Voice of Experience: Carol Nelson, Regional Sales Executive and Seattle Market President, KeyBank

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Carol NelsonFor Carol Nelson, it’s always been about banking. After earning a bachelor’s degree in finance and a master’s in business administration from Seattle University, she began her career at Seafirst, which later became Bank of America, and spent 24 years in positions of increasing responsibility in its commercial and retail divisions.

She left to become president and CEO of Cascade Bank, a community bank headquartered in nearby Everett, Wash., where she spent 10 years transforming it from a savings bank to a commercial bank, serving businesses as well as consumers. In fact, that is one of the professional achievements of which she is most proud. As she notes, changing culture can be challenging, and she found it extremely rewarding to make such a profound change and still be named the “No. 1 Medium-Size Business to Work For” by Washington CEO magazine in 2005. “That much change can be threatening, so the fact that we could also sustain and build morale was really meaningful.”

As Nelson has progressed throughout her career, she has learned the importance of building relationships. During the Cascade Bank transition, she learned that “if others in the organization understand and know you, they are more willing to accept your leadership and any changes you might need to introduce.” She also gained an appreciation for the power of process. “Giving participants the opportunity to buy in will increase the likelihood of success, whether it’s a single project or an overall company transformation.”

Nelson eventually orchestrated the sale of Cascade Bank to Opus Bank and, and following a period of transition, moved on to spend two years as agency director and CEO of the Department of Revenue for the State of Washington. “Having the chance to serve the public and give a portion of my life to public service was a tremendous opportunity, and I thoroughly enjoyed being a member of the Governor’s Executive Cabinet,” Nelson said.

Future of Banking is Bright

Banking called her back though, and she accepted her leadership role at KeyBank in January 2015. “I love being on a steep learning curve, and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to bring my passion for diversity and leadership here to KeyBank,” she said. “I feel very fortunate that I found a career that I’m excited about and have a passion for – some people don’t ever find that and I’ve had it from the start.”

Nelson notes that it’s an exciting time in the industry. People have long predicted the rise of a purely cashless society, or the demise of branch banking as technology advances. But that’s not what her bank is experiencing – she says that customers still want the mix of touch points and so she will continue to lead efforts to deliver a broad cross section of products that can meet the needs of virtually every business and consumer.

“I don’t see that we will ever be able to harness technology to give people the sound advice and financial solutions that bankers do,”

Nelson finds banking to be an ideal career for women, due to the breadth and depth of the financial sector. She encourages women who are interested in career growth to seek a broad range of experience in multiple lines of business.

An Environment of Inclusivity

Though the career is particularly welcoming to women at the entry level, she has seen that as they continue to move up, it becomes more challenging and very competitive. “There are some stereotypes and management styles that can get in the way, but women just need to be smart about how they navigate them.” She notes a strong culture of advancement potential at Key in particular – it is led by a woman and women comprise 36 percent of the leadership team.

Since coming to KeyBank, Nelson has been appreciative of the networking group structure the bank offers. Employees are encouraged to form smaller networking groups where shared interests and backgrounds reinforce employee engagement and a sense of belonging. Current groups bring together Asian Americans, African Americans, employees with disabilities and employees of military families.

There is also a robust Key4Women group that supports the advancement of business women of all levels through networking and professional development events. Nelson says the program got her attention long before she came to the bank because it served employees as well as clients. “Our bankers are passionate about making sure women business owners have access to capital,” she said, adding that since 2005, KeyBank has lent more than $6 billion to women-owned businesses.

Giving Back

Nelson encourages women who want to become leaders to develop their skills by being active in the community early on. “Helping a nonprofit translates into valuable work experience and great connections,” Nelson said.

Her philosophy of giving back has created a mentoring mindset. “I believe that women leaders need to help other emerging women leaders advance their careers in the community,” she says. “Whenever someone asks for some of my time, I try to make it work. Someone paid it forward for me, and I want to do the same for others.”

At the same time, she notes that all senior women have to make savvy use of their time. Which is one reason she is such a believer in volunteer work and its ability to accomplish simultaneous goals.

Nelson is active in the Washington Roundtable, which focuses on economic development. “I am passionate about contributing to a thriving economy. At the Roundtable, I’m networking with peers and serving a mission while being visible on behalf of the bank. Time is finite – I really believe you have to be laser focused with how you spend it.”

