Your professional bio is often the first impression you make when it comes to your executive presence. So how do you get the words right, before you even speak a word?
“Your bio is a strategic play and should be treated as such. A bio can help you get hired, gain visibility, and win you serious respect,” writes Meredith Fineman in the Harvard Business Review, advising from her work on personal branding.
Here’s insight into how you can overcome mistakes that undermine the impact of professional bios and achieve executive presence with yours.
AVOIDING COMMON MISTAKES
Be Consistent Across Platforms
Look at every place your bio appears as a potential touchpoint for elevating your profile and career, and make it the same message. Fineman finds that a big mistake is lack of consistency across platforms. She writes, “If a journalist or recruiter cannot figure out who you are in under 30 seconds (because you have six different bios in six different places), you’ve lost your chance.”
Fineman recommends that everyone have a consistent two-line bio, short bio, and long bio. When it comes to the short versions, she advises to find the 15-second version of yourself professionally, “Think of it as trying to give your bio as an elevator pitch.”
Keep It Fresh
If you’re not updating your bio every six months, then you’re at risk of letting it go stale. Even if your position stays the same, you can reflect new achievements or experiences you’ve collected. Fineman recommends to set a calender reminder.
Use Your Last Name
It sounds more professional and carries more gravitas than your first name when linked to accomplishments.
Use Active Voice & Verbs
Research has identified significant differences between how men and women talk about their career accomplishments (women tend to understate them), and suggests that women can enhance their executive presence by ensuring confident expression about their accomplishments. The bio is an opportunity to do this in writing.
Fineman writes, “When someone has used the passive voice in their bio, it always feels to me like they’re trying to downplay their achievements. The point of your bio is to emphasize your achievements.”
She recommends to eliminate soft language like “trying to” or “attempting to” when speaking about current efforts. “That makes it sound like you’ve already failed. Remove it. You are not attempting to do it, you are doing it.”
Include Selective Achievements & Expand on Them
Your bio is an opportunity to choose your strongest achievements, purposefully include them, and convey what’s so compelling about them. Fineman argues you can’t do that with a list.
Being selective about achievements you include and put meat on them, while drawing in passions. Fineman advises, “This is a professional bio, so while you can include your hobbies, choose carefully and be straightforward rather than coy.”
Include Links To Outcomes & Actions
Treat your bio as a showcase for your work, and make it easily accessible – press releases about awards, pieces you’ve written, published results of your work, visible outcomes. Equally if there’s a call-to-action possibility, such as booking you to speak at an event, link it.
GOING FURTHER – CREATING EXECUTIVE PRESENCE
Beyond getting basics right, your bio is an opportunity to convey your executive presence. This may be especially important for women because executive presence is in the eye of the beholder and it’s more likely to be conferred upon men.
In an article entitled Executive and Board Candidate Bios: Executive Presence on Display, Paula Aisnof, Principal & Founder of Yellow Brick Path, shares perspective on how you can.
Try asking these questions.
Could I change the name & mistake it for somebody else?
Aisnof comments that most corporate bios are highly undifferentiated, providing little insight into the person behind the words, “Change the names and locations and those bios could be about 80% of executives.”
A good way to avoid this is to immerse yourself into creating your bio, whether you’re writing it. When leaders hands-off delegate their bio, they delegate their personal brand. Aisnof writes,“One reason for the overwhelmingly blandness is that bios are frequently written by third parties who do not necessarily understand the executive’s story or the targeted audience.”
If you want your bio to be involving, get involved with it.
Does it tell a story that builds my executive presence?
“Whether used for business purposes, for advancing an executive’s visibility through professional or community activities, or for job search,” writes Aisnof, “executives these days must reach beyond being a commodity in an overcrowded market of similarly accomplished peers.”
Her advice is that bios need to have a story that “entices the reader to want to get to know the executive personally and understand his or her unique talents and value.”
Harness the persuasive power of storytelling for your personal brand. This doesn’t mean turning your bio into a mini-novel or downgrading its professionalism. It means ensuring your bio reflects an engaging narrative of how your achievements, experience, and journey reflect your unique talents and value. Does it tell a story about how you’re a thought leader? Strategic foresight and execution has been identified as one of the seven skills you need to thrive in the C-suite.
Does the first paragraph bring me to life as an executive?
Aisnof advices, “The bio should immediately and accurately create a picture of the person being described, portray a person with distinguishing capabilities and qualities, and communicate the subject’s level of authority, responsibility, and expertise.”
