Voice of Experience: Barbara-Ann King, Head of Investments, Barclays Stockbrokers

barbara-annBy Elizabeth Harrin (London)

Barbara-Ann King is not your stereotypical stockbroker. In May this year she will be jumping out of a plane to raise money for Breakthrough Breast Cancer. “I am a great believer in giving things a try, because if it does not work out you can try something else,” she says, “and I believe that leadership, or the best leaders, are those who are willing to go outside their comfort zone.”

King took another leap over ten years ago, when she moved from a legal and management consultancy career to alternative investment management. It turned out to be a shrewd move, as she has risen through the financial services ranks to become Head of Investments at Barclays Stockbrokers. However, it wasn’t a structured step on her career journey. “To be honest there was no master plan, it just happened,” she explains. “I was working on a project that involved private equity and got head hunted by a bank for a role that I had no interest in, fed this back and was then asked to consider another role in the start up of a ‘new’ department of alternative investments – the industry was not even called that at the time, it was called ‘special funds’.”

King liked the team at Citigroup and sees herself as a natural entrepreneur and ‘builder’ so she gave the role at serious consideration – and took it. “It sounded fun so I took a leap of faith,” she says. “It turned into a multi billion revenue business and with it I moved to New York and took a global senior management role.”

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Voice of Experience: Julie Monaco, North America Regional Head of Global Transaction Services, Citi

MonacoBy Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

In April 2007, about to embark on a business trip, Julie Monaco, then managing director at JP Morgan Chase, was contacted about a position in financial giant Citi’s Global Transaction Services division. That’s when fate intervened and a routine trip turned into anything but.

While waiting in an airport security line for her connecting flight through Tokyo, Monaco struck up a conversation with a fellow business traveler. It just so happened to be the CEO of Citi’s Global Transaction Services.

“I stuck out my hand and introduced myself,” said Monaco. He laughingly responded, “You are about to have the longest job interview you ever had.”

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Voice of Experience: Sarah Lamar, Partner, Hunter, Maclean, Exley & Dunn, P.C. and President of legal network, ALFA International

By Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

“I decided to become a lawyer when I was ten. We went on a family trip to Washington, D.C. and visited the United States Supreme Court,” said Sarah Lamar, a partner at Hunter, Maclean, Exley & Dunn, P.C.. “The tour guide must have done a really good job,” Lamar joked, adding, “Although it was a simplistic idea, I just followed it.”

Lamar grew up in the suburbs of New Haven, Connecticut. After obtaining her Bachelors from Yale, Lamar says she was “done with New England weather” and headed south. She attended Emory University Law School in Georgia, and spent the summer between her second and third year of law school in the DC office of Morgan Lewis Bockius, a well-known labor and employment law firm.

That experience gave her “a really broad and interesting view on that area of the law” so when she was deciding what law path to take, she “checked off what things I did not like in the law: tax, corporate law, bankruptcy…employment law remained fascinating because it is the study of human relationships and how they can go right and wrong. Also,” Lamar said, “it is very people-oriented and I am a ‘people person.’ It gives me the chance to get to know the leadership in different industries and what makes people tick. I’ve always been interested in the social issues surrounding employment law like harassment and discrimination and civil rights.”

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Voice of Experience: Janet Lustgarten, CEO, Kx Systems

janetpaloalto[1]By Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

From a childhood in Colombia, to a life in the States, Janet Lustgarten’s personal motto might as well be “no guts, no glory.”

Lustgarten’s father was a men’s suit manufacturer in Colombia when new political pressures brought change to business and the way factories were run. “It was a difficult time,” she recalled, “and my family thought we’d live a better life in the United States and moved to Florida. We were the classic family coming to America looking for security and opportunity”

Just seven years old when the family arrived in Miami, Lustgarten didn’t speak a word of English, but found herself already proficient in math. “Even in Columbia, I was already leaning towards being good with numbers but, when I didn’t have the mastery of the language, that became my academic strength,” said Lustgarten. She followed her love of math and logic to Mt. Holyoke, the all-women’s liberal arts college. Ever the groundbreaker, Lustgarten commuted to University of Massachusetts for the computer science classes she required and became the first person to declare a computer science major at Mt. Holyoke.

