By Aimee Hansen
If you scan Fortune’s 50 Most Powerful Women in 2016, you will be hard-pressed to find a Latina executive, amidst an overall drop in female CEOs to 4% in the Fortune 500 in 2016.
According to a 2016 report from the American Association of University Women (AAUW), Hispanic women make up 6% of the workforce but only 1.3% of senior-level executive roles in the private sector.
According to the Heidrick & Struggles Board Monitor, “the share of new board appointments for Hispanics (male/female) remained flat for the seventh consecutive year” across the Fortune 500. 4.7% of new directors on average are Hispanic each year, and only 4.0% in 2015.
What makes this even more striking is that new director appointments reached a seven-year high in 2015 (up by 60 appointments from 2014), and women appointments stagnated too. During a recent record (and opportunity) year for new appointments, diversity lost out.
The report indicates a resurgence of selecting new board members from “the usual suspects” (sitting and retired CEOs and CFOs took 73.2% of new seats). Only nine of the Fortune 500 CEOs were Hispanic in 2015, which doesn’t bode well for diversity if the “usual suspects” continue as the primary candidate pool for board appointments.
Meanwhile, a Mercer report predicts female representation at executive level in Latin America to out-pace North America by 2025, rising from 17% (2015) to 44% (2025).
A Perplexing Incongruence
The glaring elephant in the room is that the population, and consumer purchasing power, is rapidly changing, and Fortune 500 boardroom composition shows little proof of catching on.
The gap in representation of Hispanics in corporate leadership has the potential to create a dangerous gap in diversity of thought and insight, driving a deeper wedge between business leadership and consumer composition. Hispanic purchasing power was projected to have increased in the U.S. by 50% from 2010 ($1.0 trillion) to 2015 ($1.5 trillion).
Not only are Hispanics the largest ethnic minority in the country, but according to the government report “Fulfilling America’s Future: Latinas in the U.S., 2015”, 1 in 5 women and 1 in 4 female students are Latina.
Entrepreneurial Power
Scan the entrepreneurial landscape, and you’ll find a different picture: women are the new face of entrepreneurship, and Latinas are playing a strong role in leading that change.
According to the 2016 State of Women-Owned Businesses Report, there are an estimated 11.3 million women-owned businesses in the U.S., a number which has grown five times faster (45% increase) than the national average (9% increase) over the past nine years.
Nearly 8 out of 10 new women-owned businesses launched since 2007 (2.8 of 3.5 million) have been started by women of color, with the greatest growth among Latinas.
According to the report: “As of 2016, there are just under 1.9 million Latina-owned firms, employing 550,400 workers and generating $97 billion in revenues. Between 2007 and 2016, the number of Latina-owned firms increased by 137% – the highest increase seen among minority women-owned firms.” Trending back 18 years, the 2015 report showed that the number of Latina owned businesses has increased by 224%.
Make no mistake. Latina women are carving their own paths to business leadership.
Playing Down ‘Being Latina’
As the AAUW report authors state, “There is no monolithic ‘women’s experience’ of leadership. Women always have a race and an ethnicity, so a discussion about gender without reference to race and ethnicity (or vice versa) is simplistic and can be misleading.”
A recent Latina@Work study of over 1,000 Latina professional women released by People en Español, sought to understand the experience of Latina women in today’s corporate workplace.
The report found that, “As trailblazers among their families, they are simultaneously breaking cultural barriers and managing cultural expectations, which results in a feeling of ‘otherness’ both at work and at home.”
In the study, 80% of women agreed that “At work, I want to be seen as who I really am, including being Latina.” But many of the women struggled with managing how they are perceived at work, including not being seen as “too Latina.”
Women played down their accent and played up their university degrees. They also moderated appearance more than average. 31% reported having to dress more conservatively than co-workers to be taken seriously (versus 21% of non-hispanic Caucasian women), and 35% reported feeling the way they styled their hair impacted their success at work (versus 25%).
Hispanic women were also twice as likely to agree they have to work twice as hard because of their cultural background.
Intersectionality of Barriers
Latinas and Black women are the most underrepresented at senior leadership levels.
The AAUW report highlighted the intersectionality of barriers and bias: “Not only do women of color confront race and ethnic discrimination that white women do not face, they also experience gender bias differently than white women do—and they experience racial bias differently than do the men in their racial or ethnic group.”
Latinas have a unique set of preconceived biases around leadership perception. For example, “among college and university faculty, Latinas who behave assertively risk being seen as ‘angry’ or ‘emotional,’ even when they reported that they were not angry—they just weren’t deferential.”
According to the report, 60 percent of faculty Latinas reported a backlash against expressing anger, and they tended to shoulder most of the office housework.
As feminist and media-challenger Kat Lazo reflected to The Huffington Post, prominent and narrow media stereotypes have the ability to damage both perception and self-perception, and reinforce barriers to leadership: “What we see in the media right now is a limited version of our humanity.” Lazo stated, “So we internalize these messages and we put limits to who we can be in terms of our professions, in terms of our own identity.”
But nothing is one-dimensional. Lazo highlights that even “Latinx” (a gender neutral alternative) have to check their own privilege.
Amplifying Leadership Presence
In a Latinas Think Big article about developing and amplifying leadership presence, Sandra Tibbs, founder and CEO of Neverest Solutions, writes about cultivating and amplifying leadership presence:
Find your authentic leadership voice – Navigate through the stereotypes, cultural scripts, biases and arising inner conflicts to embrace your whole story and find your own voice.
Create a shared sphere of influence – Cultivate a sphere where listening and connection leads to stronger, and more influential, leadership.
Build resilience in yourself and others – Something every Latina leader will do as she challenges the status quo, and can help to nurture in others.
Tibbs writes about Latina leaders who own their presence: “They are irrefutable leaders who have a presence about them that is unique, authentic and strong. They know exactly who they are, and what impact they want to have. And, they don’t apologize for either. Their leadership presence enables them to overcome stereotypes, biases and even their inner obstacles so they can devote all of themselves to designing the lives they want.”
It is strongly evidenced that Latinas will keep on unapologetically rising to lead business, with or without that coveted access pass from the Fortune 500.