She also serves as a trustee to Seattle University, where she is a double alum, and says she is energized by visiting the campus and interacting with the students.

And in her off time she participates in CrossFit – she is a certified instructor and while she doesn’t currently teach, she exercises her right to fitness with thrice-weekly sessions.

By Cathie Ericson

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Voice of Experience: Sanja Udovicic, Partner in Project Finance Group, Shearman & Sterling

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Sanja UdovicicClient service and innovative deal making are what drive Sanja Udovicic, a partner in global law firm Shearman & Sterling’s project finance group in London. “My proudest professional achievements derive from successfully accomplishing my clients’ objectives and delivering their goals,” she says, particularly when working on what she describes as “complicated and interesting deals that haven’t been done before in frontier jurisdictions.”

Her recent and ongoing work, for example, includes advising multilateral lending institutions and commercial banks on the financing of an upstream gas project in Uzbekistan, counseling the government of Croatia on their tendering of a concession for the operation of the Croatian toll road network and advising lenders on a power project in Indonesia which won a number of awards for its innovative financing structure.

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Voice of Experience: Donna M. Parisi, Partner and Head of the Asset Management Group, Shearman & Sterling LLP

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Donna Parisi“People sometimes ask me, ‘If you could do it all over again, given your practice focus in the financial services area, would you be a banker as opposed to a lawyer?’ I would be a lawyer. This is a particularly exciting time to be a lawyer, with all the regulatory changes, and my clients rely on me to provide counsel and advice,” said Donna M. Parisi, Partner and Head of the Asset Management Group at global law firm Shearman & Sterling LLP.

Parisi’s practice deals globally with derivatives, structured products, securitization, capital markets and commodities, as well as regulatory, risk management, and compliance counseling. It is an area of great interest, and her advice is in high demand.

She explained, “My clients need help navigating complex regulations– especially in light of Dodd-Frank. We’re in a period of great change. There’s a lot happening out there.”

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Voice of Experience: Eliza Swann, Partner, Shearman & Sterling

Eliza SwannEliza Swann, a partner at Shearman & Sterling, says that her interest in law and her interest in M&A developed in two wildly different ways: the first was a matter of design and the second was a matter of happenstance.

“I wanted to go to law school for as long as I can remember, but ending up on the M&A team at Shearman & Sterling was a bit of an accident. I had never considered a business transactional type of career,” Swann said.

It’s funny how things turn out. Swann, who became a partner at Shearman & Sterling in 2007 after eight years with the firm, works on domestic and cross-border deals. In recent years, she has worked on several of the highest-profile M&A transactions in the world, including last year’s acquisition by Liberty Global of Virgin Media in a $23.3 billion transaction.

As an associate just out of law school, Swann found herself on Shearman & Sterling’s M&A team, in large part because she had clerked for the Delaware Supreme Court. Because so many companies incorporate in Delaware (more than 60 percent of Fortune 500 companies are Delaware companies), it is a major venue for business law litigation, with a judiciary that is extremely sophisticated in reviewing corporate law issues. Swann’s clerkship gave her valuable insight into issues fundamental to a transactional practice.

“I was so lucky to have been offered the clerkship and accepted the position without realizing how truly interesting the work would be,” Swann said. “About halfway in, I decided that I wanted to work in a New York firm with a strong M&A practice. I got the job at Shearman & Sterling and have been interested every day since.”

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Voice of Experience: Anna Chung, Counsel, Project Development & Finance, Shearman & Sterling

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Anna ChungTo Anna Chung, landing your “dream job” is not a question of whether you are female or male but rather of how good you are. As a Singapore-based senior lawyer at global law firm Shearman & Sterling, Chung has demonstrated the ability to shine on client work throughout Asia and, increasingly, around the world.

A project finance lawyer, Chung’s practice focuses on power, LNG, oil and gas, and petrochemicals projects. She began her career at a leading Australian firm but left after a few years for Shearman & Sterling.

“To be honest, my career was not particularly planned out, but I’ve been fortunate in having opportunities come my way,” she explains. “I knew I wanted life experiences in cities beyond the city where I grew up, and with Shearman & Sterling, I’ve been able to work in our London and Shanghai offices and am currently working out of our Singapore office.”

