By Melissa Anderson
Women leaders from the financial and professional services industries, shared their advice on how women can be agents of change at The Glass Hammer’s fifth annual career navigation event at PwC’s headquarters last Wednesday, sponsored by PwC, TIAA and Voya Investment Management.
“Change leadership starts with people who want to do better,” said The Glass Hammer’s CEO Nicki Gilmour as she opened the event, encouraging the audience to probe the speakers with difficult questions.
“We’re here to talk about how we can lift as we climb.”
The panel was moderated by Mary McDowell, an Executive Partner at Siris Capital Group and was a panelist at theglasshammer.com’s women in technology event last Fall.
Panelists included Christine Hurtsellers, Chief Investment Officer of Fixed Income at Voya Investment Management; Liz Diep, Assurance Partner for Alternative Investments at PwC; Pam Dunsky, Managing Director of Client Services Technology at TIAA; and Deborah Lorenzen, Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer for Global Product and Marketing at State Street Global Advisors.
While the panelists’ careers varied significantly and were spread across different industries, one factor emerged that all of them seemed to have in common: intention. Whether describing their career paths, discussing their experience mentoring, sponsoring and networking, or talking about the ways in which they lead change toward workforce diversity at their companies, it was clear that the women went about their business with purpose.
For example, in discussing how she chooses junior staffers to mentor or sponsor, Diep says,
“You have to seek out those people you want to mentor and sponsor – you can’t be a passive participant if you want to see change,” she said. Mentoring someone means serving as their sounding board and offering advice on career advancement, while sponsorship involves putting forward one’s personal capital behind closed doors to expand their career opportunities.
Diep mentioned that a motivating factor to grow in her own career is to see more junior colleagues progress along with her and how walking the walk on “lifting as we climb” strategy is important to her When discussing how she keeps her network fresh, Diep described how she blocks time on her calendar months in advance for networking coffees and lunches, and fills in the “who” later on.
Hurtsellers described how she tries to proactively work with other leaders in her company to develop a business plan that increases diversity.
“Being a female business leader in a very male-dominated industry can be quite a lonely spot,” she said. Clients are beginning to require asset managers to disclose their numbers on staff diversity during the RFP process; but Hurtsellers said that’s not enough.
“We need more than a check-the-box mentality around diversity to effectively tackle the issue. I try to challenge a bit of the establishment thinking,” she said. “I ask the elephant-in-the-room-type questions like ‘How do you get women into financial services if they don’t think that the industry matches their values?’”.
Hurtsellers further stated that she felt being a woman in a male-dominated industry can also be a competitive advantage if you’ve worked to build a personal brand, like authenticity.
“But it has to come back to who you are – be true to yourself,” she said.
Similarly, Dunsky shared how she had established a brand for herself earlier in her career, only to revise it later on.
“Earlier, my brand was being really hard working – but, I realized, you don’t just want to be known as a hard worker,” she said. “After taking a step back, I realized it’s not the only thing I want people to say about me.”
Dunsky said she started thinking more critically about what she wanted to be known for: leadership, the ability to execute, being able to guide and direct and grow her team.
“You have to be conscious of what your strength is,” she said. Sometimes a strength can be a weakness if it bars advancement to the next level, she explained. That’s why it’s important to always be thinking of your strengths and what you can build upon to help get to the next level.
“You want your brand to be natural – so people can conceive of you doing it,” she said.
Lorenzen added that being true to yourself is critical to advancement. Trying to ‘be one of the guys’ to blend in can ultimately hold you back, and so will shying away from big opportunities. She advised to take calculated risks early and often.
“Show up and say yes when you are asked, even if you only have 50% [of the qualifications], because the men will say yes if they only have 25%,” she said.
Finally, during the question and answer segment, one audience member asked a question that must have been top of mind for many of the guests.
Being head of a business unit or a partner at a firm comes with a lot of power that enables women at the top to open difficult conversations about diversity, she reasoned so the question is ‘How can someone be a change agent earlier in her career when there is a greater risk of retaliation for speaking up?’
To get to the top as a woman in a male-dominated industry, you have to stand up for those conversations throughout your career, said Lorenzen.
“If you fail to raise your voice on matters of ethics and therefore accept a status quo at odds with your beliefs, you won’t be happy,” she said. Of course, she continued, there is a measure of balance to find. It’s important to choose the right battles to fight.
Lorenzen continued “You have to choose when to speak up. It never gets any easier, and opportunities arise throughout your career to do the right thing. It is about leading from where you are.”
