In December, the Toigo Foundation, a partner of theglasshammer.com held its fourth annual Groundbreakers Summit for female leaders. This year’s theme was action-based and explored the key resources, tools and relationships needed to help women advance in their careers.
Founded in 1989, the Toigo Foundation established an educational fellowship program (The Financial Services Fellowship) focused on careers in financial services for minorities. Now in its 25th year, the Toigo Foundation has provided MBA fellowships and internships for women and minority professionals, and has since added lifelong mentoring, career development programs, and networking. The group now counts over 1,000 alums in key leadership roles across finance, government and academia.
The day’s presentations were equal parts analysis, inspiration and brainstorming. The morning plenary session called Journey to the Top: What’s in Your Toolkit? This session explored the challenge of rising to the top from both internal and external perspectives. Adena Friedman, President of Global Corporate and Information Technology at NASDAQ, encouraged the attendees to consider the possibility that they can succeed “if they think and act like a woman.” She acknowledged that women face all sorts of external hurdles to success and gender parity – structural, cultural, systemic, but that in her opinion, the keys to success are one’s internal perceptions. Freidman advised,
“Just as someone can’t make you a leader without your consent, they also can’t make you inferior without your consent.”
Friedman then advocated actions over words, “Saying yes to a challenge makes you a risk taker. You don’t have to say, ‘I am a risk taker.’”
Erika Hayes James was named the John H. Harland Dean of Goizueta Business School at Emory University in May 2014 and opened by saying that she was “unprepared for the attention” she received as the first minority female to lead a major business school. Dr. James’s presentation discussed the challenges to one’s confidence of being “different from the majority” and went on to comment on the effects of being in the power minority,
“As a woman in business we are always in the spotlight, under scrutiny, simply because we are different from the majority, and this often causes women to cast doubt upon ourselves.”
According to Dr. James, women generally rely on three coping mechanisms to deal with their confidence issues, which she stated as ‘overachievement, assimilation or hiding in support roles’.
Unfortunately each of these coping mechanisms is limiting at best. A philosophy of overachievement often sets a person up for failure; cultural assimilation doesn’t let a person use their own unique strengths and insights and hiding in support roles is often just that – hiding.
Head of Global Research for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Candace Browning, recounted her personal story of success despite not fitting the finance mold but stated that “I was okay as an outsider.”
Born in the Virgin Islands and a History and Russian Language major she entered a joint program at Columbia to study business and International Affairs, Browning “fell in love with case method” and eventually graduated with an emphasis in marketing. She joined PanAm and eventually leveraged her knowledge of the airline industry into equity research. Looking back she commented, “There wasn’t a lot of planning but I was willing to take risks.” Along the way she was constantly learning and asking questions, she advises women to “tell the story to get the promotion.”
Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter, closed the morning plenary sessions with her thoughts on balancing competition and care. Dr. Slaughter is President and CEO of the New America Foundation and author of “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All”. Dr. Slaughter stated in her polarizing interview in the Atlantic in 2012 that women can ‘have it all’ and explained that women can even ‘have it all at the same time’ but takes the stance that there are structural and societal barriers that need to change to allow women to fully enjoy success at work and home.
Dr. Slaughter contended at the event that women are doing themselves a disservice by holding onto self-defeating beliefs such as, “It’s possible if you are just committed enough” and “It’s possible if you marry the right person.” She advocates for women to look instead at finding solutions to obstacles such as default rules about when and where and how work has to be done.
The final two sessions of the day were inspirational and examined how women’s decisions can change the world – and how much need there is for change. Nevada State Assemblywoman, Lucy Flores, recounted her personal tale of growing up poor, early run-ins with the justice system, becoming a politician and, most powerfully, her failed campaign to be Lieutenant Governor of Nevada. “Always go with your gut” is a cornerstone of Flores’s philosophy. Her strength was tested when she testified regarding a sexual education bill in Nevada. The bill promoted abstinence and Flores, relying on her gut, revealed that she had an abortion as a teen and that at the time it was her best option. “The backlash was horrible,” she recalled, “and I thought that following my gut was the worst mistake I could have made. However, eventually more and more people came forward to support me and I am happy to say that my disclosure helped move the needle nationally in the discussion of teen sexuality.” Flores also encouraged women to choose work that “makes them happy, even if it is hard. If fear is holding you back you are missing opportunities. Failure is difficult, but it is harder to live with regret.”