The choice for the corporate world when it comes to cultivating Latina participation in leadership would appear to be this: either catch on, or inevitably you’ll be playing catch up
Voice of Experience: Ilka Vázquez, Advisory Partner, PwC US
Hispanic Heritage, Voices of ExperienceShe finds that women in particular struggle with asking for what they want and articulating a perspective on where they want to go. “Men are negotiating all the time, and women need to get in the habit of speaking up when there is a particular opportunity that interests them,” she says. “How do you get to the next level? Ask for it.”
From Engineering to Consulting
Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Vázquez attended the University of Michigan and earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, pursuing Industrial Engineering with a focus on manufacturing. After several manufacturing-related internships, she began exploring career options her senior year and was introduced to the world of consulting.
She joined Chicago-based Diamond Management & Technology Consultants, Inc., which was acquired by PwC US in 2010, and has been a career consultant ever since. Her first project was in financial services at an investment bank, which she notes was a critical point that established her future career, primarily spent in capital markets. “Coming from engineering, it was a completely different perspective; I had no finance background but here I am working with an investment bank.”
Given her lifelong career as a consultant she credits becoming a partner at PwC US in 2014 as a professional achievement she’s most proud of, based on what it represents. “It was the culmination of what I’ve accomplished and yet also the beginning of a new professional journey,” she says, adding that from her first interaction with partners at Diamond, she knew she wanted that role one day.
Her work now largely entails helping financial services clients manage regulatory expectations while promoting the sustainability of the programs put in place to comply with those regulations. She helps them make those processes become part of their DNA to facilitate their long-term effectiveness.
Given her engineering background, she also enjoys learning more about the ever-changing role of technology and the impact of innovations such as block chain and digital labor, which can revolutionize the industry. “I am constantly considering how these disruptive technologies will impact clients and what they need to do to take advantage of them.”
Being Agile Will Contribute to Success
Moving from an engineering background to consulting with financial services firms was a pivot, and yet, it underscores a skill that Vázquez encourages professionals to cultivate: the ability to be agile. She developed competencies core to any consultant that are applicable in a wide range of experiences. “Regulations or technology could drastically change what you’re working on today, and you need to adapt and be prepared to move your focus to something else,” she says.
One way to exercise this philosophy is to constantly be willing to step out of your comfort zone by asking for stretch assignments, even if you don’t readily fill all the requirements. It calls for having the confidence that you can learn and looking for ways to expand your experience.
She also believes that learning takes place throughout your career, and more seasoned professionals can glean wisdom from their junior counterparts.
Participating in Latina and Women’s Groups for Collaboration and Skills Development
An active member of PwC US’s Latino Inclusion Network, Vázquez is part of the leadership committee, advising the group on how to create a strong community where members can learn from one another. The firm recently celebrated its Global Diversity Week, which focused on the power of inclusion and overcoming unconscious biases. “We have to make sure we promote the idea of diversity based on ethnicity as well as gender, and how it contributes to a greater array of thoughts and ideas.”
She notes that the Latino community is very open to different perspectives, with a culture that inspires inclusiveness. “When we get together, it’s not just four people but 20,” she says. “This perspective of the ‘more the merrier’ means we are open to different viewpoints and that helps me motivate a diverse team.”
She also holds a role of partner sponsor for PwC’s New York Metro Women’s Advisory Network and the Working Moms Group, two groups focused on supporting women within Advisory.
Over the years she has participated in firm-sponsored programs that support the advancement of women, such as the Breakthrough Leadership and Diamond programs which not only offered exposure to senior leadership, but also provided the coaching and advocacy opportunities that helped her cultivate relationships with partners.
Married with two children – a seven-year-old daughter and a 21-month-old son — Vázquez enjoys spending time with them, often conversing in Spanish as she encourages them to be bilingual.
An avid Michigan sports fan, she participates in regular recruiting activities at the school, both for PwC and to help attract minority students to campus. As a graduate of the Harvard Business School, she is also connected to the HBS Latino Alumni Association.
Voice of Experience: Cristina Estrada, Head of Derivatives for the Latin America Financing Group, Investment Banking Division, Goldman Sachs
Hispanic Heritage, Voices of ExperienceFrom Colombia to Goldman…and back
Estrada was born and raised in Colombia, in a time of great uncertainty for her country. She aspired to pursue a successful professional career, while at the same time help her country with its economic development needs. With this goal in mind, she applied for college in the United States, which excited but also scared her. “I had dreamed of pursuing a foreign degree, but going abroad and not being with your lifelong friends and relatives seemed like a big risk at the time. That being said, I knew that studying here would allow me to expand my professional horizons.”
She was accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she pursued an economics degree and played varsity basketball. It was at MIT that she became aware of Goldman Sachs for the first time, as one of her closest friends praised her internship at the firm and encouraged Estrada to apply.
She became an intern at Goldman Sachs the following summer. “I worked on the trading floor and was part of the sales team, working with Latin America. Goldman provided me with an experience that was nothing like I had ever had before: a fast-paced, no-frills environment, with extremely interesting and smart people, working with highly sophisticated clients.”
Estrada graduated from MIT in 2001, where she received the Malcolm G. Kispert Award for female senior scholar-athlete of the year. She started at Goldman as a full-time analyst that July as part of the Latin America FX Sales team, primarily covering Latin American corporations to serve their currency needs. “We structured derivatives for Latin American clients, allowing them to protect against currency risk. It was gratifying to stay close to my roots.” Over time, that team became part of the Emerging Markets group, where Estrada still focused on Latin America but now covered a larger array of products, and early in 2016, Estrada and her team moved to the Investment Banking Division.
After working for years with clients in Mexico, Central America and other markets in Latin America, Estrada is now excited to be working on a new series of infrastructure projects in her home country. The Colombian government launched an ambitious infrastructure program, the key pillar of which is the Fourth Generation Highway Plan, or 4G. This plan aims to modernize and expand the national highway system through the concession of 11,000 km across 40 toll roads, with investments valued at an approximate $25 billion. Goldman Sachs has taken a lead role on structuring and funding three of the first nine toll roads that were awarded, with Estrada in charge of structuring risk management solutions for the projects as well as helping line up financing from international investors among her clients in Latin America.
“We have pooled resources from many different teams across divisions and geographies at Goldman to help Colombia; this is Goldman at its best. These roads will make the flow of goods cheaper and smoother throughout the country. Goldman is doing business while at the same time making Colombia a better country — proof that you can do business by doing good.”
