Paula Smith learned early on that while your career may take twists and turns, as hers has, there are fundamentals that will serve you well throughout. And for her, a key one is to cultivate relationships for the long term. “We are in a people business, whether we sit in product, distribution, finance or portfolio management. Networking doesn’t mean we have to spend hours going to lunch or drinks, but rather realizing that your contacts provide as much enrichment as any training, reports, seminars or meetings will.”
Smith’s first position was in human resources after a three-summer internship at Bank Julius Baer. While it wasn’t her intended starting point, it was one that proved serendipitous. She says now that her involvement with employee benefits, specifically the 401(k) program, allowed her to see first-hand how these plans worked, and the struggles for plan sponsors in getting people to join in the plan and invest the right way. Smith developed an instant liking to the details of retirement plans, specifically the importance of the investment options, how they were marketed and what they could do if used the right way.
That experience offered her insight into the importance of focusing on building skills. “It’s not about the individual job or role as much as the skills you can take away that can help you in your broader career.”This later included an MBA at Fordham University to help round out her business skills.
Soon after her stint at Julius Baer, Smith decided to move into the business side within financial services, and found a role developing and managing defined contribution/401(k) investment products and services at Sanford C. Bernstein, where she discovered her background with employee benefits was the ideal stepping stone.
From there, Smith has spent the last 20 plus years largely within product management for retirement and college savings plans at firms like J. & W. Seligman and Columbia Management – building businesses, teams and strategies, and trying to meet challenges as the financial services industry morphs over time.
“Though I didn’t have a very specific idea of where I wanted to be, I was lucky to identify a particular aspect of my first job that I loved and create a career out of it,” she said. “I still enjoy the ins and outs of retirement plans – investing, the changing rules and landscape and how, at the end of the day, helping people plan and save provides peace of mind and a positive future. This keeps things fresh and new.”
She says that she has tended toward roles where there is a building aspect, and that has provided a common thread of achievement over the course of her career. “I’m very proud of the growth of the various product lines I’ve worked on over the years. We move so quickly in our day-to-day lives, that it’s often hard to see what we’re trying to accomplish.” She says that an interesting emerging area is work they are doing with plan sponsors to help shape how they approach their DC plans.“Retirement is probably the single most important financial goal on anyone’s mind, and the work being done in our industry to help people prepare for that is so exciting.”
Lessons Learned Early
Smith had always assumed that if she worked hard, building a career would be easy, similar to how delivering on assignments in school earns you a high grade.
“But the truth is, while hard work is a very large part of it, very often it’s making sure people higher up know that you want to take on additional responsibilities,” she said, adding that it’s crucial for young women starting out to make sure that people know what they’re doing within the organization.
Early in her career she found that too often people make the mistake of silently getting the work done but rarely talking about it. “It was an important lesson, and I am cognizant of it to this day.”
Even so, she believes there is no substitute for putting in the time and effort and rolling up your sleeves to get things done, making sure that you have considered priorities to avoid devoting time and effort to activities that simply don’t matter that much in the end. “Always focus on what will help move the business forward or meet key goals.”
And, speaking of sleeves, those can have an impact on your career too. Smith advocates dressing for the job you want and not the one you have.While a bit cliché, someone offered that advice early on and it stuck.“As the culture becomes more casual, dressing well puts you in the right frame of mind and demonstrates your professionalism to others.”
Taking Smart Risks
In many cases, Smith has found that women tend to believe they have to be experts or have all the answers before they’re ready to take on a new challenge. But being thrown right into something where she didn’t necessarily have the background or expertise helped her throughout her career.
For example, when given the opportunity to launch what was a brand new product in the industry at the time – a 529 college savings program — there was no blueprint. Therefore it came with challenges, such as state involvement and unique product and regulatory requirements, which created some trepidation at first. “Sometimes it’s frightening, but in some ways, not having all the answers provides that continued learning that so many of us desperately crave,” Smith said.
Smith has found that these larger roles that involved new skills, such as leading a sales team, or being responsible for a very big budget, have provided some of the best learning moments of her career, as she found out that she enjoyed it and was successful at it.
Now, she says she would never wait for the expertise or having a large knowledge base before delving into new projects. “If you are open to learning and ask the right questions, and bring people to the table with their own knowledge, then taking on new challenge should be exciting rather than a cause for anxiety.”
In addition, success comes from being deliberate about letting people who are expert at a particular part of a project be that expert and lead the way. “When managing large business initiatives, you have to let other people play their critical role.”
Sponsors and Role Models Can Guide the Way
Smith says she has been fortunate to have had great sponsors throughout her career, both men and women. Interestingly, sometimes that sponsorship came from people who were otherwise viewed as difficult within the organization but nonetheless were helpful in shaping her path.