While she works on projects throughout Asia, Chung says it has been particularly meaningful to be one of the firm’s leading lawyers serving clients in Korea. She has been doing joint pitches, coordinating marketing trips to Seoul and preparing business plans as the firm expands its client base in Korea.

“It’s meaningful for me as Korea is where I am originally from,” Chung explains. “Our global project finance practice is quite an integrated one, and from fairly early on in my career, I’ve worked with senior partners from different offices on projects involving Korean financial institutions or corporates.”

She adds, “Korea is increasingly an important market for us with Korean financial institutions and corporates so active in the international project finance scene. We have been investing in our Korean relationships for some time now and it’s rewarding that as a firm and individually, we are getting significant market recognition.”

Loving Your Job

Chung has had two professional role models during her career to date – partners Bill McCormack at Shearman & Sterling and Michael Harrison at Minter Ellison. According to Chung, they are recognised experts in their fields but the real reason is that despite “the pressures and demands that come with such busy practices and management roles,” they manage to have a great sense of humor, treat every person with respect and be dedicated to their family.

Just like her role models, Chung finds humor in difficult situations. Throughout her career as a lawyer she has learned that little details, such as the correct date of an overseas pitch, do matter.

“Sometimes errors can work in your favor,” she explains. “One of my partners at Shearman & Sterling still teases me for getting the date wrong for an overseas pitch for a $1.2bn project. We arrived at the client’s offices a week early but still managed to win the pitch.”

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Voice of Experience: Sarita Mohapatra, Partner, PwC US

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Sarita Mohapatra“Even though I was committed to continuing my career after my maternity leave, the first few months were still challenging. So now I proactively connect with other returning women to provide support and encourage retention because I know women can successfully juggle work and a family.”

Sarita Mohapatra, a tax principal with PwC, talks often about how to balance family life and her busy client schedule.

She’s been with PwC since 2001, becoming a partner in 2010. She initially studied economics in India and after earning her MBA came to the United States. A PhD in Economics followed, and she realized she had a love for teaching and spent four years as a faculty member at Utah State University. She decided she wanted to get back to the corporate world and subsequently moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, seeking a position in professional services that incorporated her background in applied economics. After briefly working at another firm, she joined PwC.

Her work remains constantly fascinating to her, particularly the technological advancements that seem to occur on a daily basis. With changes occurring globally related to transfer pricing and the intersection of economics and tax, she finds herself delving into new areas to identify solutions for her clients who are under lots of pressure to deal with regulatory compliance issues.

Don’t Make a Decision for Your Whole Life Based on Today

She worries that young women walk away from opportunities because they sometimes anticipate difficult situations than may never happen. She says that when she started, there weren’t many structured programs to help working moms. Even though she had no idea how to make it work, she knew she wanted to. She saw her male colleagues who have kids and still work, and she figured there was no reason why she couldn’t do the same.

“I learned that you can’t make a life decision based on the one problem ahead of you that day,” she says, citing child care coverage as an example of an issue that is transient in the big picture of your whole career.

“It’s a blip in your career. In a span of 35 years, it’s not much, but too many women think ‘I can’t be here tomorrow,’ so they walk away from everything today.”

Mohapatra says she took her clients into confidence early on, and set boundaries — for example, that two days of the week she had pick-up duties.

“I was fortunate that I had a lot of support and my colleagues and clients, both male and female, always supported me. Women wonder if it’s possible to have it all, so I try to talk to as many as I can to say, yes, it is possible. Even though everyone’s story will be different, this is how I did it. I really try to be a good role model for working moms because even though I had great support from my mentors, I wish I had more working moms as my role models when I was making those decisions.”

Speak Up To Get the Opportunities You Need

Mohapatra advises women to be outspoken and open about their aspirations. She says that while male candidates will routinely ask how long until they make partner, she’s found very few women will start a discussion to find out their prospects for career advancement potential.

“It’s not that they’re not ambitious — I see that drive and hunger — but they hold back,” she says. “I think they are concerned that I might think they are getting ahead of themselves. I coach my managers and staff constantly that if they want to advance, then they need to tell someone, because speaking up allows managers to give interested people the opportunity to acquire the skills and expertise they need.”

She says she focuses on this through her own experience – she had assumed everyone knew she wanted to make partner, so was surprised when she found out they didn’t. Someone asked if others knew, and she said “I think so! This is why I’m working this hard.” But she found out you can’t assume and went back to amend her career plan with long-term and short-term goals.