Diversity as a Constant
Beginning her career on a trading floor, Estrada highlighted that she occasionally felt like a minority, both due to her gender and ethnicity. She says that in these situations, “You have to remember that you are hired for who you truly are, for your capacity and the experience that you bring,” noting that Goldman Sachs champions the importance of a diverse workforce.
Estrada is proud that she has become one of the few senior women who cover Latin American companies across the financial industry. “As a senior female executive, you have to develop your own style in a male-centric culture,” she says. By becoming a technical expert in her field while also building and maintaining strong client relationships, she has earned the respect of her colleagues and clients.
She reminds women at all levels to take time to build relationships with others in order to create a network of peers and sponsors. “The only constant in our industry is change, and having a strong network will allow you to be more adaptable and prepared for what’s to come,” she says. “A year ago I didn’t think I’d be moving to a different division, but things evolve, and your network can guide you through those types of changes.”
With a trajectory that took her from interning in 2000 to becoming a managing director in 2015, Estrada has been able to reflect on her career over the years. “There have been ups and downs just as for everybody. I tended to overthink and overstress about situations when I was first starting my career, but I can now view things with perspective. What matters most is working with people with whom you are comfortable and doing a job that you enjoy. That, combined with a focus on assisting clients with their needs while challenging my skills, is what makes working at Goldman satisfying.”
She participated in one of the first classes of the Women’s Career Strategies Initiative (WCSI) over a decade ago and has come full circle, serving last year as a Senior Divisional Champion of the program for the Securities Division. This program is designed to provide strong-performing associate women with developmental opportunities and to teach them to proactively manage their professional advancement.
Also active in the firmwide Hispanic and Latino network, Estrada has seen it evolve over the last few years into a catalyst for Hispanics across divisions to meet each other and identify business opportunities, as well as provide access to senior leadership. The group has also steadily been sponsoring interesting events, most recently celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month.
An Active Down Time
A former basketball player as a student athlete at MIT, Estrada is now also a fan of spinning. Married to a Brazilian, she and her husband have been exploring Asia for a few years now. “Since I travel a lot for work, sometimes it’s hard to head back to an airport on my free time, but we are enjoying discovering new cultures together.”
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Voice of Experience: Rocio Lopez, IT Executive at Accenture
Hispanic Heritage, Voices of ExperiencePassionate about advancing diversity in tech, and currently leading several initiatives aimed at growing Hispanic American technology talent, Accenture’s Rocio Lopez says: ‘The one piece of advice I would give to anyone is to be authentic.’
As a Mexican woman-in-tech for over two decades, Lopez learnt through Accenture’s Hispanic American Employee Resource Group (ERG) that she needed to be authentic about what she brought to the table as a talented Hispanic technologist.
‘For the longest time, I was trying to run in a different size shoe – actually a male size 8. It wasn’t until I met my ERG family that I realized I like my 7.5 size red high heels,’ she comments.
Longevity in her career
Lopez has a long career at Accenture having worked for the professional services company for 22 years since leaving University. Currently leading a team that helps the company and its clients adapt the latest IT solutions and flexibilities, she connects with Accenture’s business leads to understand their day to day, on the job behaviors. This helps her innovate new solutions to get them performing at their highest, delivering the best they can to clients.
‘I love it when I see them adopting the latest technology and get their feedback that it’s made their life easier and helped them to be more efficient. I’m excited that my job allows me to be creative and present and deliver ideas that transform the way our teams work. Being able to experiment and challenge my team to learn new technologies is the part I love the most,’ comments Lopez.
Increasing Hispanic Leadership in IT
‘Inclusion and diversity is an inherent part of Accenture, and as a company, we are committed to advancing diverse talent in technology,’ states Lopez.
One initiative led by Lopez, of which she is particularly proud, is the Accenture sponsored, Hispanic IT Executive Council’s (HITEC) Women’s Program, aimed at growing Hispanic American technology talent.
‘HITEC is an organization whose focus is to develop the next generation of Hispanic IT Leaders, an ethos in common with Accenture, as we share a commitment to advancing diverse talent in tech and increasing Hispanic leadership in IT around the Globe,’ she comments.
She describes the program as a breakfast series and learning session, focused on developing, retaining and attracting women in tech careers by bringing them together in one place to network and establish connections. Lopez believes the key to the Accenture and HITEC mission is the structure they have in place to carry out the strategic goal to ‘push up and pull up’ its’ workforce and members. The Accenture partnership with HITEC, including the Accenture sponsored Women’s Program, demonstrates a partnership whose focus continues to be the growth of Hispanics in technology careers.
Lopez is proud and excited to lead the Women’s focus with HITEC and says, ‘I already see the impact the program has on inspiring women along their journey and I’m looking forward to this coming year and the technology learnings that our women will gain during the sessions.’
Support and Mentorship build success
For Lopez mentorship has played a critical role in her career, ‘I could not have a career without this. You need a mentor or sponsor to keep you honest about what success means and to help you along in your career journey,’ she comments.
An example where the importance of mentorship came in to play for Lopez was when she was given the opportunity to participate in the HITEC Emerging Executive Program and was assigned a C-Suite mentor, Ramon Baez. She notes,
‘The relationship I built with Ramon was key to a turnaround in my career journey, as I was facing some critical career decision points at Accenture. The conversations we had, helped me gain tremendous self-confidence and inspired me to believe that I could be CIO of a company.’
As a leader at Accenture, Lopez also is a mentor to people for whom she is directly responsible for engaging, supporting and growing. She is passionate about encouraging her mentees to be authentic as she believes it generates great thinking and increases their level of engagement overall. She comments, ‘My professional role model is our global inclusion and diversity lead, Nellie Borrero, an amazing, authentic woman that has managed to stay true to her values throughout her great successes.’ Lopez believes that every employee at Accenture is extremely talented and that it is her obligation as a company leader to ensure that they are listened to and tended to,
‘We are changing the game within the Accenture family by staying close to every single individual and focusing on their unique needs and wants. We create a place where everyone is a member of the family that is always cared for and nurtured,’ she says.
Commitment to Diverse Talent Pools
Lopez’s passion for advancing diversity in tech has led to her involvement in Accenture’s sponsorship of teams of Cristo Rey High School students to code at Accenture. She describes Cristo Rey as the largest network of high schools in the United States whose enrolment is limited to low income youth. Its distinctive approach to education equips students with the knowledge, character and skills to transform their lives. From freshman year, Cristo Rey schools blend rigorous academics and four years of professional work experience to and through college.