While she doesn’t have one specific professional role model, she has identified several who have offered ongoing career lessons – those who have a career trajectory she’d like to emulate, those who present with effectiveness, those who have a positive way of effecting change, and others who have been a touchstone in balancing her personal and professional life.
She advocates looking around deliberately to decide who has the traits and skills you would most like to have rather than choosing one person as a role model.
Family Travel
Right now, Smith says her time is divided between career and family. With a husband who is a stay-at-home dad to their two daughters, ages six and three, Smith knows it’s important for her to spend her time at home really focusing on them to recharge.
The family enjoys traveling together. “Having various trips planned throughout the year, even if it’s just for a weekend, or even not too far away, gives me something to focus on and to have my children focus on as time we’ll spend together. This goes a long way for all of us.”
By Cathie Ericson
Mover and Shaker: Lauren Koopman, Director, PwC US Sustainable Business Solutions Practice
Movers and Shakers, PeopleKoopman’s observations come from her own career trajectory, including the initial impression that she was going to be in derivatives the rest of her life, and it was just a matter of deciding for which company. But traveling the world allowed her to figure out the new, rewarding career path that she travels today.
Detour Through Wall Street on the Path to Sustainability
Koopman’s first professional position was as a management consultant and manager of e-business during the dot com craze, where her charge was to work with large banks to help them define their internet strategy — helping them switch from “brick to click” as it is commonly known.
That was her first realization that you can’t plan your career too meticulously based on the information you have. “When I was going to school, there was no internet, and then all of a sudden, I was the manager of e-business. The world is morphing so quickly, there’s really no way to look out five to 10 years to identify what you are going to do.”
She decided to return to school to earn her MBA in finance, and there she became intrigued by the complexity of derivatives, realizing that if she could master a technical skill like that it would serve her well. She was subsequently hired by Deutsche Bank and worked on the Wall Street trading floor, which was literally all men. “They used to call the woman’s bathroom ‘Lauren’s room,’” she laughs.
Koopman describes an intense environment that would begin at 7 a.m. when she would familiarize herself with overnight action in Asia and Europe, and then begin monitoring four computer screens and six phone lines.
For five years she worked on the floor, until her new husband, who had just sold his business, asked if she could make it work to travel with him. “I had always wanted to travel around the world so I took a year off and we created our “BC” (Before Child) trip, where we tackled all the harder places to travel, such as India, Beirut, Syria, China, East Asia, the Arctic Circle and Africa.
“It was the best decision I ever made; completely game changing for me,” Koopman recalls. “After seeing firsthand the real issues in the world that people were experiencing, I decided I needed to do something to make a difference.”
Combining her finance background with a second master’s degree, this time in environmental engineering, she began investigating potential options where she could make the biggest impact. She approached it with strategic analysis, creating a database of more than 100 people to speak with at foundations, banks, corporations and consulting firms.
At the time, PwC US was just starting its sustainability practice, and she jumped at the opportunity to build it out and wield true influence, a positon she has held for five years. In fact, she cites her professional role model as the person who hired her, who had the foresight to understand the business benefits of sustainability and the inspiration to build it out.
Though she describes her current position as a complete career shift, she is able to rely on her deep insight in the financial world by focusing on financial service clients. “They appreciate that I am able to speak their language,” she says, adding that even three years ago most of the companies hadn’t even thought about incorporating a sustainability mindset into their investment decisions. “I am proud of how much we’ve done and I am excited to expand our work into asset management and other asset classes.”
Koopman was also recently appointed to the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Young Global Leaders (YGL) forum, a group selected from around the world to form a next generation leadership network to engage in global affairs. The honor recognizes outstanding and proven young leaders under the age of 40 across business, government, and arts and culture, for their accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping a better future. Previous and current YGLs include Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google Co-founder Larry Page, and Statistician Nate Silver.
Lessons Learned Along the Way
As Koopman has navigated her career, she’s learned the importance of reading people. “I had always assumed people at the top knew everything and were always right, but over the years I’ve figured out that people are people. You have to learn to evaluate your audience and understand where they’re coming from and how to speak to what they need,” she says, adding that understanding people and how an organization works is as important as technical knowledge. “Think about who you’re talking to and their needs.”
She also has seen the value of taking on every opportunity that’s presented without immediately worrying about why it wouldn’t work. “We tend to worry about failure and stay in our comfort zone,” she says. “But there’s so much value in taking on those new opportunities. Even if it‘s something that you don’t think you want to do, inherently you are learning so much from new skill sets and new people. This creates a knowledge and network reservoir you will draw on throughout your career.”
She cites learning by simply paying attention and absorbing as critical, for example times when she has watched CEOs sell an idea to a huge group of people. Koopman also pays credit to the mentors and colleagues she has met through participating in Women in Wall Street.