And the advice can translate for women she would consider her peers. She says that sometimes even at the higher levels, she still sees women will hold back in meetings and discussions.

She credits her viewpoints with her upbringing in India, when her parents would tell her that to succeed in the corporate sector in India without losing her identity she needed to be proud of who she is and what she brought to the table. “They would say, ‘We don’t want you to emulate men to be successful! Be yourself.’” Those words stick with her as she maintains her authenticity in her career.

Networking for Success

Mohapatra says that when she began in public accounting, there weren’t too many learning and development programs so she tried to build up her network naturally by participating in firm-sponsored events or organizing informal lunches or drinks.

“If I could, I would go back and cast my net a lot wider,” she says. “I tell my team to step outside their comfort zone from immediate coworkers and be more strategic about networking beyond those you meet organically.”
Mohapatra is very engaged in PwC’s Office of Diversity initiatives and recently gave the keynote address on the power of networking at the national convention of Ascend, a Pan-Asian organization with which she is involved locally and nationally.

“I tell my team to step outside their comfort zone from immediate coworkers and be more strategic about networking beyond those you meet organically.”

Family Focus

Mohapatra remembers that one of her partners had suggested she network more outside of business hours, which seemed challenging in light of the many long hours she already put in. But she realized that many of her clients also had kids around the same age so she started planning events that included families. “I realized I had to incorporate both my life and work to make better use of the time I had.”

She carries that double-duty ethos into her community service outreach as well, helping in her son’s school and working with Habitat for Humanity, which she combines into a team-building activity with her staff.

When she’s not working, she enjoys gardening, a hobby that she and her family can do together.

Her family loves to travel, looking for areas off the beaten path to get a true flavor of the culture. Her son, who is 12, has already been to 13 countries. “When people ask him to tell a fun fact about himself he loves to say that he’s been to more countries than he is years old.”

By Cathie Ericson

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Voice of Experience: Stephanie Holt, Chief Financial Officer, North Capital Inc.

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Stephanie Holt HeadshotAt one time she moved her young family to Singapore for work, traveled frequently from the United States to Latin America on business and left a high profile job to raise two daughters. A few years later, Stephanie Holt returned to the workforce and successfully reinvented herself at an investor focused start-up firm. As a woman with a degree in business economics and a background in technology, Holt proves there is no such thing as a straight line when it comes to your career path.

Creating an International Career

Born and raised in California, Holt met her husband as an undergrad at University of California – Riverside. After a short sabbatical to have her first daughter, she graduated and started working at a small medical technology firm. Soon after, she had her second daughter and then embarked on graduate school at the University of Redlands.

When her husband’s job moved them to the Bay area, in January 2000 Holt started working in finance at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), a semiconductor company that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. She started in Sub-Micron Development working with research and development Engineers buying equipment to design microchips that wouldn’t be produced for 10 years.

“About a year and a half later, the CFO asked me if I wanted to manage the manufacturing plant in Singapore,” she said. “My husband and I had a brief discussion about it and five weeks later we were on our way to Asia.”

That was July 2001 and Holt admits that if she knew the challenges that were ahead for a 5’10’’ blonde woman in Singapore, she may not have gone.

“Some of the things I saw were shocking. For example, when you apply for job in Singapore, you have to include a picture with the application,” she said. “Questions about your personal life and when you want to have kids are part of the interview process.”

At one point, Holt was pulled aside and advised to try and acclimate to the culture around her instead of trying to have them acclimate to what she was used to.

“I might have been cavalier when I first got there but I learned some great life lessons, such as not everything is black and white,” she said. “If I am passionate in my beliefs about something, someone else is just as passionate but on the other side of the table.”

Even though AMD wanted to extend her stay in Singapore another four years, Holt and her family moved back to the States after two years in Asia. They moved her into a financial sales role where she spent a lot of time traveling to Latin America.

Three years later, when her oldest daughter was in high school, Holt decided she wanted to take some time off to be a stay at home mom.

“It was then that I realized just how important my job title had become to me and it took me six months to reconcile that,” she said. “I didn’t know any women who had left a high profile corporate job to be a mom, and then come back after some time to another senior level position. I learned that if you are confident, you can do it.”

Joining an Investment Advisory Start-Up

After her second daughter went to college, Holt wanted to go back to work as a consultant. She called Jim Dowd, managing director of North Capital and a man she has known since high school.