‘I became involved with Cristo Rey because I wanted to promote STEM jobs for these students in the Chicago area. To that end I proposed and created a program within our CIO organization that sponsors diverse students in to programming roles. This has evolved our internal IT talent strategy and has led to us identifying new talent,’ states Lopez.
Her passion for inspiring Hispanic American students to continue their education and to seek a career in tech along with her overall commitment to technology careers and diversity has led to Lopez being named on the Board of Cristo Rey High School.
Family
Even outside of work, Lopez continues inspiring young people to take up careers in tech. In the fall she will travel to Leon, Mexico, where her family is from. She will use her time there to inspire her teenage nieces and nephews to consider a tech as a career choice.
She comments, ‘They ask me questions about my Facebook posts during my network events, as they are excited to see me travel the world and meet so many new people. My answer is always to go in to technology! It’s very cool and allows you to truly impact the world we live in!”
Latina Leadership: Will Companies Ever Catch On?
Career Advice, Featured, Hispanic HeritageBy Aimee Hansen
Image via Shutterstock
If you scan Fortune’s 50 Most Powerful Women in 2016, you will be hard-pressed to find a Latina executive, amidst an overall drop in female CEOs to 4% in the Fortune 500 in 2016.
According to a 2016 report from the American Association of University Women (AAUW), Hispanic women make up 6% of the workforce but only 1.3% of senior-level executive roles in the private sector.
According to the Heidrick & Struggles Board Monitor, “the share of new board appointments for Hispanics (male/female) remained flat for the seventh consecutive year” across the Fortune 500. 4.7% of new directors on average are Hispanic each year, and only 4.0% in 2015.
What makes this even more striking is that new director appointments reached a seven-year high in 2015 (up by 60 appointments from 2014), and women appointments stagnated too. During a recent record (and opportunity) year for new appointments, diversity lost out.
The report indicates a resurgence of selecting new board members from “the usual suspects” (sitting and retired CEOs and CFOs took 73.2% of new seats). Only nine of the Fortune 500 CEOs were Hispanic in 2015, which doesn’t bode well for diversity if the “usual suspects” continue as the primary candidate pool for board appointments.
Meanwhile, a Mercer report predicts female representation at executive level in Latin America to out-pace North America by 2025, rising from 17% (2015) to 44% (2025).
A Perplexing Incongruence
The glaring elephant in the room is that the population, and consumer purchasing power, is rapidly changing, and Fortune 500 boardroom composition shows little proof of catching on.
The gap in representation of Hispanics in corporate leadership has the potential to create a dangerous gap in diversity of thought and insight, driving a deeper wedge between business leadership and consumer composition. Hispanic purchasing power was projected to have increased in the U.S. by 50% from 2010 ($1.0 trillion) to 2015 ($1.5 trillion).
Not only are Hispanics the largest ethnic minority in the country, but according to the government report “Fulfilling America’s Future: Latinas in the U.S., 2015”, 1 in 5 women and 1 in 4 female students are Latina.
Entrepreneurial Power
Scan the entrepreneurial landscape, and you’ll find a different picture: women are the new face of entrepreneurship, and Latinas are playing a strong role in leading that change.
According to the 2016 State of Women-Owned Businesses Report, there are an estimated 11.3 million women-owned businesses in the U.S., a number which has grown five times faster (45% increase) than the national average (9% increase) over the past nine years.
Nearly 8 out of 10 new women-owned businesses launched since 2007 (2.8 of 3.5 million) have been started by women of color, with the greatest growth among Latinas.
According to the report: “As of 2016, there are just under 1.9 million Latina-owned firms, employing 550,400 workers and generating $97 billion in revenues. Between 2007 and 2016, the number of Latina-owned firms increased by 137% – the highest increase seen among minority women-owned firms.” Trending back 18 years, the 2015 report showed that the number of Latina owned businesses has increased by 224%.
Make no mistake. Latina women are carving their own paths to business leadership.
Playing Down ‘Being Latina’
As the AAUW report authors state, “There is no monolithic ‘women’s experience’ of leadership. Women always have a race and an ethnicity, so a discussion about gender without reference to race and ethnicity (or vice versa) is simplistic and can be misleading.”
A recent Latina@Work study of over 1,000 Latina professional women released by People en Español, sought to understand the experience of Latina women in today’s corporate workplace.
The report found that, “As trailblazers among their families, they are simultaneously breaking cultural barriers and managing cultural expectations, which results in a feeling of ‘otherness’ both at work and at home.”
In the study, 80% of women agreed that “At work, I want to be seen as who I really am, including being Latina.” But many of the women struggled with managing how they are perceived at work, including not being seen as “too Latina.”
Women played down their accent and played up their university degrees. They also moderated appearance more than average. 31% reported having to dress more conservatively than co-workers to be taken seriously (versus 21% of non-hispanic Caucasian women), and 35% reported feeling the way they styled their hair impacted their success at work (versus 25%).
Hispanic women were also twice as likely to agree they have to work twice as hard because of their cultural background.
Intersectionality of Barriers
Latinas and Black women are the most underrepresented at senior leadership levels.
The AAUW report highlighted the intersectionality of barriers and bias: “Not only do women of color confront race and ethnic discrimination that white women do not face, they also experience gender bias differently than white women do—and they experience racial bias differently than do the men in their racial or ethnic group.”
Latinas have a unique set of preconceived biases around leadership perception. For example, “among college and university faculty, Latinas who behave assertively risk being seen as ‘angry’ or ‘emotional,’ even when they reported that they were not angry—they just weren’t deferential.”
According to the report, 60 percent of faculty Latinas reported a backlash against expressing anger, and they tended to shoulder most of the office housework.
As feminist and media-challenger Kat Lazo reflected to The Huffington Post, prominent and narrow media stereotypes have the ability to damage both perception and self-perception, and reinforce barriers to leadership: “What we see in the media right now is a limited version of our humanity.” Lazo stated, “So we internalize these messages and we put limits to who we can be in terms of our professions, in terms of our own identity.”
But nothing is one-dimensional. Lazo highlights that even “Latinx” (a gender neutral alternative) have to check their own privilege.