A Traveling Family
Koopman is quick to point to her supportive, “amazing” husband as one of her inspirations. With a two-and-a-half-year old and a six-month-old, her home life is as busy as her office. And, even though their life-changing trip was designed to hold them over until their children were a little older, they already have robust passports: the little travelers have visited Holland, Canada, Colombia and the west coast of America, along with regular trips to her husband’s family in New Zealand.
PwC US? Or globally?
By Cathie Ericson
Changing the World
Career Advice, Guest ContributionWhat wisdom have I acquired through the years that I could share with her and so many others who are just starting out today?
1. Leadership takes courage
By definition, leadership is forging a path where no one has gone before. Be prepared to face fear of the unknown. This in no way diminishes you but presents a unique opportunity to search within you. You will be fine as long as you are fueled by a belief in yourself and heed to your moral compass. Your big dreams will often leave you standing alone but never stop dreaming. This vision is fundamental to the road map you will need in moving ahead. Always remember that the path you blaze will be tread by others so don’t leave them behind. Your ability to influence others is the key ingredient to igniting change. Be patient, change happens one person at a time but there will be many that will not budge. That is their choice, not yours.
2. Remain true to your convictions
Always stand up for what you believe in. But know that you will not always get your way. Corporate politics is a tough pill to swallow and youthful idealism can erode with each workplace disappointment. Compromise is an art so explore your right brain and let creativity flow. This is all part of growing up. Organizations that lack diverse leadership may pose an unfairly stacked deck against females and you will face gender bias at least once in your career. The very first time this happens will be a painful blow that disorients and disappoints. After all, encountering gender as a barrier is a loss of innocence. But you will recover stronger and more resilient.
3. Stay hungry
Ambition is the fuel that propels us out of the gates keeping our eyes on the prize while never looking back. Each individual success results in a burgeoning confidence. There will be setbacks which may result in second guessing your relevance and impact in the workplace. Despite these, never drop out. Make the most of the hand you have been dealt and never stop striving for the finish line.
4. You matter
Predominantly male organizations may provide an absence of females to look up to making it a very lonely place. Despite this, know that you are not alone. Fill the void with someone who cares and cheers you on. Mentors and advocates come in all shapes, sizes, and yes, genders. Engaging men in the conversation results in game changing partnerships and lays the foundation for empowerment and gender equality. If you must be the first in your organization to shatter the parochial glass ceiling, strap yourself in. You are in for a trip of a lifetime. One less glass ceiling moves all women ahead. You owe it to yourself and those that follow to get off the sidelines and roar.
5. Pay it forward
Always look for those that look to you as an emerging leader. You must remember that you too bear a responsibility to the generation that follows. After all, it is the next generation of women and men that will continue the progress that has been made and effect long-term and permanent change. Just as you stand on the shoulders of those that came before you, so too will the next generation stand on your shoulders.
My grown up self has still so much to learn and if asked the same question in five years, my hope is that I have acquired more wisdom to add to my list. But one thing I know for sure is that I am impacting the world. Each and every day, we are given the opportunity to create a legacy. The caliber of that legacy is completely up to us. Let it be a positive one and the foundation for those that follow in their attempt at changing the world.
Guest Contribution by Rossana G. D’Antonio, PE, GE
Guest advice and opinions not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com
Taking Your Development Areas and Working On Them
Career Advice, Career Tip of the Week!Ascertaining what you are not so good at at work is really important as then you can spend time developing yourself with or without formal development or learning programs at your company (it is great if there are programs to help you). However, how do you know what you are bad at? Well, you could have received feedback formally in a review or informally but sometimes the tasks you like least are often the ones you are least developed in and you just know that some of the elements of your job you could do with strengthening your muscles in ( see last week’s advice)
Write a list of what you want to master and carve out time to spend real time to practice – for example: budgets or excel – a lot of this can be self taught. Then there are less tangible areas such as networking which we will talk about for the month of October in this column. Good Luck!
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: Laura Rogers, Director, Executive Business Manager, Information Technology, TIAA-CREF
People, Voices of ExperienceWith degrees from University of California at Berkeley, New York University and an MBA from Wharton, Rogers chose a career path in financial services. She has worked for firms such as Merrill Lynch, Citibank, and Cognizant Technologies focusing on leading internal teams make smart decisions based on strong financials and metrics.
Own Your Opinion
Working in the financial services industry after recently graduating can be difficult, especially given its competitive nature. However, earlier in her career, Rogers learned a critical lesson on holding her ground that has enabled her to be successful to this day.
In the period leading up to the financial crisis, when markets were especially frothy, many business units were taking on more risk. Though many in her company at the time wanted to expand into different types of trading, she didn’t believe the right risk management systems were in place in her business unit and advised against some trading they weren’t prepared for, ultimately saving the company millions of dollars in potential lawsuits.
“You have to think about the full vision and take ownership of your position rather than going the easy way,” she says. “I was able to make a significant difference for our division and our clients even though my stance was unpopular at the time.”