The final presentation was given by Terri McCullough, Director, No Ceilings Project at the Clinton Foundation. The project looks at ways to better integrate women into all aspects of political, social and economic life across the globe and the costs of leaving women out of the equation. McCullough encouraged attendees to “think more broadly about where opportunity and support may lie for women’s progress.”
After McCullough’s presentation, attendees broke into small discussion groups to brainstorm and present possible solutions to the gender parity situation. At the conclusion, Jeanne Sullivan, a technology venture capitalist with StarVest partners, addressed the crowd saying that she was particularly optimistic about the outlook for women in business and financial services. “Men who are marrying now have come up through the ranks and have seen how things work against women. They want their daughters to succeed and they will do what they can to change the culture to help them succeed.”
By Beth Senko
Career Tip of the Week!
Career Tip of the Week!Reflect upon your successes and your failures: What can you learn from both?
It is easy to get caught up in the daily stress of getting tasks done, but always take some time to formally reflect on the bigger picture. Whether it is recording in a journal what is working for you and how certain tasks and dynamics are making you feel or unpacking your annual review with a trusted advisor, always ensure that you are learning from the good and the bad experiences.
Welcome to Career Tip of the Week. In this column we aim to provide you with a useful snippet of advice to carry with you all week as you navigate the day to day path in your career.
By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist
Voice of Experience: Candace Ewell, Principal, PwC US
Voices of ExperienceAnd that is particularly sage advice coming from a current PwC principal, who spent the first seven years of her career as a nurse. Ewell thought that the healthcare industry would be her career path, but when she decided to go to law school with the goal of studying health law or health policy, a core tax class piqued her interest. “I had a lot of fun in tax; I really enjoyed my professor and the content. It was the first law school class that I really connected with,” she says.
When she returned for the third year, her professor offered her guidance on finding other tax courses and she ended up continuing straight through to complete her Master’s of Law (LLM), in part, she says to prove how serious she was about tax.
After graduate school, Ewell took a position at the IRS Associate Chief Counsel corporate division. While she appreciated the foundation it gave her in understanding the IRS and how regulations and guidance were promulgated, she also felt she was missing the bigger picture on how taxpayers work to be compliant, so she decided to move on.
Ewell’s next stop was in the Office of Advocacy at the Small Business Administration, where she was involved in new ways of thinking about compliance for smaller businesses. While there, she learned all she could from that perspective, but felt the isolation of being the only tax person and decided she wanted to be in a larger community of professionals. She found her home at PwC in mid-2007. “It was a challenging environment to get lots of experience quickly at a faster pace and higher level. It really was a lot of fun.”
In July 2013, she was named principal, which she considers the professional achievement she is most proud of. “I didn’t come to the firm thinking it was an option; I was just looking for an interesting community and challenging work, so being able to achieve this honor is very gratifying.”
Right now she is thrilled to be at the forefront of a new wave of information reporting, a broad subject that has developed over the past years to become more global. She has watched foreign governments embrace information reporting to help improve global compliance. “I get to talk about what I do every day to people and governments that never considered they could ask for so much information. Here in the United States, we have a culture where tax compliance is expected, but it’s not that way everywhere.”
She sees the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) as having a big impact worldwide. Other new regulations, including basis reporting which follows the sale of securities, that will continue to dominate her work are also of significant impact. Of particular interest to her are the information reporting requirements for payments made on the Internet. “It is fascinating to learn how Internet commerce works and how they engage with their customers and clients.”
“Merging Gracefully”
Ewell learned an important career lesson from her first start in the nursing field, the art of “merging gracefully.” In other words, she says she would often approach a new challenge with the belief that she could bring a new perspective and that she knew as much as other, more established professionals. “That got me in trouble when I assumed I knew more than the people whom I reported to. Through this journey, I’ve learned that when you’re starting a career, you’re excited and focused and yearn to make a big impact. But it’s a matter of picking your spot — you have to see that you will have the opportunity to bring perspective, but you can’t start with the ‘bull in the china shop’ mentality.”
Her other advice to those beginning their careers is to have patience and let your career develop. “We let go of some of our goals and desires because we ‘quit early,’ putting them to the side before we get started. You have to be open for how opportunities will present themselves.”