Amplifying Leadership Presence
In a Latinas Think Big article about developing and amplifying leadership presence, Sandra Tibbs, founder and CEO of Neverest Solutions, writes about cultivating and amplifying leadership presence:
Find your authentic leadership voice – Navigate through the stereotypes, cultural scripts, biases and arising inner conflicts to embrace your whole story and find your own voice.
Create a shared sphere of influence – Cultivate a sphere where listening and connection leads to stronger, and more influential, leadership.
Build resilience in yourself and others – Something every Latina leader will do as she challenges the status quo, and can help to nurture in others.
Tibbs writes about Latina leaders who own their presence: “They are irrefutable leaders who have a presence about them that is unique, authentic and strong. They know exactly who they are, and what impact they want to have. And, they don’t apologize for either. Their leadership presence enables them to overcome stereotypes, biases and even their inner obstacles so they can devote all of themselves to designing the lives they want.”
It is strongly evidenced that Latinas will keep on unapologetically rising to lead business, with or without that coveted access pass from the Fortune 500.
The choice for the corporate world when it comes to cultivating Latina participation in leadership would appear to be this: either catch on, or inevitably you’ll be playing catch up
Closing the Investment Gap – Why Is It As Important as the Pay Gap?
Career Advice, Gender Pay Gap, Money TalksClosing the investment gap for women as well as the better- documented pay gap needs to happen. What is the investment gap? And why are most women, even highly paid professional women still missing out? Sallie Krawcheck just wrote a post about the cost of not realizing what we are missing financially by not investing properly on LinkedIn.
Sallie is inviting theglasshammer.com readers to join Ellevest, her new women- orientated advisory for women (and men too) to close the investing gap. I caught up with Sallie this summer and she is someone who I admire greatly and Sallie is a woman who has been there, formidably at the top of the best financial institutions in the world for many years. I asked her why should we care about solving the investment gap?
Sallie responded,
“The investment gap is real and closing it is the best professional advice that nobody is telling you. We need to talk about the real costs of a career break and the real cost of earning less and investing less. We want to empower the individual. I am about unleashing the power.”
Why should we want both men and women managing our money?
A recent survey conducted by The CFA Institute called “Gender Diversity in Investment Management – New research for practitioners on how to close the gender gap” found that most female CFA members (70%) and nearly half of all CFA members in total (48%) believe that mixed gender teams of investment professionals lead to better investment performance results because of more diverse viewpoints.
Interestingly, these are the people who are involved in funds, and often run them directly. In the same survey, institutional investors also scored high in believing there was positive aspects to having a gender diverse team in place as seen in the California State Teachers’ Retirement System encouraging State Street Global Advisors to create the SSGA Gender Diversity Index ETF (ticker: SHE) in 2016 and seeded it with a $250 million investment.
Meanwhile, in the same study, retail investors were less convinced in the value of women working in wall street bringing higher returns with nearly 50% of those surveyed believing diversity does not matter when it comes to who manages money.
We can conclude from this that the people least close to the process saw the least value in it. That means people like you and me, and people who are not like you and me, can have a range of differing values, education and identities and yet have the same sexist ideas about who we think should lead companies and run money for us.
There is research including the most recent piece from Credit Suisse last week that suggests adding women makes a difference, obviously the right women, but we would say the same about men so we have to be careful to not over scrutinize this concept.
I am a fan of testing reality against research and Joe Keefe, President and CEO of Pax World Management LLC is a leader who is seeing real results.
We caught up last week and chatted about the Pax Ellevate Global Women’s Index Fund, which is chaired by Sallie Krawcheck, and has just reported a recent milestone, outperforming the MSCI World Index* for the two-year period ending June 30, 2016 and has $100 million in assets under management.
Joe is a man who gets it and one of the first men to grace our column of the same name. What is it that creates this higher performance when women are present in decision-making seats? Joe comments,
“I believe that having higher female representation at board and senior management level is a causal factor, not just a correlative factor, for higher performance because it is the entire corporate governance structure that tends to improve with women in place.
Pressing Joe on the finer details on being sure that the factor that drives the performance, he told me,
“We try to keep all other variables neutral to allow for an apples to apples comparison for performance analysis.” And added, “This is the only global index of its kind and beyond the research, this is real money from real investors in real time proving the point, not theory.”
How can we link investor gains to the talent pipeline inside firms?
As I reported earlier this year, rather than wait for companies to take action themselves or rely on legislation to be enacted, the Pax Ellevate Global Women’s Index Fund is the only global fund and the original index. State Street’s U.S. based SHE Index and other new funds also provide a way for people to fight the gender gap directly by investing in companies that put a premium on women in leadership positions.
Morgan Stanley launched a proprietary gender-diversity framework for ranking more than 1,600 stocks globally this year citing,
“Calls for more female participation in the economy have grown louder, often based on political or cultural arguments founded on fairness. Yet, a persuasive argument for diversity and equality can also be anchored to the bottom line, where ensuring that more women are working and leading in the workplace is simply good business, especially for investors who not only care about the ethics, but also want returns.”
To make sure this theory of ensuring more women are leading becomes action, the onus falls on three groups.
Group 1: The investors have to vote according to their belief in diversity. That means you and me as well as the institutional investors.
Group 2: The intermediaries need to better inform clients better and this could involve reducing the biases of some financial planners and advisors who regardless of being male or female harbor ideas and loyalties that do not help their clients.
Group 3: The other group that needs to do something to ensure that there are companies to list on these indices is of course the leaders and talent process people inside firms.
Sometimes the research on diversity enhancing performance is lost on gatekeepers such as financial advisors and consultants who often do not understand the importance of diversity. I have had a personal experience with that myself with a very “old fashioned” shall we say female advisor who told me point blank not to invest in a women’s fund (and could not seem to say the LGBT acronym). I asked Joe Keefe what to do in these situations and he told me that people should invest directly in the Pax fund or find advisors who understand the benefits of seeing the research in action.
Joe Keefe comments,
“I truly think that we are heading towards higher numbers of women on boards and in senior management teams, and I believe that we could reach 40/50% female representation in our lifetimes. More and more people are realizing that the research is right and the returns are there.”
Sallie Krawcheck, chair of the Pax Ellevate fund agrees,
“It is simply smart business to invest in women and we believe that this investment case will continue to be borne out over time by the performance of this Fund.”