Rogers believes that this is a great time for women’s careers, since there is a real drive to engage them and help them succeed. Her advice for women is to have an opinion and own it.
Managing Change through Technology
By owning her opinion, Rogers has continued to carve a successful career path. She joined TIAA-CREF in 2013 and was recently named executive business manager for the production services group, overseeing business management and metrics, the project management office, software licensing and continuous improvement efforts. “TIAA -CREF feels like home to me,” she says, citing the open environment and the company’s mission, unchanged since 1918, to serve those who serve others – focusing primarily on institutions and individuals in the academic, medical, cultural, research and governmental communities. “Its motto of ‘Created to Serve. Built to Perform.’ is a great match for my personality and beliefs.”
In her new expanded executive business manager role, Rogers leads a cross functional IT team which is focusing on analyzing software spend and identifying opportunities for the company to reduce costs. “It’s a role that will allow me to look outside my day-to-day functions and help make a significant difference to our cost structure.”
Rogers says that as IT moves to cloud technology, it will be a game changer in terms of how people engage within the firm. “We are increasingly using the cloud as a complement to our current infrastructure, and incorporating it in such a way that it is seamless to the client.”
Networking for Career Success
Aside from leading cross-functional working groups, Rogers is a strong proponent of cross-functional mentoring. She encourages women at all stages of their career to set up peer networks – both within the company and also outside their particular division and company.
She finds that women have different questions in different stages of their career. This makes it vital to have a group that you can rely on to ask how they handled something, or what worked or what didn’t given a certain situation. “It’s about more than networking,” she says, adding that it’s important to be open and ask for advice, because people want to give it.
She herself has engaged in formal peer-to-peer networking and found it to be a game changer because of the accountability factor. She cites a friend in a similar position in a different company who was reluctant to seek a new opportunity and how Rogers was able to counsel her to try it. “Select someone you trust and seek their advice,” she says. “The further you get in your career, the more reluctant we are to be vulnerable but we still need that guidance.”
Benefits of Women’s Groups
Rogers does not just employ these practices herself, she shares her experiences with her colleagues. At TIAA-CREF, Rogers is involved in three key women’s initiatives.
First, she co-leads a mentoring group that launched in April which has received excellent feedback. It consists of two tracks – women only and mixed groups – with each group having two mentors who work with a group of eight to discuss topics that are both industry-specific and company-related.
Secondly, Rogers is active in the firm’s women’s ERG (Employee Resource Group), which she values because it allows her to get to know others in a wide variety of departments around the company.
And finally, she is excited about TIAA-CREF’s Woman2Woman: Financial Living, an online community where women can connect with both experts and peers to ask questions and share stories and tips related a range of financial topics and goals. “It fits in well with our mission of being created to serve,” Rogers says.
An Advocate for Bone Marrow Donation
Rogers, who is married with three children, enjoys spending time with her family and also is a passionate advocate for bone marrow transplants. While just out of school she volunteered in the pediatric cancer ward of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and saw firsthand the immediate benefits of bone marrow donation.
She is a involved with charities focused on this effort including both Gift of Life and Be the Match, and has encouraged family and friends to register for the national bone marrow matching site. “Becoming registered essentially takes no effort,” she says. “If you could save someone’s life, why wouldn’t you?”
Rogers was extremely gratified that her mom in New Jersey was matched with George, a 43-year-old man who lived in England, and was able to save his life.
No matter whether its work related or her personal interests Rogers is a passionate advocate for anything she believes in, owns her opinions and encourages other women to do the same.
Men Who Get It: John Cannon, Partner, Executive Compensation & Employee Benefits Group, Shearman & Sterling LLP
Men Who "Get It", People“Define what success means for you, and then go for it. When you first start your career, make a point of asking yourself every day where you are going and why, and look to peers and more senior colleagues to find careers and best practices to emulate.”
So says John Cannon, a partner in Shearman & Sterling’s Executive Compensation & Employee Benefits group in New York, who has long been a champion of helping women progress in their careers, both informally and as co-chair of the firm’s Diversity Committee. He volunteered to join the committee almost immediately after becoming a partner 20 years ago and was asked to chair the committee shortly after.
Early Influences Sparked Interest In Diversity
Being a diversity champion has been important to Cannon from an early age when, as a “history nut,” he was deeply affected by what he perceived were the many injustices committed in the country over the years against minorities, women and those who didn’t belong to the dominant groups of their times.
Cannon carried that ethos into his career, and when he began practicing at Shearman & Sterling in 1985, he decided to look for ways to help fellow lawyers who did not as obviously “fit in” as well as he did — a self-described private school and Ivy League- educated heterosexual white male.
“While I felt confident in my own ability,” he recalls, “I was certain that others of equal or greater innate talent but different backgrounds than mine would have a much more difficult path to professional success ahead of them, and I wanted to do something.”
