The concept of the “corporate ladder” is such a common analogy that many in the business world only see their careers in terms of the rungs they haven’t been able to reach. According to Christi Pedra, CEO of Siemens Hearing Instruments, that kind of thinking may be a mistake. Pedra prefers to think of the ladder as a rock climb where there are more directions in a career path than strictly moving up.

“My [25 years] at Siemens hasn’t always been a vertical rise to the top,” she said. “I’ve taken many lateral moves and they’ve provided me with some excellent, much-needed experience. You’ve got your feet firmly planted, but sometimes you need to move to the left or right before you can make it to the top.”

Pedra has a knack for seeing opportunities others might miss if they only look upward. After graduating from a state college, she started her climb with non-profits such as the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the March of Dimes and spent a great deal of time managing community outreach.

In 1980, Pedra entered the business world via the telecommunications industry, first with Nortel, then with ROLM. While working on an MBA from Rutgers University, she continued her career climb, this time at Siemens. There, she volunteered for projects offering significant growth potential, but these also required her to venture into unfamiliar territory.

“You can’t be afraid to go out on a limb,” Pedra said. “That’s where the fruit is.”
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by Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)

Marlys Appleton, chair of AIG Investments’ Sustainability Steering Committee, is a champion for and architect of the integration of sustainability into the investment process. But it is a role no one – not even she – could have foreseen when she began her career more than 20 years ago.

Upon completing a fellowship and an MS from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, Appleton started her multi-disciplinary career as a financial analyst at Morgan Stanley. But she switched paths and companies a few years later when she heard the siren call of sales. “It looked as if people were having more fun and making more money [on the sales track].” When Appleton reached out to management to try to make the switch, she was told that, while adding her to the sales force would likely upgrade the skill level of the force, the head of the sales desk only hired his ski buddies. It was an important lesson for Appleton, who then realized that not all promotions are based on one’s abilities; some are based purely on who you are.

She then joined Bank of America as an institutional fixed income sales person, ultimately becoming the top producing salesperson on the East Coast in the bond trading operation for the bank. She attributes that success to her thoroughness and her ability to build trusting relationships with clients. “I’m an information hound,” says Appleton, “I want to know and understand everything myself before presenting it to clients. I think that what made me the most comfortable was what made the clients most comfortable with me. I was successful because, over time, the foreign and domestic banks and domestic money managers I had as clients learned that I wouldn’t lead them down the wrong path and they could trust me to deliver for them.”

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by Elizabeth Harrin (London)

“I wish I could say that I woke up one morning and decided to leave my social work profession to work in the investment management business,” says Carolyn N. Dolan, founding principal at New York-based Samson Capital Advisors.  “But, in reality, the change was gradual and the piece that did not fit into my background and my academic strengths was the social work experience.”

Carolyn graduated from college in 1968 with a political science major and a math minor.  She says that women then only had a handful options – teacher, administrative assistant, Peace Corps volunteer, airline stewardess, to name a few.  “In my search for employment, I took a civil service test and wound up working for the State of New Jersey as a caseworker watching over the lives of children under the age of 18.”

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by Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)  

Shortly after graduating from high school, Ann Oka stuffed her clothes in some garbage bags, packed her record albums in a box and loaded up her $200 Vega for a three-week road trip across country with a high school friend.  Destination: sunny California, where she had lived before her parents had moved her to the East Coast.  The plan was to work for a year, establish residency, and start down the path to becoming a doctor.   

Oka, now the senior vice president of supply management at Sodexo Inc., explained, “I’ve always been stubborn, so while my parents were perfectly willing to pay for my college education, in my mind it was something I was going to do on my own.” Read more

By Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles) 

Janice Chaffin, Consumer Business Unit President at security giant Symantec, knows a little something about hard work.  She got her first job at the very young age of fourteen, working her way up over time from cleaning person to receptionist in a doctor’s office.

Once in college at the University of California, San Diego, Chaffin took any job that came her way, including dishwashing, bookkeeping, acting as a Spanish-speaking tour guide at Disney World, and working as a medical school admissions office staffer, just to name a few. “Whatever I wound up becoming, I always knew I would work hard to achieve what I wanted, no matter what,” Chaffin said.

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