Awareness is the first step, and people like Sallie Krawcheck and Joe Keefe are giving us the chance to put our money where our mouth is and maybe make up for that pay gap that most of us are experiencing (whether we choose to believe it or not.)
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Empowering Future Women Starts Today by Empowering Ourselves
Career Advice, Guest ContributionYet the statistics tell another story. Not only are we keeping pace with men in the boardroom, but we also run circles around them. Last year, Philadelphia venture capital firm First Round Capital unveiled findings that startup firms featuring at least one woman founder outperform those with solely male founding teams by 63 percent. And women play roles in the upper echelons of First Round’s 10 most valuable companies.
To vault forward in science (or any industry, for that matter), we need to look differently at leadership and our gender. Men and women aren’t wired the same, and to get where I am today, I’ve had to do things that don’t necessarily come naturally.
Women as Pioneers
Women leaders are trailblazers — the more we assert ourselves as leaders, the more other women will follow.
I didn’t realize I was breaking new ground until my daughter, a recent college graduate, said to me: “Mom, you know something? You’re a pioneer. When you were rising throughout the leadership ranks in the ’80s and early ’90s, the ratio of women leaders to men leaders was extremely low.”
She told me that a professor of hers had asked the students to raise their hands if their mothers held a senior leadership role in a company. Out of nearly 50 students in my daughter’s class, she was the only one whose hand went up. She told me, “Mom, you are a unicorn.” I never looked at myself that way. And personally, it meant so much to me to know that I stood out in her mind and had such a deep impact.
As women, we’re still dismissed on the basis of our emotional, connected nature. And our people-centered leadership styles are looked down upon by men — the very people who are often making the decisions about promotions and hiring.
Men vs. Women
Looking back on my career, I know there are some things I could have and should have adjusted that would have made it easier to advance. Growing up with only brothers, I believed I had a leg up on many other aspiring female professionals. But in terms of business, I didn’t really know the difference between a man and a woman. I thought, “I’m just a different sex, but we’re all equal.”
That thinking is a bit backward — even in today’s diverse world. Men and women behave and act differently in every situation. And as professional women, we need to embrace this fact and work it to our advantage. Back when I entered my field, I didn’t really take note of my female tendencies, and I strongly believe it may have held me back.
Leveraging Our Strengths
By nature, we aren’t nearly as boastful as men. We often recognize people around us as opposed to recognizing ourselves. But we need to be able to talk the talk and walk the walk. We need to sell ourselves as strong thinkers and business leaders.
We need to understand our value and make sure we can represent it correctly, whether it’s in front of a board of directors or our senior management. In general, we’re not programmed this way in our DNA, so we need to recognize how important this is and show our value in every aspect of our jobs.
We are much more conscious of physical responsibility and the people element in business and life. Women in a business setting will often say, “How are you doing, and how can I help?” We won’t find a man doing that.
And we don’t need to hear that we’re better than men. We need to know that we’re different and that in certain roles, that difference makes us stronger and “better.” Of course, the opposite is true, too; men are better than us at some jobs.
But we need to think about where our strengths are and leverage those advantages. Recognizing this will put us in front of investors and business leaders and boost our careers.
Our Path Forward
What can we do to build upon the foundation set by our predecessors and ensure that future women will carry on to greater success?
1. We have to work twice as hard as men. This is not only because we’re trying to overcome some of our natural tendencies, but also because it’s still a male-dominated world.
2. We need to be more selfish. We’re raised to be selfless; we don’t think of ourselves first. But speaking louder is the only way we’ll break into the boardroom. In a room full of men, we need to be heard.
3. We have to assume we’re all the same and that we deserve the same treatment. We should take more risks and wait until someone says “no” rather than avoid confrontation. Sure, we ask for more responsibility. But we don’t ask for or expect a raise or promotion to go along with that added responsibility.
4. We need to cultivate our passions and find a way to make a difference within that arena. Invest in a passion, build a business or project around it, and use it within a brand. It will help us get noticed and stand out in front of a group of men.
5. We need to work together and empower one another to build success among women. Springboard Enterprises is a great resource for women with an entrepreneurial spirit, and it’s not necessarily just for entrepreneurs — it’s for any woman who wants the firepower to move ahead in business.
We need to be pioneers for other women; it’s the only way to close the gender gap that still exists. The more we assert ourselves as leaders, take risks, and let our passion do the talking, the sooner “our day” will come when we will not only be 50 percent of the population, but also 50 percent of the leaders driving change in the world!
Valerie Palmieri was appointed president and CEO of Vermillion in January 2015 and joined the company in October 2014. She brought with her more than 30 years of experience in the diagnostic laboratory industry, holding sales, operations, and executive leadership positions in laboratory service and consulting organizations.
Life Hacks: 3 Tips for Hassle Free Business Travel
Career Advice, Life HacksTip 1: Download Useful Apps
One of the most targeted apps for business travelers is Worldmate, which combines all your travel booking info (flights, hotels, cars, etc.) to create both business travel and meeting agenda itineraries. The app also aggregates smartphone features such as world clocks, maps, weather info, and both Outlook and LinkedIn options so your itinerary can be shared among colleagues and peers.
Packpoint is a free new packing app that organizes what you need based on travel length, weather, activities and your agenda. It even cross-references which tech gadgets you’ll need for where you’re traveling. Check out this video that displays its capabilities. It even has a ‘business trip’ option for clothes packing. PackPoint “will assemble a list of clothing, toiletries, gadgets, accessories,” and more for your tailored trip.
Fast Company favors the app ahead of Google Now, for example, writing that “a predictive system like Google Now would know your preferences intimately enough just to tell you to remember bike shorts. But PackPoint leverages a relatively spartan interface to learn a whole lot about you and your trip in a very short amount of time.”
Having problems with jet lag? The app Entrain can solve your sleeping habit woes. Developed at the University of Michigan, Entrain is an advanced alarm clock/calculator that allows users to share their sleeping habit data (wake up time, bedtime, time zone and amount of light exposure you are used to receiving. Then a lighting schedule is provided to help prevent or overcome jet lag.
Out of the country and need help converting to the local currency? No problem. The Converted by Ideon app is an all-in-one converter that not only covers your visiting country’s currency but its imperial-metric and conversions., Americans are the only ones still using the Dewey Decimal system and after many hours on a plane, jetlag can interfere with even the most talented mathematicians.