He was also influenced by the fact that many of his closest friends, mentors and colleagues at the firm have been women and people of color, including his practice group, which for many years has been a majority female.
Championing Diversity throughout the Firm
In his various firm administrative and management capacities over the years, Cannon has focused on advocating for women at the firm and for the issues that have been important to them.
During his time as co-chair of the firm’s Diversity Committee, he helped establish a number of successful associate-led affinity groups, such as WISER (Women’s Initiative for Success, Excellence and Retention), which has galvanized women associates in the firm for networking, business development and leadership skill enhancement. He has also been a supporter of subsequent women-focused programs, such as a Women Partners Initiative, regular Lean In circles, a social media presence that includes @ShearmanWomen on Twitter and a Shearman Women showcase page on LinkedIn, as well as active participation in Ellevate, the professional women’s network founded by Sallie Krawcheck.
But more meaningful to him has been the mentorship, encouragement and assistance he has provided to female colleagues, from professional guidance and career sponsorship to a role as a sounding board and informal advisor.
Addressing Blind Spots
Cannon knows that it’s crucial to avoid subconscious bias or stereotyping by maintaining constant self-scrutiny — questioning one’s initial reactions to a person or work product, and then examining even more closely the subsequent judgments that might appear to be well-considered and open-minded.
“Although I have undoubtedly failed on many occasions to objectively assess each person with whom I have worked based on his or her own individual merits, I have not ceased cross-examining myself,” he says.
The firm’s Diversity Committee has dedicated time and effort to combating the effects of stereotyping and unintentional bias, principally by keeping itself informed of the performance reviews and career development of diverse associates and intervening where appropriate. “We have tried to impress upon our partners across the firm that despite our best intentions, we are prone to making assessments of other people based on mental shortcuts, including both conscious and unconscious assumptions about the backgrounds, talents and character traits of the members of various groups,” he says.
Leading by Example
“On diversity, as with other matters, the members of an organization take their cue and model their behavior on those who are admired and acknowledged as the most powerful and successful within the organization,” says Cannon, who has consistently advised firm leaders to confidently express their commitment to diversity while also taking concrete steps to help advance the careers and leadership opportunities available to women and other diverse individuals within the organization.
For example, he encourages leaders to actively seek out and personally encourage women and other individual members of non-dominant groups. He has seen that play out at Shearman & Sterling, which he believes has many leaders who have accepted this responsibility and are fully committed to increasing inclusiveness.
Although he notes significant progress in the profession since he joined it 30 years ago, he says that it still strikes him how relatively modest the gains have been in the representation of women and minorities among the most senior leadership ranks. He cites as an example his graduating class at NYU Law School and his summer associate class at Shearman & Sterling, which were roughly 50 percent female.
“Had you asked me then to predict what percentage of the partnerships at the elite law firms would be women by 2015, I would probably have answered 40 percent or so when in fact the actual number is about half that,” he says, adding that similar observations can be made about minorities.
“The bottom line is that much work still needs to be done to promote diversity in our profession,” he says, adding that as law becomes an increasingly competitive business in a challenging economic environment, the market may hold sway in law firm diversity efforts. “Clients regularly insist that diverse teams staff their matters, and I expect that they will continue to reward the law firms that perform best in this regard.”
By Cathie Ericson
Voice of Experience: Tina Youngblood, CEO of Spencer RE & Vice Chair of Spencer Holdings Company
People, Voices of Experience“This was definitely a watershed moment in my career”, says Youngblood. She spent two and half years working with Schiro in Switzerland before returning to the United States as Zurich’s Chief Administrative Officer in North America. Again, she was the first woman ever to hold this position, managing human resources, governance and “all functions of the company that were not directly related to insurance.” From there, she moved from one promotion to the next. She became the first woman to run Construction Services, and then head of Direct Markets for Zurich North America Commercial where she was responsible for overseeing the company’s insurance offerings to businesses that service cars, trucks, motorcycles and auto recyclers. In total, Youngblood held 5 different positions in her 10-year run with Zurich, addressing new challenges without pause or consideration of what it might mean to be the “first woman” over and over again.
With a diverse set of management experiences, Youngblood moved on from Zurich to become US CEO of Cunningham Lindsay. She has served as Vice Chair of Spencer Capital Holdings since 2013 and has recently been named CEO of their subsidiary, Spencer Re in December of 2014.
Youngblood took her time when looking back over the years to find her proudest moment, “This is a tough one for me because I have had an incredible career with lots of opportunity.” But once she has decided, she is clear. While head of the Direct Markets group at Zurich, Tina was responsible for putting together a team of people who would turn around the company’s bottom line in only a couple of years. “Putting together that team and building a culture of transparency and turning the company around from the employee engagement perspective, making it a place that people were proud to work, and leading them through the process was a very proud and gratifying experience. It was a tough decision—to save 600 jobs we had to get rid of some—but because we were honest, we transformed the business from a financial and cultural perspective as well.”