Summing up the evening’s discussion, McDowell said, “Be of good courage, build great relationships, don’t forget your peers and be true to yourself.”
Lean into Confidence
Career Advice, Next LevelAnd it shows. Women hold more than 50 percent of college degrees and more than 40 percent of MBAs, according to the KPMG Women’s Leadership Study, but less than 5 percent of Fortune 500 companies have female CEOs. Somewhere in the stretch between college and high-level positions, women get lost.
Young women enter the workplace full of confidence, with 43 percent aspiring to top manager roles. However, after a mere two years on the job, these levels drop to below 25 percent. There’s something that happens after women enter the workforce that steals away their enthusiasm.
It may be easy to say, “Yes, but women take a long break mid-career to have children.” Trust me – I have 3 kids, ages 4-8, and am compassionate for the unique type of stress working mothers face. Did having children require me to push pause on my career?Absolutely not.Does being an executive make me a better mother?For me, it does. My career completes me and sets a wonderful example of a strong woman for my three young boys.Recently, Marissa Mayer announced that she would not be taking a full maternity leave.I applaud her for being confident enough in herself to make that decision under intense public scrutiny.I have no doubt that her children are cared for and loved, and I am certain that her girls will grow up to be incredibly proud of the strong, female leader they get to call mom.
Leaders are created at a young age, and young girls aren’t encouraged to lead the same way that boys are. The “ban bossy” movement has been targeting this social phenomenon by giving parents the tools they need to embolden their daughters.
Of course, that’s all great for the women of the future, but what about us? What about those of us in the workforce striving to become CEOs of our own companies? We can’t wait around for the next generation to change what we want changed for ourselves.
If you feel as though you’re being held back in your career by a lack of self-confidence, do the following three things:
1. Define Your Own Success
Not everyone wants to be CEO of a Fortune 500 company. That’s ok. Maybe you want to grow your own company, or run a nonprofit, or be a mentor. It is important to define your own success early on in your career. Following a path predetermined by society will only make you unhappy in the long run. Really spend time thinking about your long-term goals.
This will ultimately make big decisions easier further on in your career. When you’re offered a new position, or you take on a new job, you can measure it against your long-term career goals and decide if it’s helping you move in the right direction.I was recently asked to run for Congress, and, as attractive as that may sound, it wasn’t compatible with my career goals.Not only did that make turning down that opportunity easier, it made me more self-assured in my decision.
2. Support Other Women
Women get a bad rap for not supporting other women. We’re sometimes envious of the way men can bond and connect in a way that women feel they can’t – we call it the “boy’s club.”
In reality, things aren’t actually as far off for women. Columbia Business School conducted a study and found that the “Queen Bee Syndrome,” in which women in power are more critical of female subordinates, is actually a myth.
Women do have a strong network that’s just as good as any boy’s club. Spend time cultivating your relationships, and support the women around you.
3. Stay Hungry
The best way to boost your own confidence is to excel at what you do. Never settle for just completing a task when you can blow it out of the water. Take on projects that are outside your comfort zone, and constantly work toward making yourself better.
Society is changing for the next generation, but you have to make change happen for you. Work at being self-confident, and others will be confident in you too.
By Melissa Beck
4 Reasons to get involved in your women’s network (or other Employee Resource Group at work)
Career Advice, Career Tip of the Week!This week I am going to outline what you should do in your network (and why you should join it)
More on this all summer long.
Voice of Experience: Nili Gilbert, Co-Founder & Portfolio Manager at Matarin Capital Management
Voices of Experience“My best advice is that women should appreciate the benefit of taking measured risks, those you can understand and manage,” says Nili Gilbert, co-founder and portfolio manager at Matarin Capital Management, citing starting the firm as one of those measured risks.
“You have to believe in yourself to ensure that you don’t shrink in the face of challenges,” she says, adding that the goal isn’t to look for the course without them, but instead to rally and meet them.
Innovating in the Financial Industry
Gilbert’s interest in financial markets dates back to when she was a young girl in Switzerland and was curious about the different currency markets she encountered while traveling. She designed her own related field of study while attending Harvard, earned her MBA from Columbia Business School by age 24 and joined Invesco.
There she met the team with whom she’s been working ever since. They founded Matarin Capital Management in 2010, taking pride in the fact that at that time they’d been together for almost a decade, managing more than $25 billion as a team at Invesco.
“Our team has always operated under the investment philosophy that human emotions drive markets, and so our strategy to make money is to trade on the dislocations that these emotions create and to deliver our clients a more stable return,” she says.