“One of the reasons I was interested in the North Capital companies was because of the JOBS Act passing in 2012. This was designed to give individual investors better access to private investment deals. I remembered when I was at AMD, we had a sales rep who told us about an amazing company that was pre-IPO but past the start-up phase,” said Holt. “That company was Google and everyone was trying to figure out a way get money in but only the big investors had access to it. The JOBS Act is supposed to make it easier for people to invest in these private placement deals.”

Holt was excited about the new product availabilities and started thinking about all of the people in her life that could take advantage of this new landscape.

“We get a lot of referrals from our current clients’ children who don’t have a lot of money themselves but want advice on how to invest. Each client is deserving of your time and attention. That’s what I learned working with Jim Dowd and appreciate about him,” said Holt. “North Capital is a business but it’s also a friendship that has been 37 years in the making.”

In three years, Holt and Dowd have been able to build the company from 3 to 15 employees with over 20 registered representatives. Holt believes the time is right for the company to give back and launched an initiative aimed at educating women, in various stages of their life, to start the conversation about money.

“I really feel that money is still a taboo topic for women,” she said. “Since money is such an important aspect of your career and personal life, we need to be comfortable with talking about the topic.”

Lessons Learned

Holt has also recognized throughout her career that it is okay to say no.

“When I would make requests to colleagues and they would say no, I would figure out how to make it work and yet I was always reluctant to say no myself,” she said. “I would never think less of that person, I would just think that they had other work to do. I finally realized that no one thought less of me as an employee, or a person, if I said no.”

She said that this also makes you a better worker.

“When you say no, you are also able to avoid over extending yourself,” she said.

Holt also advises to be open and honest about what you don’t know at your job.

“I am the type of person that is always upfront about what I don’t know because I have always been surrounded by great people who could fill in the gaps,” she said. “In Singapore, I knew my role but I didn’t know the way people did business in Asia. I learned that if you ask for help, people are willing to work with you.”

A Career of Breaking Misconceptions

Just like Holt transitioned from Asia to Latin America and from accounting to technology; Holt has also been able to transition from a high profile, career focused women to a stay at home mom and back again. By learning to talk about money, by avoiding over-extending herself and by having the confidence to put her family first when she felt it was needed, Holt has become a role model for women with young families.

She believes it is a misconception to think women can’t take a break and then come back. She points to a change she has seen in the past 15 years.

“When I started, there weren’t a lot of women in senior management positions in technology. We were taught to wear pantsuits and act like a man because that was what it took to succeed. Now that women have become more visible as role models, females in finance and technology are better able to envision a path for themselves,” she said. “Just remember, you don’t need to take the point A to point B path to get to the right place.”

By Jessica Titlebaum

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Voice of Experience: Kelli P. Washington, Managing Director at Cambridge Associates

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Kelli P. WashingtonKelli Washington knows the value of understanding an organization inside and out.

She began her post-undergraduate career in the financial services industry, where she spent 10 years at Edward Jones as a due diligence analyst and portfolio manager. She began in a rotational program that gave her an inside view of departments like operations or marketing, and she knows that background knowledge increased her value to the firm. “I would attend meetings where people wouldn’t know where to find answers, but I became a go-to source since I knew different parts of the organization that others didn’t.”

She knew she wanted to stay in the industry but she also wanted to pursue a career path that was more meaningful, and for her that was the field of education.

“I had been fortunate to receive a college scholarship, but at the time I didn’t understand why I still had to take out loans if the college had such an ample endowment,” she says. “As I learned more about the responsibility of the endowment, I realized that I wanted to put my skills to work as an endowment investment manager.”

The Intersection of Finance and Non-Profits

She pursued her MBA at Yale to move into endowment management and has now been at Cambridge Associates for more than seven years.

When she reflects on her career, she is proud of the dedication it took to earn the designations of both CFA and MBA.

She says earning the CFA was not just challenging, but “often heartbreaking.” When she returned to school for her MBA, she already had a decade of experience, making her relatively older, which she says allowed her to focus on taking not only the classes she needed, but also those that were interesting to her. Her younger classmates who were in school for a career switch had a large number of classes they were obligated to take, where she took advantage of her unique opportunity to take more classes related to non-profits than business.