Listen before you leap
If Tina could pass a bit of advice to her younger self, she would counsel her on the art of communication, “It is 90% listening and 10% talking.” Luckily, she learned this lesson early in her career when she was a professor. “I had a student ask me a question, and I answered her. She stared back at me blankly and I knew I hadn’t gotten it right. When she asked me for the third time, I repeated her question back to her, and when I did that, it was wrong. We got though it and it was a great lesson for me then as it still is today. Every single day of my career and my life, I see how active listening is the most essential part of communication. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in a board room, listening to a discussion between two people who are talking about two completely different things. I say, ‘Hey, do you guys even realize you are talking about two different things?’”
Breaking from tradition
Not surprisingly, Tina sees a lot to be excited about in her new position, “we have a tremendous opportunity that will allow us to make a real difference in the company and the industry.” For customers, she is excited about the unique options that Spencer Re will be able to offer as a result of the ongoing consolidation in the insurance industry. “We are in a unique place right now that will allow us to have new conversations with stakeholders who haven’t previously been at the same table. There are a lot of new options outside of the traditional offerings when we think of the reinsurance industry.”
It is with this same good business sense that Youngblood approaches the many challenges facing women in the workforce today. “As a woman who has been in a male dominated industry for my entire career, I think it is always possible to overcome the barriers. A lot of times the barriers are because of expectations—there are expectations of women with a particular role that they will succeed in, there are lots of them. Some of them are self-imposed and some are imposed by the industry. There are jobs traditionally held by women and those that people expect to be held by men. I’ve never felt like there was anything I couldn’t do if I set my mind to it. It’s never really occurred to me that I’m the only woman or the first woman. It’s more about how I can contribute, this is how I can add value. I just look at other people as people.”
Value integrity
Obviously, this perspective has served Tina well. She advises her mentees and other young women in her industry to remain true and just be who they are, right down to their haircuts. “I used to have longer hair, I was given advice to cut my hair, and wear my glasses. I thought, ‘Why would I do that, and what does that have to do with anything? At the forefront of everything is your integrity – when you put your head on the pillow at night, you sleep on your integrity, and that’s all you have. If there is something that you don’t think is right and it goes against your belief system, then you shouldn’t do it. Don’t forget your core, your purpose, as they say.”
Youngblood feels that Spencer has a culture that supports her own sense of integrity. “One of the reasons I took this job is because of the culture that we are building is all about retention, advancement, education and values.”
Tina served as the head of women in leadership group at Zurich and says that mentoring is still her favorite part of the job. Finding young people to mentor is an essential part of her plan as she works to build and grow Spencer Re.
Share your blessings
As the surviving sister of a younger brother with special needs, Mallie has found great satisfaction in working with the St. Michael Special School in New Orleans. The relationship began while she was with Zurich. The school serves children of all ages; giving them the education and support they need to be their best selves. “There are opportunities to serve everywhere. If you are blessed, I believe you should share.”
In her free time, Tina “sincerely enjoys” the game of golf. Still a resident of Kansas City, she spends a lot of time traveling for work, but still loves to travel for fun as well.
By Rebecca S. Caum
The “Other” Social Network – Events Build Business for Lawyers
NetworkingRead more
Conquering What You Are Not So Crazy About At Work!
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
Is Authentic Leadership Stuck on Gender Norms?
Career Advice, LeadershipYou can aspire to act authentically as a leader based on what it means to you, but authentic leadership ultimately gets attributed to you -not by you.
We’ve seen how defining authenticity too narrowly can become a self-defining box that holds you back from growing as a leader, keeping you from daring to evolve into unfamiliar territories which could catalyse growth to expand.
Authenticity – What does that mean for women?
According to Dr. Helena Liu and her co-authors Cutcher and Grant in their study “Doing Authenticity: The Gendered Construction of Authentic Leadership”, authenticity is not a trait that we “have” or “are”, but a performance we “do”. So too, they argue, citing many studies, is gender. The researchers argue that looking at authenticity as a genderless true-to-self concept is a fallacy.
Authentic/inauthentic, when we’re talking subjectively about people, is a binary and limiting social construct. Just like gender. The two are interwoven in the representation of authentic leadership.
The research found that when it comes to how high profile leaders are perceived, authenticity is socially co-constructed by the media and gender expectations play a big role. The study found “doing authenticity requires leaders to conform to gender norms.”
Liu and colleagues analyzed verbal and visual media representations (across 266 articles) of two CEOS, one male and one female (first and only to date), of Australia’s largest banks before and after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).
They wanted to explore how Mike Smith of ANZ and Gail Kelly at Westpac “performed authenticity” for the media as well as how the media drew on gendered stereotypes and norms in constructing the leaders as either authentic or inauthentic as industry conditions changed.
Their research illustrates how a woman whose leadership publically benefited from the outsider-inferred status of gender norms also found her authenticity conditionally latched to them.