Cofounding and helping build Matarin is the professional achivevement she’s most proud of and one that reflects her initial career inclinations. Gilbert wrote in her business school application that she dreamed of one day founding a financial services company. “I said that I hoped to create a company that would help shape values in the industry and so starting Matarin was a seminal moment,” she says.
The firm was established based on values and a longer-term view. “We realized there are thousands of asset managers out there, and the world doesn’t need just another hedge fund. That’s why we set out to build something that is different and that has purpose, something that would be an enduring business.”
The firm is continuously engaged in a variety of research projects to support its investment strategies. Some of the research that Gilbert is most engaged with at this time includes a review of valuation as a market timing tool. She notes that it’s tricky to use valuation to determine the future direction of the S&P, for example, because the market index can stay overvalued for a long time before it corrects.
A second project the firm is undergoing is a consideration of how the advent of negative interest rates may change basic assumptions about how macroeconomics work, as they look at a combination of theoretical viewpoints and historical observations.
Winning as A Team
Gilbert says that one thing she’s learned over time is that success doesn’t come from individual contributions, but rather from a strong team as a whole. She says their team sets goals as a group and achieves as a group which is why the people you team up with are so critical to your career.
Since all five of the principals at Matarin have previously been senior professionals at large, well-respected firms, they know that there can be a better way to work, away from the typical silos. In that setting, portfolio managers only have control over their returns but that’s not the sole factor affecting client well-being. She appreciates that the firm’s approach gives them the ability to control what strategies are appropriate, what fees should be, how to manage communications and when to close funds that have reached capacity.
“There are some very technical questions in the industry that for us start at the core with conversations about values,” she says, adding that while some cultures are focused on asset accrual, Matarin chooses to set goals in terms of dollars of added value generated for clients over time.
Making the Industry Positive for Women
The industry will benefit when women see more women like themselves in it, which will show them the path to success, she believes. That’s why Matarin tries to stay visible with its principals acting as mentors and speaking at conferences, including involvement in “100 Women in Hedge Funds.”
Since the portfolio management space is such a performance-oriented business, it can be quite meritocratic, which makes it an excellent career for women. “Investment performance can be a great equalizer. Women who deliver strong returns can have long and fruitful careers in the industry,” she says. “Because of the emphasis on performance, women should be attracted to the industry as a place they can excel.”
She says that diversity as a whole is important for any business, and her firm supports diversity in skill sets, gender, culture and backgrounds. She emphasizes that they hire based on merit but never before they’ve considered a diverse pool of potential candidates.
“If you have a good mix of viewpoints around the table, you can embark on a professional debate that puts your ideas in the best form so you can test and vet them from different perspectives.”
Work and Home Combine for a Positive Life View
Gilbert serves as a member of the board of directors and chairs the finance and investment board for the Synergos Institute, an international development organization focused on poverty alleviation. She says the group identifies breakdowns in the system which cause or perpetuate poverty, and helps to implement leadership initiatives and structural changes to repair them.
An avid traveler, she and her husband just returned from their honeymoon in French Polynesia.
Gilbert says her ability to work hard comes because of one belief. “When you do something you love, it helps you build resilience to make it through the hard days, and it makes the good days better, too.”
Mover & Shaker: Teresa Burrows, Director, Program Manager, TIAA
Movers and ShakersThe Path to TIAA
Burrows is no stranger to change. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania where she studied economics, Burrows took a different path from her educational background and went to work for Andersen Consulting as a consultant where she was in a variety of roles from software developer to business analyst. Building upon the experience she had at Andersen, Burrows next became a business analyst in the Information Services division of Putnam Investments. After encouragement from her manager to expand and change her role, Burrows soon moved into project management and program delivery, ultimately leading the technology strategy and delivery for International and Institutional Defined Benefit systems.
In 2005, a former manager presented Burrows with the opportunity to relocate to Charlotte NC to come to TIAA and work with her doing IT program delivery. Since joining, she has helped implement numerous technology initiatives for the Institutional business before landing in her current role as a technology program manager in TIAA‘s new Digital organization. She appreciates the challenging, fast-paced, fluid environment. Burrows is proud of the team that she’s assembled, and their ability to adjust to constantly changing priorities and needs. “It is gratifying that I can inspire and motivate them to deliver great work,” she says.