The Converted interface is very slick, and users can drag their converter bars of choice on to their screen, keeping your information private.
In a foreign country and need a quick translation for something like “where’s the bathroom”? iStone can help you in a language jam. It records and translates into 12 languages and carries more than 300 useful phrases in its data arsenal. It also features a native pronunciation feature. Better yet, it is also free and doesn’t require Wi-Fi.
Tip 2: Join loyalty programs
Whichever airline and hotel chain you frequent the most when travelling on business, joining their loyalty and frequent flyer miles programs can save you not only money, but time, and even buy you some convenience in the process.
American Airlines Business Extra program, for example, gives you incentive points for a variety of things, including the ability for your company to earn points for employee benefits with American Airlines, US Airways and US Airways Express, plus earn points on any AA flights operated by British Airways, Japan Airlines and more.
If you fly two trips per month, you and your company will reap some hefty gains. Two flights per month for a year will earn you approximately 2,160 points, including early check-ins, flight upgrades and more.
Delta also has a similar Sky Bonus program that earns your company points each time an employee from the company flies with their airline, or joint venture partners Air France, KLM and Atitalia. The company can redeem by seat upgrades, Sky Club passes and more.
Tip 3: Power Packs, Backups and Outlets
It’s always a good idea to have a handy all-in-one power adaptor, like the Travel Smart by Conair. These models generally utilize the four most common adaptor plugs (grounded and un-grounded) around the globe, covering Europe, Asia, Australia/New Zealand, North/South America, and parts of Africa. It also accommodates European appliances used in the U.S. The all-in-ones also have a surge protector to keep your appliances safe from foreign electricity spikes.
It’s handy to have a portable charger in your pack. Mophie has some great products for phones, such as dock solutions, belt-clips and USB cables. Portable powerstations are also sold to cover every piece of technology you might have, from your laptop to your iPad.
If you have an iPhone, one of the more innovative models Mophie has to offer is the smartphone juice pack battery, which delivers more than 100% extra battery directly to your phone 24/7, and can also double as a protective shell for your device.
As simplistic as they may be, these tips can give a little extra ammo to the savvy traveler, saving you time, money and a little convenience. Happy trails!
By Gina Scanlon
Voice of Experience: Sarah Churchman, Talent, Inclusion and Wellbeing Leader, PwC UK
Voices of ExperienceHelping PwC Lead as a Diversity Champion
Introducing PwC to the idea of diversity and inclusion back in the early 2000s represents a highlight as one of the professional achievements of which she is most proud
“While we had always been an equal opportunity employer, we had never measured our level of success,” she says. Since the beginning, and through the various mergers the firm has undergone, Churchman has helped spearhead the initiative. Today its diversity strategy is a business priority and PwC UK is recognized as a leader for its work.
She helped the firm look at work/life balance in a practical way, realizing that the environment and culture, combined with policy, can make a difference. And she made sure that a diversity agenda was integral to the broader talent management agenda.
“It’s exciting to look at the values we want to promote and the culture we want to create and realize that inclusion is at the root,” she says.
Under her management, PwC became one of the first firms to experiment with unconscious bias in 2005. While commonplace today, at the time not many organizations were exploring its impact.
She also helped introduce the concept of sponsorship combined with mentorship as a way to drive diversity, and published a groundbreaking gender pay gap survey. “Our maturity in this area means we’ve been a step ahead of the curve, always aiming for the next big thing,” she says.
Establishing an Inclusive Talent Culture at PwC
Most people believe they are open-minded, and it’s only when they see data that shows the opposite that they become interested in changing their inclusion mindset, Churchman has found. That’s why a key part of the diversity and inclusion initiative has been to track solid data around talent management decisions. Showing who’s being promoted and hired by gender and ethnic background is critical and serves as a way to prove that very little of a company’s exclusion is intentional, but rather an unintended consequence. “Bringing diversity to the forefront is fundamental to moving an organization forward,” she says.
And that includes making it a societal issue as well. “Organizations are a microcosm of society and there shouldn’t be expectations on women that are different from men in terms of who should be a caregiver. We’re trying to evolve the workplace, but we have to evolve society as well,” she says.
Resilience as a Key to Female Career Success
Churchman has long championed resilience as a key component of PwC’s well-being strategy, emphasizing it as a core skill as part of PwC’s leadership development strategy.
She finds that most women tend to be resilient, because in many cases they are juggling two jobs – at work and at home. “Women and men need to maintain a razor-sharp focus on where they want to go, and realize the importance of bouncing back from setbacks,” she says.
Cultural issues, however, have historically gotten in the way; for example, stereotypes that assume some people don’t want to be leaders. “I see that women can hold themselves back by ruling themselves out and not believing they can do the job at the next level.”
She encourages women to share their ambitions with others who can help them on their journey, rather than just assuming they will know. And outside of work, she advises professionals to choose their long-term partner carefully. “Don’t be the one who tries to do everything,” she says.
Family Life Matters
Churchman has seen the benefits of an equal partnership play out in her own life, saying that her family is a real leveler for her. She has been able to combine her career with raising two children, who are now adults, ages 22 and 20. “I find it incredible; how did that happen?” she says, adding that they will always be her “little prince and princess,” fitting since they are called George and Charlotte.
They have always been part of her career as well; in fact, she says that they have always been her biggest critics. “They would give me honest – and occasionally brutal — feedback when they would hear me on the radio,” she laughs. Always up for a family trip, she is looking forward to a family holiday to the Amalfi coast in Italy.
She now shares her home with a labradoodle called Poppy, which means her relaxing and thinking time includes long walks. In addition, she makes time for charity work; she was a trustee for a breast cancer charity and is now looking forward to joining the board of another group, the Employers Network for Equality & Inclusion, which is working to support employers committed to driving the diversity agenda forward, an endeavor she anticipates will complement her work at PwC.
Promoting CEO-Ready Women
Career Advice, LeadershipBy Melissa J. Anderson
Image via Shutterstock
Companies must work harder to nurture the pipeline of diverse CEO-ready leaders, experts say. As the number of women CEOs dwindles, it seems that there are few female leaders ready to take their place, or, rather, that there are too few companies ready and willing to give them a shot.
Indeed, the percentage of female CEOs in the S&P 500 dropped to a miniscule 4.4% in 2016, down from a slightly less miniscule 4.6% last year, according to data from Catalyst.