“Computer science was a field that was up and coming,” said Lustgarten. “And I had a very clear objective to be financially independent. I wanted to develop a career path that would allow me to live comfortably in New York City. I was confident that I could graduate from college with a degree in computer science and secure myself a well paid position.”

After moving to New York City, Lustgarten interviewed with IBM for a sales support job but didn’t get the job because she “didn’t fit the mold.” Not stopped by this disappointment, Lustgarten began to look around for other opportunities. She was “just curious about personal computers, PCs, and went into Computerland, the only retail computer store  in New York City, a couple of times. When she observed that most of the sales people barely knew how to turn on the machines, she saw an opportunity. She met with the owner of that store and proposed that she build a technical support department within the sales department of the store so that customers would have successful preliminary experiences with computers instead of frustration. The owner gave her a chance—and a salary. Through that job, she developed a consulting business, helping computer customers with the installation of memory chips and other technical issues after purchase.

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Voice of Experience: Renee Pendleton, CPA, Partner, Cherry, Bekaert & Holland

ReneePendletonBy Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Renee Pendleton had a steady babysitting job in college. That wouldn’t necessarily distinguish her from many others her age. But how many babysitters parlay advice from their employer into a successful career path?

“I had wanted to be a controller in a small company but, he convinced me to try public accounting first because, if I didn’t like it, I could always go to a private company. But it would be difficult to go into public accounting if I did it the other way.” She followed the advice with the intention to “get in, stay for two years and get out,” but decided to stay at the end of that period to learn a bit more. “Now, here I am 22 years later, still in public accounting,” she said, laughing, “And I blame that guy to this day.”

Raised in Portsmouth, Virginia, Pendleton started off majoring in psychology at Old Dominion University. She intended to learn to help people with their problems; however, after one semester of psychology, “I thought, these people are out of their minds. I just don’t get it!”

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Elizabeth Schneider, Managing Director, Citisoft

Elizabeth Schneider_CitisoftBy Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

“Education is continuous. The day I stop learning is the day I’ll die,” said Elizabeth Schneider, the managing director at Citisoft.

She credits her mother for instilling this value in her. “My mother was the oldest of nine children in a very poor family. My mother, who barely spoke English at the time, took on the role of trying to educate herself and raise her brothers and sisters in a very tough time right during the Depression. She realized that if you look at education as a lifestyle and more than academic you will grow and learn things that will propel you forward much more quickly than just classroom learning. From an early age, my siblings and I were involved in learning in all forms: drama, dance, community service, sports, and travel.”

After graduating from McGill University with a Bachelor of Science, Schneider entered into the evening MBA program at Babson College. And shortly thereafter, she got her first break at Fidelity Investments in entry level fund accounting. “[The man] who hired me took a chance and hired me [even though I had no experience working with securities].” Schneider continued, “Unlike today, there wasn’t anywhere in the academic world that focused on trading operations. At the time, the only way you learned this was through experience. [My boss] gave me the opportunity to get in there and learn.”

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Voice of Experience: Dr. Sherry Cooper, Executive Vice-President and Global Economic Strategist of BMO Financial Group and Chief Economist of BMO Capital Markets

CooperBy Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Dr. Sherry Cooper, Executive Vice-President and Global Economic Strategist of BMO Financial Group, was destined for the world of finance. An entrepreneur from an early age, Dr. Cooper said, “When I was 12, I spent the summer babysitting. But I didn’t just watch one child. I would gather all the children from up and down the street and take them into my backyard and watch them. At $50 per child, I made quite a bit of money that summer.” One of her role models was her great aunt, who was a “hotshot in mortgage finance” long before it was even a possibility for most women.

But despite the early attraction to finance, it took some time before she embraced it as a career path. Dr. Cooper marveled, “I always assumed that I would just get married and be a homemaker. Until I got to Goucher College, it never occurred to me that I would have a career for the rest of my life.”