Right now, she’s excited about a recent organizational change that gives the team an opportunity to take on exciting, new projects in different business areas. “I’m excited to transfer the knowledge that we’ve gained from working on the institutional side of the business to the individual/retail side, while forming relationships with my new partners,” Burrows shares.
Role Models Teach Lessons Along the Way
Growing up, Burrows emulated the hard work ethic of her parents, both of whom were Chinese immigrants and successful entrepreneurs. When she started her career, Burrows assumed that keeping her head down and working long hours would foster success, but she’s since found that working “smart” by using the right tools and working collaboratively within a team is more fruitful.
Along the way, Burrows says she benefited from informal mentors, both peers and managers, even some of whom weren’t her own. They offered advice or perspective and helped her advocate for herself while serving as admirable, empathic and honorable role models. “The best manager that I ever had took the time to understand me, my career aspirations, the team and the business, and those are the qualities I try to portray,” she reflects.
She also knows that it’s important to learn from less-desirable situations, noting a time earlier in her career when issues arose on a key project. Rather than communicate their troubles and asking for help, the project leader was instead only concerned with how that would look. As a result, there were fairly significant issues with the delivery of the project. The situation showed her that when there are problems, you have to ask for help. “When you are transparent and open with your business partners, people can put their heads together to form a solution,” she says, noting that your client is likely to respect that strategy and step in and try to be part of the solution.
She says her success over the years has come from strong relationships she’s built with her team, peers and clients, both external and internal. “You can build the relationships you need to be successful by establishing a culture of respect, truly listening to people, offering empathy, following through on actions and being transparent and honest when there are issues or problems,” she says.
Tackling Gender Issues
Although the financial services industry, and in particular IT, are largely male dominated, Burrows has found her path to be largely unencumbered by gender stereotypes. In fact, one surprising situation she remembers occurred during a project she undertook when she was with Putnam. A Japanese partner firm wanted to build a website to provide investment portfolio account information. “While there were a surprising number of gender and cultural considerations that could have impeded on the project’s success, we were able to take these into account and ultimately it went really well,” she says.
At TIAA, she is an active member of the Women’s Employee Resource Group. She appreciates it as a valuable resource for its webinars and events, but particularly because of the networking opportunities that help her connect with women with whom she may not otherwise cross paths.
Life Outside Work
With two sons, ages 13 and 15, Burrows leads an active lifestyle. The family loves to travel and hike and tries to visit a national park each summer, with an upcoming trip to her home state of Massachusetts planned.
Mover and Shaker: Yingli Zhu, Senior Portfolio Manager and Manager of Quantitative Research, Voya Investment Management
Movers and Shakers“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity,” is one of Yingli Zhu’s favorite expressions. “That’s because when the next opportunity arrives, you will find yourself ‘lucky’ if you are prepared to take advantage of it.”
Making the Most of Opportunities
Zhu’s career is the result of this equation. After earning a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering, she joined the newly formed quantitative risk management team at ING Investment Management (now Voya Investment Management). As a logical, numbers person wanting to understand the math behind any idea, she found the position to be perfect for her.
Although Zhu had a very limited knowledge of fixed income prior to this role, working directly on different projects provided her with the opportunity to understand the building blocks of, and nuances for, fixed income securities.
Soon, she shifted her focus from data analysis and modeling to working closely with portfolio managers in different asset classes, developing tools to help them manage asset risks. Shortly after the financial crisis in 2008, the company underwent a major reorganization which created what she calls a “lifetime opportunity” to join the mortgage derivatives team, where she’s stayed for the past eight years.
“Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be part of a team managing multi-billion dollar assets for corporations,” she says, adding that she finds it satisfying on a daily basis. She notes that a luminary in the industry, Bill Gross, once said that a good bond manager should be 1/3 mathematician, 1/3 economist and 1/3 horse trader. “I’m proud to work on a team that combines so many talented individuals,” Zhu says.
Every day can present a great investment opportunity as the team works to achieve optimal risk adjusted returns and income while considering different reporting and accounting standards. “We have to be constantly creative and reinvent ourselves to achieve optimal returns,” she says. The decisions are complex since national and international developments can all have a direct or indirect effect on the assets that are bought and sold on a daily basis.
“All these developments can create opportunities, and it is always exciting to see how we can leverage these opportunities to create value for investors,” she says. “We evaluate new instruments we’ve never looked at before and study them to understand the risk/return profiles and determine if they are the right investment for each of our many portfolios.”