She has parlayed that expertise into her current role, helping non-profits manage their endowment assets. She’s particularly excited about one client she’s recently started working with, in which the nature of their relationship has allowed her to learn more about their mission.

“I talk with them about investment strategies, but the way they work on an integrated model has allowed me to have more interaction with their board members and their non-investment staff where I can learn more about their great work and programming at a deeper level.”

Her work is a perfect combination of exposure to both traditional finance and the non-profit space.

On the finance front, she says that everyone is acutely aware that many of the changes in the regulatory environment will have unintended consequences, even though many were necessary because of the financial crisis. She cites how the new regulatory environment has changed the landscape of the trading markets. The full impact may not be known until the next market correction.

“When the next bear market occurs, how will the markets behave and will we be in a position where we can create liquidity for our clients?” she asks.

And, on the other side of the coin, she draws from her unique space in the non-profit world to wonder how they can make sufficient money to be able to continue to serve their constituents.

She works with many organizations with deep pockets, but knows there are lots of smaller ones that won’t exist in 10 years because their endowments can’t support their missions and they can’t fundraise sufficiently.

“People can’t donate to all the wonderful groups out there, of course, so they have to choose those most closely aligned with their values. However, it’s a little scary to know that there will be people who will fall through some cracks. For example from a personal viewpoint, I fear that someone might not get the education that I am blessed to have because someone gave money to Washington University.”

Paying Attention

Washington has one lament about her earlier years – she wishes she had paid more attention. “It’s often hard to focus in the moment, but there are times I have an epiphany that I know something — but I didn’t know I knew it. It has helped me become more aware of what I’m working on and how it can help either myself or others down the road.” She advises women starting their careers to learn as much as they can and take advantage of opportunities that present themselves.

During her tenure at Cambridge, Washington has spent time in two of the eight offices, and admires its focus on establishing mentoring programs. When she first started, she had several mentors from whom she could ask questions outside of her immediate team. The firm also matches investment directors and analysts.

“I personally try to informally mentor as many of my analyst partners as I can and spend time with them to ensure they are growing and developing as they need to. Of course, I have a special place for the women since I’ve been there and know what it’s like to be one of the few.”

She believes that the lack of women in the industry is a self-fulfilling process — there aren’t enough women or African Americans to act as mentors and role models. “Young women don’t see other women so they don’t see themselves,” she says, adding that for the past 20 years she has actively been involved in recruiting.

She notes that ample numbers of women will attend an informational session, but the numbers dwindle as they matriculate through the interview process. “I don’t have the solution but I know we all need to do as much as we can to encourage diversity.”

Seeing the World

Outside of the office, Washington loves to travel internationally and and recently completed a 10-day European tour with her parents. She has also earned her scuba diving certification and looks forward to planning a dive trip this year.

By Cathie Ericson

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Voice of Experience: Esther Jansen, Finance Partner, Frankfurt, Shearman & Sterling LLP

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jansen_e_hiresDon’t opt out before you ever get a chance to start your career.

That’s the advice from Esther Jansen, a Shearman & Sterling partner in Frankfurt who took opportunities as they were presented to grow her career.

Today a well-known and highly-regarded lawyer who advises on German and cross-border finance transactions, Jansen began her legal career the way most professionals begin theirs: with a general direction but lacking any real focus. In fact, thinking back to her time as a law student at University of Heidelberg, Jansen admits she had no specific career path in mind; there were no lawyers in her family but she had always been interested in the field and knew that a general plan of study could open doors to various avenues.

Her career path started rather randomly with her oral examination at the conclusion of her studies. That is when a corporate law professor, from whom she had never even taken a class, complimented her performance and offered her a job.

“I was able to travel and make a lot of connections, and I realized that this area of law was something I wanted to pursue,”

Thus she embarked on a career in corporate law. Jansen recalls finding the field “inspiring” due to a wide variety of projects that encompassed different areas of law, including international projects with professors from other universities. “I was able to travel and make a lot of connections, and I realized that this area of law was something I wanted to pursue,” Jansen says.

For three years she supported the professor on research projects and student training. She was then offered a position at a law firm through another professor with whom she had interfaced while working at the university.

For three years, Jansen concentrated on venture capital, corporate and M&A, and then new doors opened as her German firm merged with one in New York. She was offered the chance to work in New York to get a different perspective and meet people with whom she had worked from Germany.