Do you know what motivates you, what makes you excellent at what you do, why people like to work with you, and what others say about you? Aisnof has previously found that an executive brand comes down to “essense factor – who they are”, “guru factor – what they know”, and “star factor – what they do and how they do it.”
Have I given compelling and differentiating specifics?
Emphasize specifics, not generics. Don’t highlight “leadership skills”. Instead, demonstrate what makes you a remarkable leader.
“It is the specifics that set the executive apart from other great leaders and outstanding communicators,” writes Aisnof. In the best bios, the reader will come to the conclusion that the executive is exceptional based on the information presented rather than being told by the executive that he or she is great.”
The same goes for accomplishments. Aisnof urges, “These should be earthshaking, company-saving, award winning events supported by quantitative results where possible and be related to the interests of the targeted audience,” without disclosing sensitive corporate or client information.
Is this a board candidate bio?
If so, then Aisnof recommends including: any boards – including non-profit on which you already have served; reflecting any corporate, civic, or charitable-focused leadership roles that demonstrate ability to guide an organization; any awards especially outside your company that have recognized your accomplishments; and any media coverage, publications, or speaking appearances. Ask from the selection committee perspective: “What is the most important and differentiating contribution the executive would be making to the group?”
When embraced, managing your bio can be part of strategically managing your career advancement.
By Aimee Hansen
Voice of experience: Ana Malvestio, tax partner, diversity and inclusion leader, PWC Brazil
Voices of ExperienceMalvestio started with PWC as a secretary while still in law school. She gleaned an important on the job education typing letters that partners sent to clients. She soon asked if she could start as a trainee. She was shocked when her boss turned her down. He said it would be too challenging for a woman because it involved lots of travel and it would be difficult to manage with eventual family responsibilities.
She persisted in her quest for an opportunity. Subsequently she became a trainee and the first woman in the tax department of her São Paulo state office. She has proved more than capable of balancing career and family demands: she has since been married and had two daughters, now ages 13 and six. And as the partner in charge of PwC Brazil’s Agribusiness industry specialty, her role is hugely significant. Brazil is the second largest global supplier of food and agricultural products. So Agribusiness is one of the most important sectors of the economy. It accounts for 20% of GDP and 43% of all Brazilian exports.
Ana is justly proud: “It’s motivating to serve an industry that feeds the world: in future, Brazil will contribute 40% of food consumed by the world’s population.”
Infusing diversity into the workplace
Partnering with an Agribusiness Association in Brazil, Malvestio conducted a survey to identify the role of women in the sector: “it’s still very much a male dominated business which spurs me on to drive change,” she adds.
Malvestio faced scrutiny from clients at first: sometimes she had to take a male consultant to meetings because clients wouldn’t interact with her. “It’s changed a lot,” she says, but she is determined to do more. Much more.
Her proudest professional achievement? “That’s easy,” she says, “I get so much satisfaction from contributing to the careers of my team and the success of women in the office”. She’s thrilled that another partner and director in her office began as her trainee and she’s now promoting another woman to director position. “Women in my position must make it easier for the next generation. That will be our legacy”.
She continues to encounter the stereotype she first worked against. Women don’t receive the same opportunities as men because others assume they will be compromised in their careers by families. “Careers are equally as important for women as they are for men: I wouldn’t be a complete person if I stayed at home. You need to find what makes you happy. For many women that’s the feeling that you are contributing to something, to have your own achievements. Your family are the most important people in your life. But they are not everything, and I am a better mother for having a career which gives me satisfaction.”
Malvestio supports the UN “HeforShe” initiative as a way to reposition perceptions of women and achieve greater equality. “If we keep the debate only among women, we will not change the conversation. Men have to be involved and together we can improve things for everyone. It’s not just a woman’s problem.”
In her diversity and inclusion role, she has been instrumental in launching a flexibility policy for mothers. She insists employee reviews are based on results, not hours worked. She also inaugurated a diversity and inclusion committee involving partners and key talent managers, pushing diversity firmly up the agenda. Nothing gets in her way.
A passion for travelling and music
A music lover, Malvestio adores live concerts-everything, she says, from the local orchestra to global rock bands. She has travelled extensively across Europe and the United States and always incorporates adventure into her travel for PwC. “When I have an opportunity to travel for a meeting, I will search out the best theatres, art galleries, restaurants and landmarks so I can immerse myself deeply in the country or city I am visiting. Every holiday we are on the road, and my daughters love it just as much as me.”