Hard Work Paves the Way for Success
Having grown up in China, Zhu had little knowledge about the financial industry and its corporate culture when she first started. “I assumed that I could succeed with hard work, determination, diligence and persistence, and those attributes continue to serve me well whenever there’s a new challenge I need to tackle,” she says.
What she appreciates about working at Voya is that everyone is an expert at some part of the business, so she can always find a resource to help her with any issue. “Everyone is willing to channel their energy for the good of the team,” she says.
Zhu’s current boss has always been her mentor. “We’re on the trading floor together so there is constant communication. If I have questions or need help I can get immediate feedback and help to resolve challenges,” she says.
Like her colleagues, she strives to be helpful to anyone who’s willing to learn and wants to move the business forward.
Over the years Zhu has found that the best learning approach is often getting your hands dirty. “If you see a challenge within the business that doesn’t seem to be your direct responsibility, but is one you can contribute to, you are going to benefit if you step up and help resolve it because of what you will learn along the way.”
While it’s common for anyone to wonder if what they do will pay off, she maintains the belief that all of her effort and persistence prepares her for the next challenge.
But no matter how exciting her days are at work, Zhu says she can’t wait to come home each day to see her family: her husband and her two children, ages four and one, whom she calls “the joy of my life.”
The 34th Annual Options Industry Conference – an update from this financial markets sector
Career Advice, NewsThe 34th Annual Options Industry Conference took place last week where representatives from exchanges, market makers, technology providers and regulators were just some of the attendees gathered in California. Hosted by the Options Clearing Corporation (OCC) and the International Securities Exchange (ISE), the conference focused on discussing communication between market participants and regulators, growth in the options industry as well as fragmentation and other current challenges the industry is facing.
The conference kicked off with a conversation between ISE’s Gary Katz and Stephen Luparello, Director, Division of Trading and Markets at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Luparello recommended that market participants speak up more about issues impacting the markets to the SEC and Luparello referred to the notice and comment period within the rulemaking process and emphasized that when talking to Washington market participants should not “pick and choose” what challenges to discuss.
Another challenge addressed at the conference was the slow pace in which the industry is seeing growth. Exchange traded funds (ETFs), index and equity options volume has averaged about 14% growth in the past 40 years, according to Henry Schwartz, President at Trade Alert LLC who provided a State of the Union type presentation at the conference stating the growth figures from the industry are from 1.8 billion in contract volume in 2000 to 4.5 billion contracts traded in 2016.
Schwartz also explained that this growth may have opened the door for other exchanges to enter the market such as Nasdaq in 2008, BATS in 2010 and MIAX in 2012. While the current number of options exchanges has grown to 14 in 2016, while volume in ETF, index and equity options trading has only seen about 2% growth in the past 5 years.
This was discussed in detail at the exchange leadership panel with representatives from ISE, the Boston Options Exchange (BOX), Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), Nasdaq, BATS Global Markets, MIAX and the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE).
Ed Boyle, CEO of BOX, believes that the industry needs to better engage the institutional side, such as hedge funds and advisors, with relevant products and market structures. Currently, these end users turn to the over-the-counter (OTC) markets rather than listed options contracts. Boyle believes that this switch in how people buy options can be achieved with more educational efforts.
To that end, the CBOE has recently invested in companies such as Tradelegs, a provider of advanced decision-support software that institutional investors can employ to optimize investment performance as well Vest Financial, an investment advisor that provides options-centric products and risk management solutions. CBOE also recently acquired LiveVol, a company that turns market data into options trading strategies. Andrew Lowenthal, Senior Vice President of Business Development at CBOE remarked that these investments were made to improve the end users experience.
CBOE also believes that bringing new products to the market will engage different participants. Recently the exchange launched FLEX options with Asian and Cliquet style settlements for insurance companies looking to hedge embedded exotic options risk.
While the industry looks for new means of growth, an area that may have swelled too large is the number of options exchanges. With 14 exchanges (and MIAX plans to launch a 15th this year), the industry experiences a lot of market fragmentation and players fighting for market share. As of publication, CBOE led the pack with 17% market share followed by Nasdaq’s PHLX with 16% and then ISE with 13%.
It is important to note that pending regulatory approval Nasdaq will acquire ISE in what is believed to be a play for more market share and, according to TradeAlert’s Schwartz, the industry will experience more exchange consolidation in the future.
Fragmentation, Auctions and Market Makers
The amount of options exchanges and its benefit or harm to the market was also discussed in a different, debate-style panel at the conference. Speakers were broken up into teams to argue the pros and cons of the issue.