“I was astounded at how different the environment was,” she says. “German law firms had hierarchy but nowhere near that of a US firm in New York. One day I went to a partner’s office, only to run into a mid-level associate who asked me what I was doing. I quickly found out that there you don’t just go to the partner.”

Soon after returning to Germany she left – along with the partner with whom she had been working — and began her career with Shearman & Sterling in 2001.

“Becoming partner was a defining moment for me because I’m so proud to be part of this inspiring environment,”

A Rewarding, Fascinating Change

Jansen found Shearman & Sterling to be a great fit right from the start, with a team spirit, lots of young partners and a supportive environment. Jansen became a partner in 2005 and had the opportunity to work with many different partners during her time as an associate, which she credits for her rapid development. “The more personalities you work with, the more you can choose the patterns that work best for you to develop your own professional personality,” she says.

“Becoming partner was a defining moment for me because I’m so proud to be part of this inspiring environment,” she adds. “The ability to transition from one area of law to another, and work with so many smart people and become part of the market and a community on a bigger scale, has really been an achievement for me.”

Jansen finds her work challenging and fascinating because of its ever-changing structure. Over the past year she has not only found a rewarding opportunity to retain new relationships with private equity houses in the higher and midmarket segments, but also worked with banks and corporates on financing transactions, insolvency issues and high yield bonds.

Making a Career Choice for the Right Stage of Your Life

Jansen believes that it is also a woman’s responsibility to take charge of her own career. “I have never encountered a barrier from clients or the firm, nor experienced any pushback from anyone in or outside of the firm,” she says.

It’s still an issue she understands well: the year before her partnership process began she became pregnant and endured the ensuing questions from women about whether she could balance her work and family. But there was no issue with the firm; being a mother did not impair her partnership opportunity. She stayed home for five months and there was no delay to her partnership track when she returned.

However, this perceived barrier presents a problem for hiring and retaining women. Jansen says that when she started at Shearman & Sterling, about 50 percent of her fellow associates were women but, as is the case throughout the legal industry, there was a drop-off by the time associates become ready for the partnership.

Jansen encourages young woman to start networking early, both internally and externally

Over and over she hears from young women that their main obstacle is whether this is the right career for the next 20 years.

“Maybe it is, maybe it’s not, but you don’t have to overthink it. Take a small step and see if it’s right for you,” she says, adding that women often don’t take the big leap and therefore get stuck in a less ambitious job before they even start. “Gaining experience at a firm like Shearman & Sterling means that all the doors are open. Even when women leave, they have a strong foundation to launch the next phase of their career that they wouldn’t have had if they hadn’t pushed themselves.”

Women Helping Women

Although Shearman & Sterling is known for its comprehensive women’s networking groups, German culture as a whole isn’t as developed in gender diversity initiatives. Jansen says the German market is starting to adapt, and the firm has introduced its Women’s Initiative for Success, Excellence and Retention (WISER) inclusion network locally. The firm has also expanded its annual global partner meeting an extra day for anyone, male or female, who wants to participate in Women’s Initiative programming. That programming typically includes female speakers and networking with other female partners to mine connections that could help each other.

In addition, the women partners have taken the initiative to become part of smaller personal circles of four to five women who report to each other once or twice a month, offering encouragement and a high degree of accountability. “Since it’s a more intimate group, you’ll be missed if you’re not part of it,” she says.

Jansen encourages young woman to start networking early, both internally and externally, to get to know the peers they’ll grow their careers with. In fact, she says that one of the foundations of Shearman & Sterling’s Women’s Initiative is that, within the business and legal communities, women are increasingly making the legal buy decisions, in their role as general counsel or assistant general counsel, so it’s important to understand their contacts’ business and what they are looking for and to foster relationships with senior women in those organizations.

Through it all, and with a very challenging career, Jansen is aware that she has been fortunate to have the support from her husband and her extended family. With two kids, ages 11 and 8, Jansen says, “On the weekends, family is my hobby.”

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Voice of Experience: Kiran Kaur, Managing Director- Technology, TIAA-CREF

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KiranKiran Kaur has seen the powerful effect that strong women mentors and sponsors have had on advancing her career. “Together we need to help other women be promoted to leadership roles. We grow the chain by passing it on.”

Kaur came to the United States from Sydney, parlaying her master’s degree in computer science into a position at a small Wall Street consulting firm. As the only women in the IT department, she found herself rolling up her sleeves to install big machines – doing everything her male counterparts were doing.