Why Storytelling Is a Leadership Asset That Takes Many Forms
Career Advice, LeadershipResearch into the neurobiological impact of storytelling by Paul Zak shows that stories change the activity in people’s brains. Powerful character-driven stories produce neurochemicals that enhance our sense of empathy (thinking, feeling, and responding the same way as the character) and motivate us toward cooperative behavior – “stories bring brains together” and people with them.
Paul Zak recommends professionals to begin every presentation with a “compelling human-scale story.” His experiments in business settings show that emotive character-driven stories equate to better understanding and greater retention of your key speaking points weeks later. “In terms of making impact,” he writes, “this blows the standard PowerPoint presentation to bits.”
A Core Leadership Skill That Leads?
David Hutchens, author of Circle of the 9 Muses: A Storytelling Field Guide for Innovators & Meaning Makers says that leaders are “rediscovering that story is the most efficient path to creating connection, engagement, and shared meaning.”
According to Hutchens, leaders are connecting the power of stories with the ability to address pressing issues facing organizations such as capturing decisions, knowledge and wisdom after the event; engaging Millennial talent through organizational purpose; creating value; and defining individual and organizational identity.
Certainly top female executives such as Meg Whitman and Indra Nooyi leverage the power of stories in public speaking. We also recognize stories for their potential and power to make diversity personal, inspire women on pathways to leadership, and to advance gender equality.
We know stories are integral to leadership. According to researchers and consultants Stort and Nordstrom in Forbes, “Proper storytelling just might be the most impactful leadership method yet.”
And leadership communications expert Dianna Booher writes, “Storytelling makes leadership possible. A leader without the ability to tell a great story has lost the platform and power to persuade.”
Going even further, perhaps stories are leadership. Research by Parry and Hansen transcends “the notion that leaders tell stories”, and instead proposes “that stories themselves operate like leaders” or “the story becomes the leader.”
Ways Stories are Used in Everyday Leadership Situations
Stories clearly play a starring role in pivotal and powerful leadership moments. We tend to think of the big impact presentations, heroic personal tales, and big organizational stories. But storytelling is also integrated into everyday leadership situations in various ways.
Finnish researchers Auvinen, Aaltio, and Blomqvist sought out “storytelling managers” (managers who often integrate stories into leadership situations and conversations), identified by those reporting to them, to understand why they brought narration into leadership situations and how it related to trust-building.
They examined managers’ use of story or narratives and the intention behind using stories. They identified seven categories of influence that stories were used for, of which there are likely multiples more. The first two are:
Motivation – Motivating co-workers to carry out tasks, adopt behavior, or achieve goals. These stories often brought in comparison or competition and/or revealed values and attitudes as encouragement to elevate the game.
Inspiration – Inspiring a shared vision and energizing towards higher order goals. These stories often brought in faith and supremacy over competitors through a focused collective effort.
We often equate leadership storytelling with motivating and inspiring – epic stories that lay out a great quest or heroic stories that portray triumph over adversity to reach an ultimate goal.
In Forbes, Stort and Nordstrom identified four great stories leaders tell to engage people, which seem to fall mostly in these categories:
They note that stories play a huge part in showing appreciation, as research has shown that among people who report the highest morale at work, 94% agreed their managers are effective at recognizing them, or telling stories about their work.
The storytelling managers also used stories for other more subtle purposes:
Prevent/defuse conflict – Making co-workers feel involved and defusing a negative atmosphere. These stories used humor or personal experiences to break the energy.
Influencing boss’s thinking – Managing up. Opening a manager’s perspective by promoting creative or new thinking. For example, conveying a changing market by telling a personal story that leads to discovery of a new insight or new reality.
Discovering a focus – Empowering co-workers to freely explore new ways of doing things, to shake up what’s not working. These stories might focus on examples of big unexpected changes or setbacks that ultimately catalyzed success or new advancements by wiping or changing the slate, blessings in disguise.
Direct trust-building – Showing empathy, identification and concern, or role-modelling. For example, cheering up a co-worker through an empathetic story of shared experience; revealing a story of personal vulnerability/failure to encourage self-trust or persistence; or sharing a personal story in which the manager has role-modelled or championed behavior they seek to identify and encourage in the team.
Dianna Booher notes in her top storytelling tips that while stories need an identifiable hero, leaders also have to be careful not to always position themselves as hero. She shares, “Audiences relate more often and learn more from ‘failure’ stories.”
Mutual trust-building – Sparking iterative trust-building storytelling. For example, first sharing a personal anecdote that demonstrates a value, or illustrates trust in and alignment with the organization, in order to encourage mutual discussion and trust.