Ewell says that one of the reasons it was an easy decision to come to PwC was its mentoring program, which includes both a coach and relationship partner. “In addition to the fact that this was a community of high-achieving people, I knew that it would be useful to have designated points of contact to call on and help me get to the next stage of my career.” She says that since she is a bit of an introvert, she finds one-on-one coaching to be the most valuable, among the many other programs PwC offers for women in the workplace.
And she says that she takes seriously the charge to now give back to both women and men and facilitate the opportunities for them to meet their goals. “I try to be as candid as possible about how the firm works and the types of experiences people need to meet their goals. I was lucky enough to have people do that for me and I want to do it for others.”
Carving out Time for Renewal
And, as careers mature, she said it’s key to remember that this is high-pace, high-demand work, and it’s vital to carve out time to renew and take care of yourself, something she thinks all women struggle with.
For Ewell, that renewal comes when she carves out time for her family. Married for 20 years, she has an 11-year-old son who is a swimmer, so they spend lots of family time at the pool. Another favorite family activity is delivering food to seniors together because as she knows, anything you do together becomes family time.
By Cathie Ericson
Engaging Men: Why Conversation Can Be a Catalyst to Progress
NewsBy Aimee Hansen
On September 20th, 2014, British Actor and Goodwill Ambassador for UN women Emma Watson made a speech that implored males to step up to the fight for gender equality, to liberate both females and themselves from the constraints of gender stereotypes. In doing so, she launched the “HeForShe” initiative, proposing “A solidary movement around gender equality.” Vanity Fair called it “game-changing.”
Is everybody convinced the speech and campaign will lead to real change? No. Has it received criticism for falling short of the expectations of what a UN fight for gender equality campaign could sound like, as the voice of women across the world? Yes. The speech and campaign has been criticized for reflecting only a white-privileged grasp of gender inequity, reinforcing a gender binary, reflecting men as saviors who stand up “for” women rather than “beside” women, tempering feminism to motivate men, providing feel good passive activism, and paying lip service to change while providing little clarity on action – among other things.
BUT, did the speech catalyze the public discourse around feminism?
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Black History Month Coverage: Diversifying Diversity for Better Results
FeaturedThe Glass Hammer has long upheld the “business case for diversity,” and senior women in the corporate space will be pleased to see statistically significant results supporting this argument. More women at the top will indeed help a company perform better. But the study is also a reminder that the definition of diversity extends beyond the group of white women who make up the bulk of those taking part in leadership diversity programs. According to McKinsey, including more ethnically diverse individuals in the leadership tier of companies will produce even better financial performance.
“Diversity matters because we increasingly live in a diverse world that has become deeply interconnected. It should come as no surprise that more diverse companies and institutions are achieving better performance,” write the report authors, McKinsey’s Vivian Hunt, Dennis Layton, and Sara Prince.
According to the study, the top quartile of companies for racial/ethnic diversity in leadership were 30% more likely to outperform the industry median.
Companies in the bottom quartile for gender and for ethnic/racial diversity underperformed compared to their peers. McKinsey urges companies to be more intentional on increasing diversity. While acknowledging that there is more to do before companies approach gender parity at the leadership level, the report shows that efforts toward raising the percentage of women in executive leadership have made a difference.
“The data appears to show that less attention has been given to the attainment of racial and ethnic diversity,” McKinsey says. “By this measure it becomes apparent that for US companies, a dedicated effort would be needed to achieve leadership diversity that begins to reflect the demographic composition of the labor force and the national population.”
Comparatively, companies still need to do much more to improve ethnic diversity in leadership. And according to these numbers, the difficult work of addressing implicit racial biases in the workplace is worth the effort.
“Organizations are often uncomfortable with the discussion of race here in the U.S. and abroad,” says Katherine Phillips, Paul Calello Professor of Leadership and Ethics Management at Columbia University. “Targeting women is easier for organizations because it doesn’t feel as controversial somehow.”
But, Phillips says, there is much that companies can do to broaden their efforts toward improving diversity in leadership and throughout the organization.
“Organizations can better incorporate racial or ethnic diversity targets by first acknowledging that their organizations may not currently be designed for racial minorities to thrive. That was the first step with women – there was an acknowledgment that women had not been so welcomed before and that their needs were not being met. The same acknowledgment needs to happen with racial/ethnic differences to help change things.”
According to Phillips, senior women can help push for more meaningful change at their companies. She encourages the leadership to mindfully sponsor of people of color which will “diversify their own networks and build a broad coalition across these various groups,” she says.