Additionally, high-profile female CEOs have stepped down from their roles in the past year. For example, Xerox’s Ursula Burns announced this summer that she will leave the company after its planned split is completed later this year. DuPont’s Ellen Kullman retired after the company’s bruising proxy battle last fall. And it’s not clear where Marissa Mayer will land after Verizon takes over Yahoo’s core businesses. Because there are already so few women in the CEO position, the loss of one or two makes a big difference. And the bright spots — like Shira Goodman being named interim CEO of Staples in June — are few and far between.
It’s not clear that companies are doing enough to bring diversity into the C-suite, says Brande Stellings, Vice President of Corporate Board Services at Catalyst. Moreover, the work is hard and constant — if companies lose focus on diversity, they could wind up dashing any positive work they’d achieved.
“Ensuring both diversity and inclusion at leadership levels requires constant attention and intention – as does any behavior until it becomes a habit,” says Stellings. “Change is not happening quickly enough and leadership at the board level and in the C-suite does not reflect the world we live in today, where women represent half of the workforce.”
Companies must be intentional in their efforts, says Stellings.
“Set a target for representation of women in the C-Suite and reverse engineer from that target,” she says. Stellings suggests companies focus on a couple key areas to reach that target: “hot jobs” and sponsorship.
“Review the ‘hot jobs’ in the company that provide a fast track for executive development: are women getting their fair share of those opportunities?” she says.
For example, the gender diversity of PwC’s Global Leadership Team increased significantly this year, moving from 20% female to 42% female with the appointments of the company’s new global chairman Bob Moritz.
“Getting there was part of a long journey which we are still on,” says Dale Meikle, Global Diversity and Inclusion Program Office Leader at PwC.
“This has been the result of many years of our top leadership personally sponsoring diversity as a business imperative, of ensuring that along with male talent, female talent has been identified and developed to create a more gender diverse slate of leaders when vacancies come up; it’s also been challenging ourselves to not make assumptions about what the barriers to diversity are, but rather letting the data lead us,” Meikle says.
According to Meikle, PwC’s creation of data-driven diversity programs that are tied to leadership accountability have produced a “sea change” at PwC.
As for sponsorship, Stellings tells of one S&P 500 CEO who asked his senior leadership team to make a list of people whose careers they had championed, and then to ask whether any of the people they had supported looked different from themselves. If not, he challenged the team to do something about it.
Stellings says women executives can play a key part of corporate efforts to bring more women and people of color into the CEO-pipeline. Not only are women executives necessary to mentor and sponsor the next generation of diverse leaders, but they are integral in driving the cultural infrastructure needed to help them thrive at work.
“On an organizational level, [senior executive women] can ensure that the business case for advancing women’s leadership is well understood, both in terms of winning in the marketplace for talent and in the marketplace for customers,” says Stellings.
For female executives who already have their eyes on the CEO job, Stellings says, an outside board seat can raise their profile and offer experience that CEO-search committees view as valuable. They should know what their CEO would say about them, and ask him or her to make introductions to search firms or other directors on their behalf.
“They should also take advantage of opportunities to present to, work with and socialize with their own company’s board,” she adds.
What’s more, when women move into board roles to enhance their own profile and meet their own career goals, they start a diversity feedback loop, according to Stellings.
“Catalyst research indicates that having more women board directors is correlated with subsequently having more women in the C-suite,” five years later, she says.
These women officers were also more likely to be in line positions. “Profit-and-loss responsibility at the executive level is a key experience for CEO succession planning, as well as board succession planning,” Stellings adds.
Elevate Yourself: How to Articulate Your Value and Advance Your Career in Two Easy Steps
Career Advice, Guest Contribution, Next LevelImage via Shutterstock
What are your career aspirations? When you’re dreaming about the future, do you see yourself in a bigger role, leading your team to impressive results and having a powerful influence in your company? Then there’s good news. You are the one who can elevate yourself to reach that higher-level position.
It’s true. The leaders who are most successful are the ones who lead themselves and lead others to see them as successful high-achievers worthy of promotion.
Unfortunately, many leaders miss this opportunity. Either they don’t realize how much influence and control they have over their own careers, or they neglect to communicate their value. You can speed up your advancement by taking ownership of your career, knowing your value, and articulating your successes in a way that leads to new opportunities.
Being able to articulate your value is a key tool for success and advancement. Here are the two steps you need to take.
Know Your Value.
Ask yourself these questions:
1. Do I know the impact of my efforts?
2. Have I defined the specific contributions that I’ve made?
3. Can I gracefully, elegantly, and clearly articulate the value that I bring?
If you have difficulty answering these questions, it could be for one of two reasons. One, it may be that you are not adding as much value or making as big a contribution as you would like. If that’s the case, it’s time to rethink your approach so you can be more impactful. Two, it may be that you’re adding plenty of value to your company and even excelling in your role, but you haven’t taken the time to clarify that value in an effective message. If that is the case, it is time to do some wordsmithing and craft the message you can easily share with others to help them see your value.
Either way, whether you are focused on improving your impact or communicating your impact to others, this is an effort that is worth your attention. By knowing and describing your value to others, you will open new doors of opportunity and advancement.
Prove Your Worth.
Once you succeed in identifying and articulating your value, the next step is to prove your worth.
Here are some more questions you can ask yourself:
1. What specific role have I played that created a positive outcome for the company?
2. What outcomes or deliverables have I achieved?
3. What are those roles, outcomes, and deliverables worth?
What you are searching for as you do this analysis are specific metrics: your concrete, measureable results. Look for numbers, percentages, dollar figures and other persuasive metrics that quantify the impact you have made. You’ll know you have proved your worth when you can effectively identify the specific benefits your company has gained as a result of your efforts and achievements.
Remember: when it comes to career advancement, you have more control than you think. Take the time to identify and communicate your value. When you do this for yourself, you’ll increase your confidence and impact. When you share it with others, you’ll elevate yourself into the positions you want.
You really do make an impact. Give yourself the opportunity to be the leader you most want to be by helping others see your value, too.
Howard J. Morgan and Joelle K. Jay, PhD, of the Leadership Research Institute (LRI) are co-authors of THE NEW ADVANTAGE: How Women in Leadership Can Create Win-Wins for Their Companies and Themselves (Praeger / 2016). For more information please visit www.TheNewAdvantageBook.com.