Author and consultant Terrence L. Gargiulo writes, “The shortest distance between two people is a story.” Leaders bring in stories to close that gap and inspire greater bonding and cohesion.
While no storyteller can ever control the impact of their story, congruency between various stories a leader shares and walking the walk behind the words are both important factors for trust and credibility.
Not Just For the Big Meetings
There are countless ways to use story as a leader, countless ways to get better at storytelling, and countless resources for doing so. But above all, storytelling is accessible to all managers. Stories aren’t just what top executives pull out at the annual review meeting or when introducing the next new initiative.
Storytelling can be naturally weaved into many leadership situations. Tomorrow you might tell a story about the exceptional contribution of one team member, the strategic insight that dawned on you in the most unlikely of contexts, or that devastating failure that was a huge gift only in retrospect.
Sometimes, the shortest distance between you and a moment of defining leadership might just be a story.
By Aimee Hansen
It’s All (or at least mostly) About ME – How to Navigate Self-Promotion
Office PoliticsAccording to a recent post on the HBR Blog network by Dorie Clark and Andy Molinsky, your answer to the above will vary depending on the cultural environment in which you were brought up. Self-promotion is not welcome in all cultures, especially those where humility and modesty are seen as admirable attributes. In countries like America however, self-promotion is culturally very acceptable. Some of you might think that such issues aren’t of great importance either because you don’t see the benefits of self-promotion, or because you work in cultures where self-promotion isn’t valued. Right? Think again.
Given the increasingly global nature of our work and workforces, you might come across self-promotion gurus much sooner than you expected. And what’s more, studies show they will be at an advantage over you as they will experience faster career progression and associated compensation. According to the 2011 Catalyst report (The myth of the ideal worker: Does really doing all the right things get women ahead?), self-promotion is one of the nine tactics which support career advancement. The report found that by “making achievements visible” – through seeking credit for your work, requesting additional performance feedback and asking to be considered for promotion when it is deserved –both men and women (although less so for women) saw positive gains in terms of career progression.
Staying invisible, staying forgotten
If this is indeed the case, then you can’t afford to ignore the art of self-promotion – especially if you’re foreign to America (or any self-promotion rich culture) and a woman. Molinsky suggests that global dexterity, the ability to adapt behavior depending on the cultural setting, is a way to address the challenge. He highlights that self-promotion is one of the six dimensions of cultural difference, and being aware of how self-promotion is viewed can be highly beneficial.
In cultures where self-promotion is not encouraged, the majority of employees believe that hard work alone will suffice in differentiating them from their peers. The issue arises when those employees transition to cultures where standing out from the crowd relies more on proactively seeking recognition. The same is true for women across all cultures who, compared to male peers, are less willing to talk about their achievements but would rather just get on with their work. Sylvia Ann Hewlett’s work on sponsorship found that many women “feel that getting ahead based on “connections” is a dirty tactic and that hard work alone is their ticket to the top”. They end up missing out on the potential to build their networks and thereby losing out on additional career advancement opportunities.
These foreign employees and some women fall into the bucket which author, David Zweig, has labeled as “Invisibles”; they are hard workers, full of potential, but lacking the motivation to stand in the spotlight and are sometimes forgotten when it is time for them to be recognized.
Heating up in the spotlight
This lack of affinity for the spotlight may be due to a number of reasons, including a desire to focus on the work at hand, not appreciating the benefit of self-promotion, or having seen self-promotion being done badly and therefore not willing to invest in such tactics. Most of us can point to a situation when we have seen self-promotion going wrong; like all things in life – you can have too much of it.
While putting yourself in the spotlight can have its advantages, leaving the spotlight on you can start to get uncomfortable – not just for you but for those around you. Focusing on “me, me, me” can be positive if there is a purpose, but if it is constant and seen to be bragging or narcissistic (which, according to a study by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, is more prevalent now (25%) compared to 1982 (15%)), it will not have the planned impact.
So how can you self-promote effectively with the desired outcome?
5 Steps to Successful Self-Promotion
Self-promotion is not about bragging or sucking up. Rather it is about ensuring your contributions are acknowledged and credit is given where due. There is a risk of not being recognized appropriately for those who choose not to embrace self-promotion when working in some cultures. Here are 5 practical steps to incorporating self-promotion in your career when working in self-promotion rich cultures or teams.
1. Confirm your objective:
Self-promotion should not be done without an objective in mind. Why do you need to promote yourself at this point? An example of a specific objective might be to highlight specific achievements ahead of your performance management reviews, so you are fairly recognized during appraisals. Without an objective it becomes bragging.