Capitalizing on Gendered Leadership
Before the crisis arrived, the researchers found that both CEOS seemed to “perform” and were depicted with highly gendered leadership styles. Each leader seemed to play on their gender capital and the media verbally and visually accentuated gender norms.
Mike Smith used sporting metaphors to talk about himself and the company, positioning himself as a tough trainer who would get the weak athlete (ANZ) strong again. Media and imagery reflected him as bringing a “hyper-masculine”, “James Bond” “change agent” style approach to the leadership. He tended to be depicted on his own, with salient positioning, as the essence of the message.
Recruited to WestPac from her position as St George CEO, Gail Kelly’s idealogical focus on “customer satisfaction” and her “people-orientation” were emphasized as core to her success record.
Her leadership was depicted as “family-friendly” and her firm as “family.” Media and imagery focused on relationships with customers and staff, depicting her as a heralded industry outsider with “her personal demeanour” and emphasis on promoting work/life balance. Imagery emphasized her “feminized warm and relational image,” and she was usually depicted visually with others to convey relationship-building.
According to Liu’s piece for a volume about “Gender, Media and Organization”, “the media by and large heralded Kelly’s gender as a welcome change from the traditional image of a banker” with her leadership identity resting “on assumptions of femininity as inherently caring and nurturing.”
Both leaders were cast in a narrow box of gendered leadership and each were constructed in the media as doing authenticity, or “doing gender in line with stereotypes.”
When Gendered Leadership Backfires on Authenticity
When the global financial crisis hit Australia Mr. Smith’s language in the press included “carnage”, “an Armageddon situation,” and a “financial services bloodbath” and the media reflected back with talk of “plenty of financial firepower,” the “largest war chest,” and a “no nonsense officer.” ANZ’s rapid acquisitions were “applauded by the media and framed as reflecting the bank’s newfound strength and aggressive strategy of international expansion.”
But according to the study, in the context of Ms.Kelly’s leadership the media depicted the financial crisis as “an uncertain and fragile situation that invited careful and considered response.” When she took pro-active and decisive action to raise interest rates first and acquire St George, Kelly’s leadership was seen as out of step with the both the situation at hand as well as her caring and nurturing leadership identity. Her authenticity was thrown into question across the media, and actions were depicted as “predatory,” including a reference to the merger as “akin to a mother eating her children.” Her attempts to revive positive “family” metaphors fell flat.
Both CEOs took action, but because the situation and their leadership was constructed through gendered norms, the actions they took were rendered authentic or inauthentic. Aggressive action suited Smith’s gendered leadership persona in the aggressive situation he was framed in but betrayed Kelly’s gendered leadership persona in the fragile and uncertain situation she was framed in, in which she was expected to care and nurture.
How Can You Avoid Being Boxed In?
The research highlights how gendered norms can become defining to leadership identity and make authenticity highly conditional upon performing them. How can women avoid being boxed in?
“Ithink that gender norms, like what we saw in the media during the crisis permeate Western organisations and societies, but the corporate world is especially prone to the reproduction of gender stereotypes,” Liu shared. “Stereotypical assumptions often manifest in mundane and seemingly innocent practices, such as sexualised banter and informal networks and bonding, which can work to further marginalise women from leadership.” She continued, “I would stress that structural inequality should not be ignored and can ultimately be challenged through more reflexive and progressive practices from those who are often relegated to the margins of leadership.”
Liu advises women to be aware of the box, and defy representing your leadership only within it.
“I would suggest women who aspire to leadership need to remain aware of the wider gender norms that constrain their exercise of leadership and their pursuit of authenticity,” Liu told theglashammer.com.
“As Gail Kelly demonstrated, women can communicate compelling leadership personas that speak to gender norms around being attentive, responsible and people-oriented in order to assert their right to lead. At the same time, there is immense promise for women (and men) who may choose to reject and subvert gender norms through their leadership work. They can pay attention to how they frame themselves when they communicate with their employees and peers and potentially engage more proactively with the media to project more nuanced images of themselves as embodying both feminine and masculine qualities.”
“With increased representation and visibility of female leaders, including those who may not occupy formal positions of leadership but nevertheless engage in ‘leading’,” she shared, “I’m optimistic that we will see that women leaders are diverse, well-rounded and irreducible to gender stereotypes.”
Theglasshammer.com hopes she is right.
By Aimee Hansen
Voice Of Experience: Paula Smith, Senior Vice President, Head of DC and College Savings Investments at Voya Investment Management
Movers and Shakers, PeopleSmith’s first position was in human resources after a three-summer internship at Bank Julius Baer. While it wasn’t her intended starting point, it was one that proved serendipitous. She says now that her involvement with employee benefits, specifically the 401(k) program, allowed her to see first-hand how these plans worked, and the struggles for plan sponsors in getting people to join in the plan and invest the right way. Smith developed an instant liking to the details of retirement plans, specifically the importance of the investment options, how they were marketed and what they could do if used the right way.