One team believed that the 14 options exchanges was good for innovation and led to enhanced competition in the marketplace. They also fought that this brought stability to the markets. If one exchange experiences an emergency or had to close down, there are other venues participants can move to throughout a trading day. However, the opposing team found that the significant costs associated with connecting to various exchanges was prohibitive and that multiple venues also led to a more complex market structure.
Other hot topics in the debate included auction markets at exchanges. Auctions, which were introduced in the electronic options markets to mimic the flow of information that takes place on the trading floor, provide price discovery and best execution. However, they also inadvertently lead to less liquidity, wider spreads and a two-tiered market.
Finally, the debate also explored the decreasing number of market makers, firms which are required to provide a certain amount of liquidity at exchanges. With regulatory and technology costs making it hard to operate successfully in the current market environment, the industry has experienced a loss of liquidity and concentrates risk in fewer hands. It was concluded that the industry needs to find incentives for these types of firms and help them overcome costs as well as barriers to entry.
While the options industry has their work cut out for them, educational efforts and tools that will enhance the end-user’s experience as well new, relevant products will certainly bring different players to the market. Communicating with regulators, addressing challenges with the rule makers and keeping up with the competition will also make operating in the current environment more efficient. Heavy topics were discussed at this year’s options conference but it was productive and it seems everyone knows their part in moving this space forward.
Want To Help With Diversity Issues At Work? Make Leaders Address Them
Career Advice, Career Tip of the Week!So, what am I saying here? I am saying there are several reasons to get involved in a network/ERG and advocacy is an extremely effective strategy as is sponsorship (which we will discuss in another post) but do not confuse thinking you as a group have the authority to change the hiring or advancement of women directly as it is an indirect power at best. In any role, you should only accept responsibility for a task that you have the authority to execute on.
I hope this has got you thinking and comments are welcomed. Such a big topic and we shall explore the individual benefits of being part of an ERG all summer but also be wise enough to know when you are being tasked with something that the talent management group along with the organization’s leadership need to address.
By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist
Contact nicki@theglasshammer.com if you would like to hire an executive coach to help you navigate the path to optimal personal success at work
Voice of Experience: Toan Huynh, Managing Director, Accenture Technology
Voices of ExperienceAfter graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in Economics and International Relations, Huynh was faced with a dilemma of sorts when she received two job offers, one in investment banking and the other in consulting. “I chose consulting because of the amazing learning opportunities I knew it would allow me, for the impact I believed I could make.” She never looked back, and since has worked across a variety of problem solving roles during her career, including being a co-founder of one of the most well respected boutique cloud services brokerage and advisory firms in the world, Cloud Sherpas, which was strategically acquired by Accenture late last year.
Accenture is a leader in helping organizations move to the cloud to take advantage of a new era of service delivery and flexibility, where applications, infrastructure and business processes are brought together and delivered As-a-Service. Accenture’s Cloud First agenda offers comprehensive, industry-focused cloud services including strategy, implementation, migration and managed services, and assets including the Accenture Cloud Platform that can drive broader transformational programs for clients. Cloud Sherpas became of an integral part of Accenture’s aptly named Cloud First Applications team, which delivers cloud services for Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow, Google and other “pure play” cloud technologies.
“We are constantly innovating around how to be the next generation customer care solutions providers – how to stay ahead,” says Huynh, who credits much of her success and achievements to a great passion for her job and teamwork. She also is working with Accenture’s New York Metro Office to integrate the company deeper in the local NYC community, around both fintech innovation and corporate citizenship collaboration with its non-profit partners. Although Huynh has had the chance to work in most major cities around the world, “NYC continues to be a hub for all things” for her.
A Rapidly Changing World
Huynh is kept on her toes with the constantly changing environment within which she works. “Within my space, we work with forward thinking insurers and financial services firms to springboard passed the legacy system constraints and corporate culture – the old ways of customer interactions – and modernize legacy systems and processes. Customer expectations around financial services companies are changing at a rapid pace, especially as digital disruptors have changed how and where customers want to engage, across a variety of communication channels. At Accenture, our goal is to help our customers innovate using our digital and Cloud First platforms. The work has been so exciting and rewarding to see customers transform into new icons in their ecosystems.”
In Tech, More Women Leaders
Although Huynh agrees that, traditionally, the financial services and technology space has been dominated by men, she notes that, “this is changing quite drastically and with good reason.” Huynh attributes this change to more women having greater access to (and encouragement) in taking technical training, but moreover she sees the biggest area for women to succeed in this field through mentoring. “Mentorship is paramount to helping one another build networks that foster and develop women leaders in this space,” and she adds, “Accenture is a leader in this way and I am proud to do my part to mentor up-and-coming young women.”
