By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“Really, what I am is an entrepreneur,” said Stephanie Fohn, CEO of WhiteHat Security. “I found out very early on that what I love to do is create something from nothing.”

Fohn is emphatic about her love of entrepreneurship. “I love being an entrepreneur and I feel very strongly about creating – whether creating companies, jobs, or security, which has a positive impact around the world.”

“I would like to see all women become CEOs or COOs,” she said. “The biggest thing is to find something that you love to do – and not everyone can – and stick with it. Don’t give up. It’s so challenging and rewarding.”

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Sheree Stomberg, Head of O&T Administration at Citi‘s Global Operations and Technology Chief Administrative Office has dedicated her life to “three pillars:” her work, her family, and her philanthropy. She works as a change agent – as an O&T expert, a dedicated advocate for women’s networks, and fighting global hunger.

“Play full out and make sure you love what you do,” she says. “Follow your passion. If you choose this industry, make sure it’s you passion.”

Working as a Change Agent in O&T

“I have a broadly diverse career path in Financial Services,” Stomberg explained. She began her career in a UBS training program dealing with corporate finance for the oil and gas industry, then becoming senior credit policy officer, then Head of Strategic Planning for the Americas, and finally, Head of Operations and Head of Technology for North America.

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By Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Linda Carlisle is a straight-talker. This daughter of Texas and partner at White and Case rapidly acknowledges the challenges facing women in her industry.

“In a law firm—back when I started and even today still—you have very few women mentors. You don’t want to be a mother or girlfriend to people: you want to be a colleague, a top partner and a trusted advisor. You want to be respected for what you can bring to the table. But you are also different from many of the people whom you are working with. You’ll very seldom walk into a room and be in the majority. You learn, over time, to handle that with wit and humor and a strong hand.”

An undergrad biology and chemistry major at the University of Texas at Austin, Carlisle believed she would follow her father and brother into a career in pharmacology. Two years later, she decided that she no longer wanted to go that route, and felt her only option was to teach. She married and, upon graduation, she and her husband moved from Austin to Pennsylvania, intending to pursue a career in academia.

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By Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

Technically, Massachusetts is in very close proximity to the bright lights and big city that is New York, but the small town of Hadley, where Elaine Sarsynski, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of MassMutual International and Executive Vice President and head of MassMutual’s Retirement Services business, called her home couldn’t have felt farther away. Sarsynski is currently the top ranked female executive at the company and was recently named one of the Top 15 Women in Business by PINK Magazine. But her attraction to business and her early understanding of its most basic concepts actually came as a result of working on her parent’s 60-acre vegetable farm.

“Working on the farm exposed me to the business side of things very early on,” Sarsynski said. “I can remember being a little kid and listening to my parents discuss things like venture capital, wholesale, and investment strategies at the dinner table and I soaked it all up. My mother was actually an astute business woman and was always thinking of clever ways to grow the business and make it profitable. I decided early on that I wanted to be a business woman, too, but I didn’t know it would ever actually take me off the farm.”

Sarsynski’s big chance came when she was just a junior at Smith College majoring in economics. One day, MassMutual came to her campus offering “a Day at MassMutual” to young women interested in the financial services industry. The young college student was eventually chosen to participate in the visit to corporate headquarters and upon making her entrance to MassMutual’s beautiful building, Sarsynski immediately knew she wanted to work at the company someday.

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By Elizabeth Harrin (London)

“Foreign Exchange is exciting,” says Janet Thomas, Director at Citi Foreign Exchange Prime. “The pace of change is so fast that trading takes place in microseconds.”

Thomas has played a key role expanding the business from a start-up to being ranked a key global FX Prime of strategic importance to clients. “The relationship I have with clients is one of the most rewarding aspects of my position,” she says. “Some clients have expanded their business through acquisitions as unprecedented market conditions presented once in a life time opportunities; others have devised pioneering new models of business and substantially increased their profits.”

Thomas joined Citi FX Prime in 2006, and was very excited about the challenges ahead – and economically it has been an interesting time since then. She believes that the foreign exchange market has been incredibly resilient during the credit crisis which has decimated other business areas in financial services. “It’s at the epicentre of any political, economic and social change and these factors impact the market immediately,” she says.

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