Women who’ve focused on gender diversity have the tool kit to push their companies toward addressing the need for more ethnically diverse leaders as well, Phillips says.
“The barriers and issues may be different but the process of moving the needle is the same – sponsorship and mentorship, vocal advocacy, acknowledgment of biases both explicit and unconscious, and a commitment to changing the status quo are all critical.”
According to the research, businesses with the most women in leadership were 15% more likely to produce above average financial returns. Studies have long shown that diversity makes business sense – teams with greater diversity produce smarter, more collaborative decisions. Research has also shown that companies with more women in the boardroom outperform the market.
But this new research, which crunched companies’ average earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) between 2010 and 2013, dug deeper. It tracked the gender, ethnic and racial demographics of senior management and boards of 366 large, public companies in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Brazil, Mexico and Chile, and while greater gender diversity produced better returns, greater ethnic diversity produced an even bigger result.
As we move toward a more diverse and global economy, companies that fall to the back of the pack on diversity will also find themselves lagging their peers in terms of corporate performance as well, this study indicates.
Diversity is the competitive edge that most companies are not taking advantage of. By empowering women and ethnically diverse leaders to push into the upper echelons of corporate management, companies will enjoy outsized performance. Unlocking the potential of leadership diversity will take constant and careful work, like any business transformation. But in the end, that work will pay off.
By Melissa J. Anderson
Engaging Men as Allies: Nine Emerging Practices
Guest ContributionGuest Contributed by Chuck Shelton, Chief Executive Officer, Greatheart Consulting
Allies listen, co-create opportunity, and build a personal brand for accountability and trust. For us men, we aren’t allies to women because we aspire to be, or because we say we are. As men, we’re allies only when specific women are willing to speak about our behavioral support and teachability.
Consider nine emerging practices in engaging men as allies for women’s advancement.
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US Trails European Countries in Women on Boards, Diversity Efforts
NewsBy The Glasshammer Staff
According to Catalyst’s board census for 2014, women how hold 19.2 percent of all seats on S&P 500 boards. The U.S. numbers look similar to those in Canada, where women hold 20.8 percent of board seats at companies on the S&P / TSX 60 index.
But in many parts of Europe, the percentage of women on boards has surpassed the numbers in North America that Catalyst reported. Norway has the highest percentage of women on boards of public countries at 35.5 percent, a result of the country’s 2003 quota law that threatens to delist companies whose boards are less than 40% female.
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Voice of Experience: Mylan Denerstein, Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
Voices of ExperiencePublic Service
As a 1993 graduate of Columbia Law School and Skadden Fellow, Denerstein began her professional life working for the Children’s Defense Fund in Washington, D.C. This opportunity led to a position with the Department of Justice as a special assistant to the Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division. According to Denerstein, the experience “was a great introduction to Washington and how things worked there.” But DC couldn’t hold her for very long.
Read more
“Generally, people want to help you with your career, but you have to ask. Anybody can be your mentor, but you can’t let your fear of rejection get in the way of asking for help, or asking for advice.” – Mylan Denerstein
Learning from Others: The Toigo Foundation’s Annual Groundbreakers Summit
FeaturedIn December, the Toigo Foundation, a partner of theglasshammer.com held its fourth annual Groundbreakers Summit for female leaders. This year’s theme was action-based and explored the key resources, tools and relationships needed to help women advance in their careers.
Founded in 1989, the Toigo Foundation established an educational fellowship program (The Financial Services Fellowship) focused on careers in financial services for minorities. Now in its 25th year, the Toigo Foundation has provided MBA fellowships and internships for women and minority professionals, and has since added lifelong mentoring, career development programs, and networking. The group now counts over 1,000 alums in key leadership roles across finance, government and academia.
The day’s presentations were equal parts analysis, inspiration and brainstorming. The morning plenary session called Journey to the Top: What’s in Your Toolkit? This session explored the challenge of rising to the top from both internal and external perspectives. Adena Friedman, President of Global Corporate and Information Technology at NASDAQ, encouraged the attendees to consider the possibility that they can succeed “if they think and act like a woman.” She acknowledged that women face all sorts of external hurdles to success and gender parity – structural, cultural, systemic, but that in her opinion, the keys to success are one’s internal perceptions. Freidman advised,
“Just as someone can’t make you a leader without your consent, they also can’t make you inferior without your consent.”
