By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

One of the key lessons that Anita Nemes has learned throughout her career is the importance of personal career management. Nemes, Managing Director and Global Head of Capital Introductions at Deutsche Bank, explained, “Just doing your job extremely well is not enough. You have to take responsibility for your own career, thinking about where you want to be next year and the year after that.”

“It’s not just about getting your job done. It’s taking the initiative to get to where you want to be.”

And that means trusting your instincts and taking risks. She explained, “Sometimes it’s really worth taking risks. When I started in prime brokerage, it was a much smaller business than cash equities, where I had worked previously. But I had a vision that hedge funds were here to stay and grow, and that’s exactly what happened.”

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

One of the turning points in Claire Ross’s career was realizing the benefits in taking big risks and moving out of her comfort zone.

Ross, Head of Customer Service Delivery, Outsourcing at Mercer, explained, “I realized that men go for bigger roles, even if they don’t think they can do half of the job. As a woman I would not have gone done that, our natural tendency is to be 100% sure you can do the whole role.”

She continued, ‘Knowing that, I have pushed myself outside of my comfort zone and it has proved to be much easier than I ever imagined. If I had known earlier, I would have pushed further, sooner.”

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By Robin Madell (San Francisco)

Elle Kaplan moved to New York City with no job, no apartment, and $200 in savings. She is now the CEO and Founding Partner of a leading independent private bank, Lexion Capital Management. “It has been a fun and often unpredictable journey,” Kaplan said.

With a background in English literature and chemistry, Kaplan’s entrance into the finance industry was not automatic. She began her career by temping, applying to every financial firm that she could think of. But she had missed the recruiting cycle and was initially rejected by every bank she tried. “I contacted headhunters, and they looked at my English and chemistry degrees and said I would never get a job on Wall Street,” Kaplan said. “However, I always think of a ‘no’ as someone’s opinion, nothing more. So the rejections did not alter my plans.”

Kaplan’s big break came during an interview to be a receptionist at a private equity firm. During the interview, the team noted her ‘A’ average and expressed concern that she would be bored answering phones. Kaplan agreed and asked whether there were any openings for analysts. Four days later, she had landed an analyst job. “That was my biggest ‘sale!’” Kaplan said.

During her career, Kaplan has worked as a private banker at JP Morgan Chase, as a derivatives specialist at a British investment bank, and as a Vice-President and financial advisor at Bernstein Global Wealth Management. Along the way, she earned an Executive MBA from Columbia University. She recommends the degree to those who work full-time.

“One great thing about getting an Executive MBA is you put your classroom management lessons into action right away versus waiting until you graduate,” Kaplan said. “You can also advance faster in your career choice because you don’t have to take off time for school. Instead you are doing it all at once.”

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“I’m constantly learning in this job,” said Suni Harford, Managing Director and Regional Head of Markets for North America at Citi. “And that’s great after twenty-five years in the business, to say I learn something new every day.”

Harford, who co-heads the firm’s women’s initiative in addition to her day job, shows inspiring enthusiasm for her career – and, she said, it comes from doing work she enjoys.

“It sounds silly to say that the most exciting thing I’m working on right now is just doing my job, but these markets make for interesting days, and it’s very rewarding.”

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Helping write the recent tri-party repo reforms has been a significant source of pride for Kelly Mathieson, Managing Director of Global Custody and Clearance Business Executive at J.P. Morgan Worldwide Securities Services, and is one way she’s making her mark on the industry.

“I think my proudest professional achievement has been the opportunity to be involved in and lead part of the reforms mandated by the Fed for the tri-party repo market movement,” she said.

“The market crisis occurred in ’08, and I picked up the clearing business about a month after that,” she continued, adding that Lehman was a notable client at the time. “It really gave us unbelievable insight into how that market model was not working effectively.”

She continued, “We made recommendations in May 2010 and have been working on the reforms’ implementation, and I’m quite proud of that. It will transform how that model works, and it will impact the generations to come.”

Mathieson, who was recently named of one of American Banker’s top 25 women to watch continued, “It was a Herculean amount of work and I’ve never been involved in something like that before.”

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