2. Be selective:
Because every act of self-promotion should have a specific objective, it is also important you are clear about who needs to be the recipient of your spiel. Going through the details of your strong performance with your peers will not have the same effect as a similar exercise with your manager. Not everyone needs to know.
3. Take an objective and fact-based approach:
“I’m not good at blowing my own trumpet”. If highlighting your achievements feels like showing off, take a fact-based approach. “The client highlighted that the way I led the delivery was critical to the project’s success” might be easier than “I led a very successful project”. By remaining objective and factual, you may find that it is easier to tell your story.
4. Remember your team:
While you should use “I” where appropriate to take credit for your individual contribution, it is also important to acknowledge contribution from others. Self-promotion should not result in distancing your team.
5. Just say “thank you”:
Being able to confidently accept credit for your work is also important. If others have recognized your contribution, there is no need to be self-deprecating to appear humble. Accept the recognition graciously with a thank you.
For women of all cultures, the above is particularly important. Catalyst reported that “77% of men were somewhat or very satisfied with their progress at increasing their salary compared to only 66% of women” as a result of applying their identified career advancement strategies. Tactics such as self-promotion only go some way to supporting career advancement for women, and while less effective for women than men, they are still worth investing in.
The most important thing to remember about self-promotion is that if you don’t do it, no one else can (or will) do it on your behalf.
By Nneka Orji
Bonus season is just around the corner and the big question becomes should I stay or should I go?
Career Advice, Career Tip of the Week!By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist
Contact nicki@glasshammer2.wpengine.com if you would like to hire an executive coach to help you navigate the path to optimal personal success at work in technology
Voice of Experience: Susanne V. Clark, General Counsel, Senior Managing Director; Centerbridge Partners, L.P.
People, Voices of ExperienceClark has lived the philosophy of “smart risks,” with a career path that has involved a series of decisions to step outside of her comfort zone, each of which added a new layer of experience.
She began her career as a capital markets lawyer at Shearman & Sterling and after a few years joined Goldman Sachs in its Investment Banking Division, which expanded her responsibilities and skills to the broad range of investment banking services. She later joined a team working for Goldman’s public parent company, which extended her responsibilities and had the benefit of allowing her to see the business through an even broader lens, interacting with all of Goldman’s divisions including sales and trading, prime brokerage, research and asset management.
She became increasingly curious about asset management from Goldman’s dealings with fund clients, took a leap and reached beyond her historical skill set to join Amaranth Group, her first experience working directly for an investment adviser. From there, she took her first general counsel role at Basso Capital Management, which she found was a perfect place to learn how to hold her own as a general counsel. From there, she joined Centerbridge Partners, a private investment firm that manages capital for the world’s most prominent pensions, endowments and foundations, where she is a Senior Managing Director and the firm’s chief legal officer. In each case, she let the excitement of a new challenge overtake the fear of failure.
At Centerbridge, she has designed and developed its Legal & Compliance department, which she credits as the professional achievement she is most proud of so far, having built the department from the ground up, but with ample credit to her team for their role in the department’s success. “We have a diverse team of professionals who are dedicated to each other and their work. It is a pleasure to step back and observe how capable they are,” Clark said.
Confidence Counts
Clark knows that it’s good to be humble, but cautions women not to confuse humility with unhelpful and unnecessary self-deprecation. She says that early in her career, she wrote in a self-evaluation that she needed to “gain confidence in her new role.” Although her intent was just to set personal goals, that comment found its way into the next year’s review – “Be more confident.” Clark recalls. “Seeking to convey that I was eager to learn, I unwittingly created a false impression that I was unsure of myself. It was a good lesson to have learned early on.”
An Ideal Industry for Women
Clark finds there is an inaccurate presumption that the asset management industry is a man’s world. “In fact, investment firms are a great place for women because there is no glass ceiling. In general most asset management firms are meritocracies where success is defined and driven by one’s work product and results,” she says. “It’s a dynamic industry that offers great career mobility for motivated professionals who do excellent work.”
Making an Impact
She has been following recent studies on board composition, which show that better decision making occurs on boards of directors that include women. And she has started to see more and more women in the GC seat within the fund industry. “It excites me to see these high-impact women at complex firms who are doing a great job for their firms.”
During her early years in large organizations, she participated in and benefitted from programs that focused on career development. At other firms, she finds the approach may be more organic, but equally powerful provided that the organization is focused on the growth of its professionals, as is the case at Centerbridge. Whether large or small, she believes that firms benefit from good managers who prioritize the career development of others.