She graduated first in her class with a dual degree in economics and math, and then continued on to the University of Pittsburgh for a Ph.D. in economics. Although Dr. Cooper wasn’t interested in academia, she still didn’t see any future in a financial institution. “I grew up in a time when there were very few women in banking or finance so it never occurred to me as a possibility.”

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Voice of Experience: Wendy Cai- Lee, Director, Chinese Services Group, Deloitte

By Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Wendy Cai-Lee is quick to point out that much of her success is attributable to the sacrifices her parents made for her and her sister. When the director of Deloitte’s Chinese Services Group was just twelve, her father—a former diplomat from China’s State Department—gave up his career and his country and moved his family to the States. “We moved mostly for money and my sister’s and my education,” said Cai-Lee. “My father was concerned that if we waited any longer, I wouldn’t be able to learn English and speak it without too much of an accent.” She continued, “My parents were hardworking people who put their careers on hold and put all their hopes and dreams on their children. There was a lot of emphasis on education.”

The family ultimately settled in New Jersey. “It was a huge adjustment. But kudos to my parents: they made the move when I was young enough so that the impact was not as traumatic as it would have been if was older. I was very lucky that my parents not only moved me here when I was very young but also with a sold background of Chinese—I speak 5 Chinese dialects—and moved us to a town with an excellent school system.”

Cai-Lee was a good student and a quick learner, although there were some challenges: “In New Jersey, I grew up in an Italian and German town…my sister and I were the only Asian Americans in our school system.” Still, Cai-Lee said, “I learned English within a year. And, by the time I went to junior high, I already joined the junior debate team. I don’t think I’m that much smarter…it’s just that my father was already teaching me geometry in 5th grade. I just simply I learned all that stuff early on so it was easy to excel.”

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Voice Of Experience: Carla Harris, Managing Director of the Strategic Client Group and the Head of the Emerging Managers Platform, Morgan Stanley

Image courtesy Essence.com.

By Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Carla Harris is legendary on Wall Street for her tenacity, her ability, and her talent in business. She was ranked as one of Fortune Magazine’s 50 Most Powerful Black Executives in Corporate America for 2005 and has previously been recognized by Fortune as well as by Ebony, Essence and the Harvard University Black Men’s Forum for her leadership in the corporate sphere.

But Ms. Harris’ talents reach beyond the walls of Morgan Stanley, where she serves as the Managing Director of the Strategic Client Group and the head of the Emerging Managers Platform. A quick search of Amazon.com will reveal that she is also a published author—her book Expect to Win: Proven Strategies for Success from a Wall Street Vet has made her a popular interview subject and coveted speaker—as well as a recording artist who has sold out Carnegie Hall. Her albums “Carla’s First Christmas” and “Joy is Waiting” are filled with music to uplift the spirit.

Indeed, Ms. Harris combines the joy within her with her extensive business experience to help those striving to succeed. She is conscious of the burden of being an advisor. Her book Expect to Win is filled with, in her words, “everything I wish I’d known walking into my career, things that might have made my career markedly different. Not that I haven’t had a great career but boy, would it have been even better!”

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Voice of Experience: Vanna Krantz, Chief Financial Officer for the Media Division of Thomson Reuters

VannaKrantzWhiteVert[1] by Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Vanna Krantz grew up on Ottawa, Canada. As a child of Indian parents “who would prefer their children to become doctors, lawyers or accountants,” Krantz said she was “probably brainwashed at very young age that college was extremely important and a formal education was an absolutely necessity.”

Armed with a dual degree in accounting and mathematics from the highly regarded University of Waterloo, Krantz intended to become a chartered accountant. But, she laughed, “Did I know what it meant to be an accountant? Absolutely not. But I knew it was a professional standing and there was value to that.”

Now the Chief Financial Officer for the Media Division of Thomson Reuters, and the moderator of the recent FWA Event, Krantz has settled into her best role yet. “Thomson Reuters is a good fit for me because the Finance organization is highly valued (obviously something important to me), with tremendous talent/leaders. But it is also an organization where people skills matter quite a bit.”

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