Accenture’s commitment to women really starts at the top, with its CEO making a personal commitment to advancing gender equality, and it also set a goal to grow its’ percentage of women new hires globally to at least 40 percent by 2017. Personally, Huynh is involved with the NYC Women’s Employees Resources Group, which drives programs that support women and help them build strong networks at Accenture and in the broader community, which she finds particularly important.
“My advice for young women? Be fearless in your educational pursuits and find a great mentors early, men and women, to be your advocate and help you navigate. For my women peers? I encourage each of us to continue to use our influence and experience to help women navigate and progress in their careers, and to be a resource pool to help elevate women leaders wherever we work and volunteer.”
Life, Outside Work
As a woman tech start up founder, Huynh does her part within the tech alley and entrepreneurial community to encourage others to do what she did, by being on panels and speaking to organizations. “I want others to take a big leap of faith and dare to do something different.” She also is part of the 37 Angels – a woman only angel investing network that invests in early stage seed start-ups started by male and female founders. “Being present and being daringly ‘out there’ will hopefully help pave the way for more women leaders in the workforce.”
Huynh and her family support Opening Act, an organization which provides after school theatre programing for underprivileged kids, as a way to develop skills for life. They also support Words without Borders, which provides translations of literary works across languages to break down barriers for knowledge exchange.
She uses the skills she’s acquired throughout her career to be the best mom possible to her 21 month old daughter.
Female Leaders Share Their Strategies On Creating Change at 5th Annual Navigating your Career Event
Career Management, NewsBy Melissa Anderson
Women leaders from the financial and professional services industries, shared their advice on how women can be agents of change at The Glass Hammer’s fifth annual career navigation event at PwC’s headquarters last Wednesday, sponsored by PwC, TIAA and Voya Investment Management.
“Change leadership starts with people who want to do better,” said The Glass Hammer’s CEO Nicki Gilmour as she opened the event, encouraging the audience to probe the speakers with difficult questions.
“We’re here to talk about how we can lift as we climb.”
The panel was moderated by Mary McDowell, an Executive Partner at Siris Capital Group and was a panelist at theglasshammer.com’s women in technology event last Fall.
Panelists included Christine Hurtsellers, Chief Investment Officer of Fixed Income at Voya Investment Management; Liz Diep, Assurance Partner for Alternative Investments at PwC; Pam Dunsky, Managing Director of Client Services Technology at TIAA; and Deborah Lorenzen, Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer for Global Product and Marketing at State Street Global Advisors.
While the panelists’ careers varied significantly and were spread across different industries, one factor emerged that all of them seemed to have in common: intention. Whether describing their career paths, discussing their experience mentoring, sponsoring and networking, or talking about the ways in which they lead change toward workforce diversity at their companies, it was clear that the women went about their business with purpose.
For example, in discussing how she chooses junior staffers to mentor or sponsor, Diep says,
“You have to seek out those people you want to mentor and sponsor – you can’t be a passive participant if you want to see change,” she said. Mentoring someone means serving as their sounding board and offering advice on career advancement, while sponsorship involves putting forward one’s personal capital behind closed doors to expand their career opportunities.
Diep mentioned that a motivating factor to grow in her own career is to see more junior colleagues progress along with her and how walking the walk on “lifting as we climb” strategy is important to her When discussing how she keeps her network fresh, Diep described how she blocks time on her calendar months in advance for networking coffees and lunches, and fills in the “who” later on.
Hurtsellers described how she tries to proactively work with other leaders in her company to develop a business plan that increases diversity.
“Being a female business leader in a very male-dominated industry can be quite a lonely spot,” she said. Clients are beginning to require asset managers to disclose their numbers on staff diversity during the RFP process; but Hurtsellers said that’s not enough.
“We need more than a check-the-box mentality around diversity to effectively tackle the issue. I try to challenge a bit of the establishment thinking,” she said. “I ask the elephant-in-the-room-type questions like ‘How do you get women into financial services if they don’t think that the industry matches their values?’”.
Hurtsellers further stated that she felt being a woman in a male-dominated industry can also be a competitive advantage if you’ve worked to build a personal brand, like authenticity.
“But it has to come back to who you are – be true to yourself,” she said.
Similarly, Dunsky shared how she had established a brand for herself earlier in her career, only to revise it later on.
