that helped Chrysler negotiate with the United States government in paying off its debt in May 2011. By living and breathing the deal, she came away highly impressed with how much the employees cared about the company, and the resulting turnaround and pride in the positive strides they made in relation to the quality of their cars.

Seeking Diverse Qualities in Mentors

As she has ascended the ladder, Cohen says that an important lesson she learned is to understand the longevity of your career, and how the relationships you build will help you along the way. “At the junior level, you might be immersed in a project where you are working with someone constantly, and then the project ends and everyone moves on. While you might expect the relationship to go on, the reality is that it takes effort to maintain those relationships — but it’s worth it,” she says. Social networks like LinkedIn give the illusion that it’s easier to stay in touch, but that isn’t a substitute for actively managing your network in today’s transitory professional environment.

While she realizes that the financial services industry has fewer female role models, she has found it largely irrelevant in her career. “I would have really been stuck if I’d fixated on finding the ‘senior woman in M&A’ to emulate,” she says. “Your role model doesn’t have to be someone who is similar to you in every way. And furthermore, trying to figure out exactly what got someone to a particular seat isn’t extremely helpful either, since that exact seat likely won’t exist in its current form by the time you get there.”

Instead, she recommends creating a “personal board of directors,” and incorporating aspects of individual people that will help you in your career. “Thinking that a single mentor will help you to achieve success in all aspects of your career is not practical,” she says. Building a network of different people whom you can go to for advice and feedback means that when you make big career decisions, you have a lot of people whose input you value.

Climbing the Career Ladder

For women starting out, Cohen recommends building a base of expertise and advises younger people to avoid pigeon holing themselves. “At the end of the day, you have to have good judgment, and be able to adapt to different situations,” she says.

And again, she underscores the importance of actively seeking feedback. “If you’re not getting negative feedback, it’s not because you’re perfect. Women might get less feedback because they don’t ask for it, but it took me a while to fully appreciate that men tend to get more direct feedback on areas of improvement which allows them to know what to work on.”

Support of Women

Cohen believes that women should support other women. “There are not that many of us, and we can help each other in ways that are very impactful.”

She has seen that men in the workplace tend to be better at blending their personal and professional lives, and using that to create more client and networking opportunities. She believes that it doesn’t have to overwhelm your personal life, but it makes the networking easier and more fun when you can build and create personal connections at the same time.

To help build those bridges, Cohen created a women’s M&A event several years ago to bring together clients and other professionals who work in M&A, such as lawyers and accountants. The goal is to create relationships between those who are involved in the broad M&A infrastructure. And she reports, it has done exactly what she hoped it would.

In addition, Cohen acts as a mentor to junior women as they think about their careers, and she stays involved in recruiting and retaining a core group of female analysts. “Keeping top-quality women is vital,” she says.

Making a Difference Outside of Work

Outside of work, Cohen spends time with her husband and young son, who “helps me hone my negotiation skills,” she laughs.

She is also on the national board of the nonprofit group Reading Partners, which focuses on literacy in grammar schools, helping underprivileged kids who are behind in reading. She was first involved with the effort when she worked in San Francisco, and brought it with her when she came back to New York. She helped the organization to secure financing for a local chapter, and the group has since spread nationwide.

“The organization does great work very efficiently. The fact that we are working on literacy lends itself well to testing, so we are able to ensure the efforts are successful,” she says. The program is self-sustaining in that schools pay for it with money set aside for a literacy specialist.

“If you can’t read, you can’t succeed. Teaching a child to read will fundamentally change his or her trajectory in life.”

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