Friedman then advocated actions over words, “Saying yes to a challenge makes you a risk taker. You don’t have to say, ‘I am a risk taker.’”
Erika Hayes James was named the John H. Harland Dean of Goizueta Business School at Emory University in May 2014 and opened by saying that she was “unprepared for the attention” she received as the first minority female to lead a major business school. Dr. James’s presentation discussed the challenges to one’s confidence of being “different from the majority” and went on to comment on the effects of being in the power minority,
“As a woman in business we are always in the spotlight, under scrutiny, simply because we are different from the majority, and this often causes women to cast doubt upon ourselves.”
According to Dr. James, women generally rely on three coping mechanisms to deal with their confidence issues, which she stated as ‘overachievement, assimilation or hiding in support roles’.
Unfortunately each of these coping mechanisms is limiting at best. A philosophy of overachievement often sets a person up for failure; cultural assimilation doesn’t let a person use their own unique strengths and insights and hiding in support roles is often just that – hiding.
Head of Global Research for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Candace Browning, recounted her personal story of success despite not fitting the finance mold but stated that “I was okay as an outsider.”
Born in the Virgin Islands and a History and Russian Language major she entered a joint program at Columbia to study business and International Affairs, Browning “fell in love with case method” and eventually graduated with an emphasis in marketing. She joined PanAm and eventually leveraged her knowledge of the airline industry into equity research. Looking back she commented, “There wasn’t a lot of planning but I was willing to take risks.” Along the way she was constantly learning and asking questions, she advises women to “tell the story to get the promotion.”
Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter, closed the morning plenary sessions with her thoughts on balancing competition and care. Dr. Slaughter is President and CEO of the New America Foundation and author of “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All”. Dr. Slaughter stated in her polarizing interview in the Atlantic in 2012 that women can ‘have it all’ and explained that women can even ‘have it all at the same time’ but takes the stance that there are structural and societal barriers that need to change to allow women to fully enjoy success at work and home.
Dr. Slaughter contended at the event that women are doing themselves a disservice by holding onto self-defeating beliefs such as, “It’s possible if you are just committed enough” and “It’s possible if you marry the right person.” She advocates for women to look instead at finding solutions to obstacles such as default rules about when and where and how work has to be done.
The final two sessions of the day were inspirational and examined how women’s decisions can change the world – and how much need there is for change. Nevada State Assemblywoman, Lucy Flores, recounted her personal tale of growing up poor, early run-ins with the justice system, becoming a politician and, most powerfully, her failed campaign to be Lieutenant Governor of Nevada. “Always go with your gut” is a cornerstone of Flores’s philosophy. Her strength was tested when she testified regarding a sexual education bill in Nevada. The bill promoted abstinence and Flores, relying on her gut, revealed that she had an abortion as a teen and that at the time it was her best option. “The backlash was horrible,” she recalled, “and I thought that following my gut was the worst mistake I could have made. However, eventually more and more people came forward to support me and I am happy to say that my disclosure helped move the needle nationally in the discussion of teen sexuality.” Flores also encouraged women to choose work that “makes them happy, even if it is hard. If fear is holding you back you are missing opportunities. Failure is difficult, but it is harder to live with regret.”
The final presentation was given by Terri McCullough, Director, No Ceilings Project at the Clinton Foundation. The project looks at ways to better integrate women into all aspects of political, social and economic life across the globe and the costs of leaving women out of the equation. McCullough encouraged attendees to “think more broadly about where opportunity and support may lie for women’s progress.”
After McCullough’s presentation, attendees broke into small discussion groups to brainstorm and present possible solutions to the gender parity situation. At the conclusion, Jeanne Sullivan, a technology venture capitalist with StarVest partners, addressed the crowd saying that she was particularly optimistic about the outlook for women in business and financial services. “Men who are marrying now have come up through the ranks and have seen how things work against women. They want their daughters to succeed and they will do what they can to change the culture to help them succeed.”
By Beth Senko
Voice of Experience: Pamela Click, Director and Senior Development Manager, TIAA-CREF
Voices of ExperienceHer path to her current position at TIAA-CREF was somewhat circuitous: After earning a degree in accounting, Click started her career as a management consultant with Andersen Consulting (now Accenture), working with various clients in industries as diverse as consumer products, utilities and oil and gas.
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