“Earlier, my brand was being really hard working – but, I realized, you don’t just want to be known as a hard worker,” she said. “After taking a step back, I realized it’s not the only thing I want people to say about me.”
Dunsky said she started thinking more critically about what she wanted to be known for: leadership, the ability to execute, being able to guide and direct and grow her team.
“You have to be conscious of what your strength is,” she said. Sometimes a strength can be a weakness if it bars advancement to the next level, she explained. That’s why it’s important to always be thinking of your strengths and what you can build upon to help get to the next level.
“You want your brand to be natural – so people can conceive of you doing it,” she said.
Lorenzen added that being true to yourself is critical to advancement. Trying to ‘be one of the guys’ to blend in can ultimately hold you back, and so will shying away from big opportunities. She advised to take calculated risks early and often.
“Show up and say yes when you are asked, even if you only have 50% [of the qualifications], because the men will say yes if they only have 25%,” she said.
Finally, during the question and answer segment, one audience member asked a question that must have been top of mind for many of the guests.
Being head of a business unit or a partner at a firm comes with a lot of power that enables women at the top to open difficult conversations about diversity, she reasoned so the question is ‘How can someone be a change agent earlier in her career when there is a greater risk of retaliation for speaking up?’
To get to the top as a woman in a male-dominated industry, you have to stand up for those conversations throughout your career, said Lorenzen.
“If you fail to raise your voice on matters of ethics and therefore accept a status quo at odds with your beliefs, you won’t be happy,” she said. Of course, she continued, there is a measure of balance to find. It’s important to choose the right battles to fight.
Lorenzen continued “You have to choose when to speak up. It never gets any easier, and opportunities arise throughout your career to do the right thing. It is about leading from where you are.”
Summing up the evening’s discussion, McDowell said, “Be of good courage, build great relationships, don’t forget your peers and be true to yourself.”
Mover and Shaker Sylvia Favretto, Counsel, Financial Institutions Advisory & Financial Regulatory Group, Shearman & Sterling LLP
Movers and ShakersFinding the Right Fit Straight Out of Law School
After completing her undergraduate degree at Duke University, Favretto attended law school at the University of Michigan during which she served as a summer associate for Shearman, splitting time between the firm’s London and New York offices. In the fall of 2006 she started in the New York office in the leveraged finance practice group, ultimately transitioning to her current position in the financial advisory regulatory group. There, she finds she is constantly learning something new due to the dynamic nature of the group and its subject matter. “There is often not a large body of precedent for complying with new rules and regulations, so helping financial institutions adapt to the changing regulatory environment is both challenging and stimulating,” she says.
During law school Favretto had heard the common lore that the hours at big firms are intense and that associates would be living at the office with their whole lives revolving around work. “I had heard so many stories and warnings, that my expectation was that I would put my head down and work hard and that would be the primary way that I could add value and advance in my career,” she says. However, she found that while part of that is true, she soon learned that there is much more to being a successful lawyer — the key was not only to work hard and produce great results but also to network and market oneself both internally and externally.
Throughout her tenure at Shearman & Sterling she has been involved in its women’s network and has found it to be valuable not only for the internal training and mentoring but for the client and alumni events they organize and participate in. These events provide the opportunity for Favretto to meaningfully engage with successful women in law and industry with whom she wouldn’t necessarily otherwise interact.
Finding Meaning in Mentoring
Along the way, Favretto says she has been fortunate to have fantastic female mentors at Shearman, both informal and formal. “What was most valuable — and surprising to me — was that my mentors truly cared about my success and advancement,” she says. “They were generous with their time and had a genuine desire to invest in the careers of their mentees, rather than just doing so in order to check a mentoring ‘box.’ It really made a strong impression.” Favretto was surprised to discover just how meaningful mentoring relationships could be, and strives to serve in a similar capacity to associates in her firm.
Balancing Work and Life
Favretto’s two-year-old son, whom she calls “the light of her life,” has made her more efficient in her work. She’s learned to take a broader view of the concept of “work-life balance” by assessing what she achieves over the span of a week or month, rather than looking at any one single day. She says that when her son was first born, she wasn’t sure how she would be able to handle it all, but that it’s something she’s learned by doing.
“It’s tricky when you have a job you want to return to and excel at, yet you don’t want to neglect other, equally important aspects of your life. It’s difficult to plot out in advance how precisely you’ll achieve balance between your professional and personal life, but every person’s situation is different, and I believe everyone can find a balanced path forward that works for them.”