Outside of the firm, Clark participates in various mentoring platforms and professional peer groups – including a few for C-suite women – where she has “made many long-standing friendships.” She notes that “These groups provide a context for exchanging professional insights, sharing pitfalls and triumphs, establishing connections and collecting wisdom that covers the full career arc.” Among Clark’s favorite mentoring moments was the fast-paced award-winning Minute Mentoring® program, which she describes as speed dating for career success.
Clark’s philanthropic activities are largely focused on education, including sitting on the board of an independent school in Connecticut. She also participates in a foundation that focuses on education. Though it’s not limited to girls, the group benefits girls as well as boys by helping them develop their confidence and a wide range of life skills.
By Cathie Ericson
Building Executive Presence with Your Professional Bio
Career Advice, Next Level“Your bio is a strategic play and should be treated as such. A bio can help you get hired, gain visibility, and win you serious respect,” writes Meredith Fineman in the Harvard Business Review, advising from her work on personal branding.
Here’s insight into how you can overcome mistakes that undermine the impact of professional bios and achieve executive presence with yours.
AVOIDING COMMON MISTAKES
Be Consistent Across Platforms
Look at every place your bio appears as a potential touchpoint for elevating your profile and career, and make it the same message. Fineman finds that a big mistake is lack of consistency across platforms. She writes, “If a journalist or recruiter cannot figure out who you are in under 30 seconds (because you have six different bios in six different places), you’ve lost your chance.”
Fineman recommends that everyone have a consistent two-line bio, short bio, and long bio. When it comes to the short versions, she advises to find the 15-second version of yourself professionally, “Think of it as trying to give your bio as an elevator pitch.”
Keep It Fresh
If you’re not updating your bio every six months, then you’re at risk of letting it go stale. Even if your position stays the same, you can reflect new achievements or experiences you’ve collected. Fineman recommends to set a calender reminder.
Use Your Last Name
It sounds more professional and carries more gravitas than your first name when linked to accomplishments.
Use Active Voice & Verbs
Research has identified significant differences between how men and women talk about their career accomplishments (women tend to understate them), and suggests that women can enhance their executive presence by ensuring confident expression about their accomplishments. The bio is an opportunity to do this in writing.
Fineman writes, “When someone has used the passive voice in their bio, it always feels to me like they’re trying to downplay their achievements. The point of your bio is to emphasize your achievements.”
She recommends to eliminate soft language like “trying to” or “attempting to” when speaking about current efforts. “That makes it sound like you’ve already failed. Remove it. You are not attempting to do it, you are doing it.”
Include Selective Achievements & Expand on Them
Your bio is an opportunity to choose your strongest achievements, purposefully include them, and convey what’s so compelling about them. Fineman argues you can’t do that with a list.
Being selective about achievements you include and put meat on them, while drawing in passions. Fineman advises, “This is a professional bio, so while you can include your hobbies, choose carefully and be straightforward rather than coy.”
Include Links To Outcomes & Actions
Treat your bio as a showcase for your work, and make it easily accessible – press releases about awards, pieces you’ve written, published results of your work, visible outcomes. Equally if there’s a call-to-action possibility, such as booking you to speak at an event, link it.
GOING FURTHER – CREATING EXECUTIVE PRESENCE
Beyond getting basics right, your bio is an opportunity to convey your executive presence. This may be especially important for women because executive presence is in the eye of the beholder and it’s more likely to be conferred upon men.
In an article entitled Executive and Board Candidate Bios: Executive Presence on Display, Paula Aisnof, Principal & Founder of Yellow Brick Path, shares perspective on how you can.
Try asking these questions.
Could I change the name & mistake it for somebody else?
Aisnof comments that most corporate bios are highly undifferentiated, providing little insight into the person behind the words, “Change the names and locations and those bios could be about 80% of executives.”
A good way to avoid this is to immerse yourself into creating your bio, whether you’re writing it. When leaders hands-off delegate their bio, they delegate their personal brand. Aisnof writes,“One reason for the overwhelmingly blandness is that bios are frequently written by third parties who do not necessarily understand the executive’s story or the targeted audience.”
If you want your bio to be involving, get involved with it.
Does it tell a story that builds my executive presence?
“Whether used for business purposes, for advancing an executive’s visibility through professional or community activities, or for job search,” writes Aisnof, “executives these days must reach beyond being a commodity in an overcrowded market of similarly accomplished peers.”
Her advice is that bios need to have a story that “entices the reader to want to get to know the executive personally and understand his or her unique talents and value.”