That experience offered her insight into the importance of focusing on building skills. “It’s not about the individual job or role as much as the skills you can take away that can help you in your broader career.”This later included an MBA at Fordham University to help round out her business skills.
Soon after her stint at Julius Baer, Smith decided to move into the business side within financial services, and found a role developing and managing defined contribution/401(k) investment products and services at Sanford C. Bernstein, where she discovered her background with employee benefits was the ideal stepping stone.
From there, Smith has spent the last 20 plus years largely within product management for retirement and college savings plans at firms like J. & W. Seligman and Columbia Management – building businesses, teams and strategies, and trying to meet challenges as the financial services industry morphs over time.
“Though I didn’t have a very specific idea of where I wanted to be, I was lucky to identify a particular aspect of my first job that I loved and create a career out of it,” she said. “I still enjoy the ins and outs of retirement plans – investing, the changing rules and landscape and how, at the end of the day, helping people plan and save provides peace of mind and a positive future. This keeps things fresh and new.”
She says that she has tended toward roles where there is a building aspect, and that has provided a common thread of achievement over the course of her career. “I’m very proud of the growth of the various product lines I’ve worked on over the years. We move so quickly in our day-to-day lives, that it’s often hard to see what we’re trying to accomplish.” She says that an interesting emerging area is work they are doing with plan sponsors to help shape how they approach their DC plans.“Retirement is probably the single most important financial goal on anyone’s mind, and the work being done in our industry to help people prepare for that is so exciting.”
Lessons Learned Early
Smith had always assumed that if she worked hard, building a career would be easy, similar to how delivering on assignments in school earns you a high grade.
“But the truth is, while hard work is a very large part of it, very often it’s making sure people higher up know that you want to take on additional responsibilities,” she said, adding that it’s crucial for young women starting out to make sure that people know what they’re doing within the organization.
Early in her career she found that too often people make the mistake of silently getting the work done but rarely talking about it. “It was an important lesson, and I am cognizant of it to this day.”
Even so, she believes there is no substitute for putting in the time and effort and rolling up your sleeves to get things done, making sure that you have considered priorities to avoid devoting time and effort to activities that simply don’t matter that much in the end. “Always focus on what will help move the business forward or meet key goals.”
And, speaking of sleeves, those can have an impact on your career too. Smith advocates dressing for the job you want and not the one you have.While a bit cliché, someone offered that advice early on and it stuck.“As the culture becomes more casual, dressing well puts you in the right frame of mind and demonstrates your professionalism to others.”
Taking Smart Risks
In many cases, Smith has found that women tend to believe they have to be experts or have all the answers before they’re ready to take on a new challenge. But being thrown right into something where she didn’t necessarily have the background or expertise helped her throughout her career.
For example, when given the opportunity to launch what was a brand new product in the industry at the time – a 529 college savings program — there was no blueprint. Therefore it came with challenges, such as state involvement and unique product and regulatory requirements, which created some trepidation at first. “Sometimes it’s frightening, but in some ways, not having all the answers provides that continued learning that so many of us desperately crave,” Smith said.
Smith has found that these larger roles that involved new skills, such as leading a sales team, or being responsible for a very big budget, have provided some of the best learning moments of her career, as she found out that she enjoyed it and was successful at it.
Now, she says she would never wait for the expertise or having a large knowledge base before delving into new projects. “If you are open to learning and ask the right questions, and bring people to the table with their own knowledge, then taking on new challenge should be exciting rather than a cause for anxiety.”
In addition, success comes from being deliberate about letting people who are expert at a particular part of a project be that expert and lead the way. “When managing large business initiatives, you have to let other people play their critical role.”
Sponsors and Role Models Can Guide the Way
Smith says she has been fortunate to have had great sponsors throughout her career, both men and women. Interestingly, sometimes that sponsorship came from people who were otherwise viewed as difficult within the organization but nonetheless were helpful in shaping her path.
While she doesn’t have one specific professional role model, she has identified several who have offered ongoing career lessons – those who have a career trajectory she’d like to emulate, those who present with effectiveness, those who have a positive way of effecting change, and others who have been a touchstone in balancing her personal and professional life.
She advocates looking around deliberately to decide who has the traits and skills you would most like to have rather than choosing one person as a role model.
Family Travel
Right now, Smith says her time is divided between career and family. With a husband who is a stay-at-home dad to their two daughters, ages six and three, Smith knows it’s important for her to spend her time at home really focusing on them to recharge.
The family enjoys traveling together. “Having various trips planned throughout the year, even if it’s just for a weekend, or even not too far away, gives me something to focus on and to have my children focus on as time we’ll spend together. This goes a long way for all of us.”
By Cathie Ericson