That can-do attitude caught the eye and impressed one of her clients, a hedge fund company, whose CTO paid a finder’s fee to her consulting company and offered her a job. It was a critical milestone in her career progression, giving her entrée into the financial industry.

Two years later, when the fund manager decided to retire and downsize, he invited two major Wall Street firms in to interview and place the remaining employees. Kaur decided that Morgan Stanley was most suited to her career progression at the time and joined the firm. For 13 years, she held a wide variety of roles, becoming a vice president and then an executive director and overseeing a global team of more than 100 in Asia, Hong Kong, London, Australia and India.

In 2012, a former boss who had gone to TIAA-CREF reached out, inviting her to visit the Charlotte, N.C., headquarters, assuring Kaur she would be well-suited to the culture and there were plenty of opportunities to leverage her experience.

Kaur eventually joined TIAA-CREF in 2013 and was recently promoted to managing director, overseeing technology. She says she is looking forward to being part of some upcoming transitions in the company and industry. TIAA-CREF’s current CIO has advanced to become COO, opening up the position for someone from the outside. “It will be interesting to see their perspective and how we will adapt and deliver on any directional changes they make,” Kaur said. In addition her team has been actively pursuing an initiative designed to drive accountability and shine light on enhancing the exchange management process.

Brand Presence as a Driver of Success

Through her transition to TIAA-CREF, Kaur became acutely aware of the differences in company culture and the importance of adapting. “Morgan Stanley was a very aggressive environment, very competitive, where you had to prove yourself to even be considered to have a seat at the table,” she says. “When I first started at TIAA-CREF I would march in with a solution to a problem, but it wasn’t long before I realized that I needed to tweak my style – they weren’t just about speed but execution.”

That’s when she began to focus on the importance of personal brand. “You have to be constantly conscious of what people are saying about you and how you are being perceived by those around you because it sets the tone for what others think about you, even if they might not have worked directly with you,” she says, adding that brand encompasses everything from how you walk into the room to what you have to deliver.

Even though she acknowledges that her brand spoke for itself when she was first tapped by the hedge fund firm, she says that had she been more consciously aware of its importance, she would have been more intentional about using it to build stronger relationships.

“Had I gotten a career sponsor earlier on, perhaps I would have had quicker ascensions. Finding career sponsors and mentors, people who will recognize and champion your talent, will push your career forward,” Kaur said. “You can be the best person, but if no one knows about it, especially as you get more senior, you won’t get the opportunities you want. Success is reliant on negotiating and influencing skills.”

Although the industry has advanced in gender diversity, Kaur still sees that there is a long way to go to achieve parity. Not only is the financial services industry still largely male dominated, but it is even more pronounced when you layer the technology function on top, which can cause challenges for networking opportunities.

For example, men frequently participate in golf or sports outings, and that can seem alienating to women. “Women know the importance of gaining insights by participating in events outside of work for relationship building, but it can be harder for women to insert themselves into these scenarios. We typically have to go home to our families, where men don’t have to adapt their schedules as much.”

Additionally, some traits that are acceptable coming from a man are still perceived as overly aggressive in women leaders. One area where Kaur urges women to take control is in speaking up for themselves. She points out that men have no qualms about asking for a raise or promotion and women need to do the same.

Despite the gender differences Kaur believes women shouldn’t alter themselves to try to fit in. “Some women try to act like men, which is fine if that’s your choice, but we should be proud of our femininity and stop pretending. Women can drive the agenda just as effectively.”

And that extends to emulating managers too. “Sometimes we get into the shadow of our leaders and start imitating their behaviors which can be positive, but it also means you can lose your individual personality. It’s important to stay true to your own brand.”

Kaur personally stays involved in a number of women-oriented councils and encourages other women in the industry to help increase the percentage of women in IT. “I am an example of someone who got chosen by a woman leader, who put me in a position where I was exposed so that my talent was recognized.”

World Traveler

A multi-national citizen — born in Africa, and then moving to Sydney and ultimately the United States — Kaur has been traveling since birth, and she has passed that love on to her family, which includes her husband and four- and 11-year old children. On a regular basis, she counts fitness, especially yoga, and cooking as her stress busters. For her it’s about being with her family doing something they all love, together.

By Cathie Ericson

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