Harness the persuasive power of storytelling for your personal brand. This doesn’t mean turning your bio into a mini-novel or downgrading its professionalism. It means ensuring your bio reflects an engaging narrative of how your achievements, experience, and journey reflect your unique talents and value. Does it tell a story about how you’re a thought leader? Strategic foresight and execution has been identified as one of the seven skills you need to thrive in the C-suite.
Does the first paragraph bring me to life as an executive?
Aisnof advices, “The bio should immediately and accurately create a picture of the person being described, portray a person with distinguishing capabilities and qualities, and communicate the subject’s level of authority, responsibility, and expertise.”
Do you know what motivates you, what makes you excellent at what you do, why people like to work with you, and what others say about you? Aisnof has previously found that an executive brand comes down to “essense factor – who they are”, “guru factor – what they know”, and “star factor – what they do and how they do it.”
Have I given compelling and differentiating specifics?
Emphasize specifics, not generics. Don’t highlight “leadership skills”. Instead, demonstrate what makes you a remarkable leader.
“It is the specifics that set the executive apart from other great leaders and outstanding communicators,” writes Aisnof. In the best bios, the reader will come to the conclusion that the executive is exceptional based on the information presented rather than being told by the executive that he or she is great.”
The same goes for accomplishments. Aisnof urges, “These should be earthshaking, company-saving, award winning events supported by quantitative results where possible and be related to the interests of the targeted audience,” without disclosing sensitive corporate or client information.
Is this a board candidate bio?
If so, then Aisnof recommends including: any boards – including non-profit on which you already have served; reflecting any corporate, civic, or charitable-focused leadership roles that demonstrate ability to guide an organization; any awards especially outside your company that have recognized your accomplishments; and any media coverage, publications, or speaking appearances. Ask from the selection committee perspective: “What is the most important and differentiating contribution the executive would be making to the group?”
When embraced, managing your bio can be part of strategically managing your career advancement.
By Aimee Hansen
Mover and Shaker: Julie Moog, Director, Business Information Security Office, TIAA-CREF
Movers and ShakersMoog began her career as an intern with Ernst and Young’s technology risk services department, which then translated into her first full-time role post-graduation. She spent the next five years there handling a myriad of responsibilities from internal audit to regulatory compliance to vendor management for several financial services firms. The work often had to be completed quickly and under pressure since she was with the clients for a brief amount of time. “I loved being a consultant because it gave me deep insight into the financial services sector and provided an excellent base from which to launch my career. You have to be a problem solver with quick turnarounds but high-quality work,” Moog says.
Her decision to leave EY presented her with an important learning moment. Leaving a first job that had been such a positive experience is always challenging because it is all that you know. “You may waver over whether you are making the right choice,” she says, “but in hindsight it was the best thing that I could have done.”
Moog then became an information risk manager within the investment bank side of JP Morgan Chase, supporting emerging markets for the Americas. The new role entailed frequent travel to South America and fascinating new learning experiences dealing with international regulators and requirements.
She was given the opportunity to oversee a strategic front office application that the firm was deploying across their fixed income, currencies and commodities platforms. She helped design and implement the controls, before walking international regulators through the control suite that they had developed. Moog then moved into the corporate risk management team where she was the global lead of application assessment services, rolling out solutions firm-wide.
Tackling New Challenges
From there she went to work at TIAA-CREF within the IT risk management team. She created the BISO (Banking Information Security Office) organization, acting as a liaison between information security and both technology and business partners. The goal of the BISO is to work with senior technology leaders and their business partners to understand risk and cybersecurity topics, from regulatory requirements to the types of services provided by the greater team.
This past December, Moog was promoted to the Information Security Officer for TIAA-CREF’s Trust Company in addition to continuing to head the IT BISO organization. “It’s a great opportunity and challenge that I’m looking forward to,” she says, adding that although she had been in the risk space and security officer role for many years, she never had this level of responsibility. Moog is responsible for the strategic direction of the entire program and reports to the board of directors. “I’ve worked closely in the past with the CIO and CTO but I have never shared in the boardroom on a day-to-day basis. This elevated level of responsibility is an exciting new phase for my career.”
Mentoring and Sponsorship
Although she hasn’t had a formal sponsorship arrangement, Moog has benefitted from informal relationships over the years, starting at EY where there was a strong community of women in all different phases of their careers. “I continue to leverage that network in seeking advice on career and personal choices,” she says adding, “You have to view any mentoring or networking relationship as a two-way street.”
