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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Voice of Experience: Lisa Cregan, UBS, Dallas Complex Director and Director of Women’s Development Wealth Management Advisory Group

lisa-mediumBy Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

It’s the rare 13-year-old who can clearly set the course for the rest of her life; indeed, it’s the rare 13- year-old who knows from moment to moment what she wants from that day. So when Lisa Cregan—all of 13 years old—told a local newspaper reporter “I want to be a stockbroker one day,” she was likely met with some surprise. Since that time, however, Lisa Cregan has made her dream come true, and now works to help other women do the same as the head of career development for women at UBS.

Not that it was based only on her seemingly precocious response to the reporter. Cregan, who is also the Dallas Market Area Manager for UBS, did her homework.

During the second year of her MBA program, she conducted informational interviews with executives in various industries. “I wanted to gain a perspective on each industry, learn more about the industry culture, the skills needed to be successful, and the career paths I might be able to follow.”

Based on what she learned, she confirmed that she did indeed want to end up in finance. “I was intrigued by the culture of constant change. I liked the idea of high pressure coupled with high opportunity.”

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Voice of Experience: Ida Liu, Head of the Fashion, Retail and Consumer Group, Citi Private Bank

1001144416[1]by Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Ida Liu creates wealth management strategies for ultra high net worth individuals in her role as Head of the Fashion, Retail and Consumer Group at Citi Private Bank. From high finance to high fashion and back, her career path is a testament to following your passions and to keeping in touch with your contacts.

Born in California and raised in a Mandarin-speaking home by her Chinese parents, Liu said, “My father really is an inspiration to me. He instilled in me from a very young age a work ethic and the ability to work really hard, not give up. I saw him start a business and the can-do attitude and work ethic were instilled in me at a very young age, and still inspire me everyday.”

Liu graduated from Wellesley College with a dual major in Psychology and Chinese Studies, with a concentration in Economics and a passion for fashion. “I was one of six corporate buying interns at Neiman Marcus during my junior summer while at college and was offered a job to be an assistant buyer out of college but decided to take the investment banking route [after acing the on-campus interviews]. At the time, I thought that it would be easier for me to go into investment banking and then into fashion rather than the other way around.”
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Voice of Experience: Jan Floyd-Douglass

JAFD_March_2009[1]By Elizabeth Harrin (London)

“I’ve always been a cold contactor,” says Jan Floyd-Douglass, when I ask her how she landed her top city jobs at Zurich and Barclays. “I find it’s much better to circumnavigate all the job ads.”

Jan started out with two job offers on the table: Lloyds and Citicorp and back in the ’70s took the lower paid role because Citi created “a hum” inside of her. It turned out to be a good choice. Over her fourteen years with Citi, she had seven different roles, ultimately ending up as Resident Vice President for mortgage sales.

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Voice of Experience: Stephanie Hauge, President, Financial Women’s Association

hauge_stephanie72_06[1]by Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

“Gender diversification represents a range of approaches to risk analysis and problem solving. All of that is part of the equation of getting better decisions made in a company; it isn’t just to dress up the boardroom or the C-suite with females. If there had been different perspectives and different experiences among the leadership and decision-makers [of the companies that were at the center of the financial meltdown], I believe it could have had a very different outcome.” said Stephanie Hauge, president of the Financial Women’s Association.

Hauge started her own financial career at a pharma company in New Jersey. Working as a marketing customer service representative while attending night school at Seton Hall—first for her B.A. in Accounting and then her M.B.A. in Finance—she saw firsthand the importance of gender diversity and the challenges women face in the workplace.

“I was one of just a few women in the accounting department. A senior accountant at the time, I ended up filling in for my boss when he was not doing his job. When he was eventually let go, there was a lot of external and internal support for me to be moved up into his position. But, [some months later when I still hadn’t been promoted and/or gotten a pay raise], I went to the head of the department to ask why, since I was already doing the job. The department head actually said to me, ‘If I promote you into this position, then all those guys I play golf with will work for a woman and I can’t do that to them.’ Although after some further conversation, I was officially appointed into the position, that incident made me question whether or not I would want to continue there, but it also was a seminal moment in terms of my focus on helping other women. ”

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Voice of Experience: Sabrina Callin, Managing Director, PIMCO

By Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

“I think I ordered my first application to Harvard and Stanford’s Business Schools when I was roughly 10 years old,” said Sabrina Callin, a PIMCO managing director based in the firm’s Newport Beach headquarters. “My parents were both educators, and instilled a strong work ethic and belief in me that I could do anything I wanted to do. As a result, I was motivated from a young age by the ability to have an influence and make things happen.”

During her undergrad years at Texas Christian University—a school founded by her father’s ancestors back in the 1800s—Callin decided to pursue a career in finance, graduating with degrees in accounting, finance and economics. A focus on finance, she felt, would provide her with the opportunity to be in a “very dynamic and intrinsically interesting profession,” and could provide an opportunity gain unique insight and expertise that “is very broadly relevant, and well beyond the day-to-day workings of a given job.” In the period between her undergraduate and graduate programs, rather than heading to Wall Street as she’d originally planned, she earned her CPA. “I believed experience as a practicing CPA would provide me with an important knowledge base that would be beneficial for my longer-term career path.”

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Voice of Experience: Joanne Kinsella, Managing Director, ITRS America

Joanne_Kinsella_168_resized[1]by Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

When asked how she ended up in the financial technology industry, Jo Kinsella, managing director of ITRS America quickly answers: “Pure unadulterated chance.”

Indeed, her career path has wound through industries and countries, starting with French proficiency upon graduation from university from Leeds, England. And although she was able to write a thesis in the language, Kinsella did not want to be a translator. Without much office experience, she went to work as an office temp for Carlton Television but was soon promoted to full-time events manager, organizing and running corporate events, hospitality, and public relations for the shows they did around England.

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Voice of Experience: Ann Ziegler, Chief Financial Officer of CDW

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

Audacious proclamations are the hallmark of the many of the successful among us. “You’ve got to raise your hand,” says CDW’s Ann Ziegler, the corporation’s CFO.

No surprise, then, that Ziegler, who is an attorney—not a CPA or Finance MBA—told her boss at Sara Lee— “I want to be the corporate CFO”—and has come to realize that goal.

Ziegler was drawn to the law early, mostly because of strong influence of an older cousin who was an accomplished lawyer. Once she was knee-deep in her legal studies, she realized that, above all else, she was called by corporate law, even though it wasn’t what most of her classmates were doing. “At that time I was in law school, litigation was the sexy part. But I never wanted to be a litigator. I enjoyed corporate law and other similar courses.”

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Voice of Experience: Lucy Reed, Global Co-Head of International Arbitration Group, Freshfields

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

“It is not the amount of money that affects how hard I work. I worked as hard when I was a GS-7 law clerk as I do now as a highly paid law firm partner. The most important thing for me is that I have a varied practice and a varied career. I’m always looking for new challenges, which is why I like international arbitration— each case involves a different sector, different expert, different issues,” said Lucy Reed, the global co-head of the International Arbitration Group at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP.

Reed started her career clerking for a federal trial judge in D.C. who had a number of international cases, including a 9-month criminal trial of the first defendants accused of the assassination of former Ambassador Orlando Letelier ordered by Augusto Pinochet. She then went into a D.C. law firm that had arbitration cases before the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal set up in The Hague after the Iranian Revolution. Read more

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