To create a strong community in her current role, Moog and her co-chair launched TIAA-CREF’s Information Security Women’s Leadership Group in 2015. The group’s objective is to build strong women leaders within the cybersecurity team. The group offers education and training, community outreach and networking opportunities. “We wanted a way to engage with each other since we’re in different locations,” she says.
The group has had a successful first year, focusing on both technical hard skills and soft skills for employees, as well as planning a variety of events that are open to everyone in the company. In addition, they organized a Cyber School Challenge for 600 students in the Charlotte area that discussed cyber bullying and issues around creating a positive digital footprint – a program which they intend to expand this year.
Balancing Career and Home Successfully
While there were many moms who worked in the community where she grew up, her own mom stayed at home while Moog and her siblings were in school. When Moog entered the workforce as an intern, she remembers noticing the women who held the title of partners. “Something clicked in me, because I had never really thought about where my career could take me. It was eye-opening to get that long-term perspective that women can succeed in both their personal and professional lives.”
Moog’s father was the primary breadwinner, but she recalls that he was still present in their lives, prioritizing the importance of being home for dinner and coaching teams for her and her siblings. “His work/life balance and work ethic both really stood out to me. He excelled professionally and maintained a high-quality, ethical career path and choices, but was still present in our lives,” Moog says.
As she is newly establishing her family, she strives to emulate his path. “Your career is important but family always comes first and in our fast paced, 24/7 society you can sometimes lose sight of that.” Outside of work, Moog has one focus – her son William who is 18 months. “My husband and I are consumed, and we love every second of it.”
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Career Advice, Career Tip of the Week!My first piece of advice is to communicate what you are doing so that senior people can see your leadership skills. This is a good time to ask yourself, is this group institutionally supported? One way to check if it is, is to look at whether it is mandated from the top and has actual participation from leaders and managers in a meaningful way. If it is pure grassroots from the “bottom up” chances are you are not on senior people’s radar for the work that you are doing. Also worth considering is the question – is this network connected to the talent strategy? if not, wine and cupcakes are fine, but don’t expect to be the next CEO because of it.
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: Joan M. Dillon, Senior Equity Analyst, Voya Investment Management
Voices of ExperienceDillon has been a healthcare equity analyst for the past 24 years, 17 investing on the buy-side. It was a path she pursued partly based on an interesting college course on investing and portfolio management. A friend mentioned that Dillon was “really good at doing homework,” a skill honed through many hours logged in the library. “This concept resonated with me, and I decided that I should pursue a career in which you never stop learning; where focus and dedication matter; and where complicated projects are the norm – that’s a financial analyst,” Dillon says.
Prior to joining Voya, she was a senior analyst assigned to the health care and consumer staples sectors at Equinox Capital Management.She also served as health care analyst with Dreyfus Corporation, JPMorgan and CS First Boston.In the Wall Street Journal’sAll Star Analyst Survey for 1997, Dillon received the top award as “Best Stock Picker in Health Care Services”.
Her interest in the field is buoyed through the research she does on pharmaceutical and biotech companies, where she learns about new therapies in drug development, makes financial models on the earnings opportunity and calculates the stock’s potential value.She cites several new therapies targeting cancer and Alzheimer’s disease that are in late stage clinical trials and could be on the market helping patients over the next two to three years. “When people find out that you analyze health care companies, they often tell you about the medicines they take and ask you if there’s something new or better coming. So I can be pretty popular at a BBQ,” she says with a laugh.
Advice for Moving Up
Dillon knows the value of keeping your eyes open for opportunities, whether it’s asking your manager for more responsibility or a promotion, spending time working on a team you haven’t worked with before or raising your hand for new projects. She advocates settingprofessional goals every year and viewing your career in annual increments. Sometimes achieving the goal can mean you have to take a class after work or get an advanced degree, as she did, earning her MBA while working full time at an investment bank. Or, it might mean you have to join a new firm to work with different people and gain new experiences.
She also underscores the importance of taking the time to deliver your best work. No matter what the assignment, Dillon recommends over-preparing and practicing, especially when you are presenting to a group, and she always advises people to view their work with a critical eye. “Your work is you. Triple check it because it should always be the best it can be.”
That advice applies at every stage, but Dillon says that especially when you are new, you should be extra cognizant of the impression you are creating. “You’re the person who has a lot to learn so you should always be early to meetings – whether you’re walking in or dialing in. That shows interest, initiative and that you care,” she says. “And those are some traits that help lead to success…no matter what your level.”
By Cathie Ericson