“You can’t be too risk-averse in your own career journey. It takes risks to create a portfolio of valuable skills and find purpose. It takes risks when structural factors or personal reasons mean one path isn’t working and fulfilling, and it’s time to create another,” says tech trailblazer Joyce Shen. “Instill confidence, and say, ‘I can create my own path. Maybe I’m only at the first step of this path, but it’s a path that I want to pursue.’”
Shen talks about the value of contrarian moves, the often overlooked career paths in tech, how tech is changing the shape of career trajectories and why leaders need to hold both vision and empathy to drive innovation.
Growing at the Pace of Tech
Between accompanying her scientist father to the research lab on weekends as a young girl, being immersed in academia on her mother’s side and growing up in college towns, Shen has always been interested in science, technology and continuous learning. She dropped her pre-med surgeon trajectory when she discovered how economics, statistics and math can model what is happening in the world at The University of Chicago.
Shen then interviewed with a non-profit named Sponsors For Education Opportunity (SEO), an organization that helps to close the academic and career opportunity gap for college students from underserved communities, and was placed as an intern in her sophomore year at IBM in procurement finance. A year later upon graduating with two degrees in Statistics and Economics in three years, Shen joined IBM full time in Corporate Development focusing on mergers and acquisitions. She quickly immersed herself in high-stake projects. Shen was energized by the fast pace of innovations in the technology industry and began to evolve, rapidly.
By 25 years old, she was leading an international finance team of nine people, ranging from fresh college graduates to baby boomers. By 29 years old, she was the first (and youngest) global CFO leading and managing the IBM Cloud Platform, an internal start-up at the time. As a fast-rising star, she was recruited by Thomson Reuters, a global company in information services and technology, to build and lead the emerging tech practice, including establishing emerging technology strategy and launching the corporate venture fund and a blockchain program. Having achieved all milestones including investing in over 12 startups in machine learning, data, digital identity, and blockchain, she was recruited to join Tenfore Holdings, a private investment firm in New York.
Shen has also been lecturing at UC Berkeley and has previously lectured at Saïd Business School, and has published books on innovation and blockchain. For the last ten years, she is also actively involved as a career mentor for SEO.
The Value of Being a Contrarian
“My career has been non-traditional and multi-dimensional. I took risks that most people normally would not take, and each built on the other without me knowing at the time how each step will fit together – my decision was anchored by pursuing knowledge, innovation, making impact, and doing things that I think matter in the world I live in,” says Shen. “And because I took risk in my career, I built a reputation of being a multi-faceted leader, strategic thinker, a problem solver in any environment, and being able to work through tough assignments and execute end-to-end against entirely new visions.”
Shen has been driven by her interdisciplinary and multifunctional skills in the intersection of business, technology, and finance. Her last three positions have been particularly created for her with a blank slate: “Even more than taking a risk, I’ve often been the contrarian and not done what everybody else was doing,” says Shen. “I wanted to keep developing at a different growth vector and bring others along with me.”
Those contrarian choices include going into corporate development out of university instead of consulting or banking, going for her full-time MBA degree at The Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago after only two years as a young professional, returning to IBM after her MBA instead of a new firm, leaving Corporate Development in Armonk for the grittier challenge of leading a mature, less-glamorous business unit to gain management and restructuring experience, departing IBM after starting and growing the cloud computing platform startup to an billion dollar business as the global CFO to gain experience in making emerging technology innovation, procurement, and investing decisions in the CTO office at Thomson Reuters, and then leaving a highly coveted position working with innovative technology startups for an investment firm that had less than seven people and to focus 100% on technology investing and advising founders and management as a lead investor and board member.
Shen attributes her ability to adapt and figure things out in part to a childhood spent moving often as well as her own travels and exposure to different cultures and systems of thinking.
“The world is changing every day,” says Shen, “and the ability to immerse in your environment and have that sixth-sense ability to see opportunities and create value, regardless of the environment or infrastructure or market condition, is incredibly and increasingly valuable and highly demanded.”
The Overlooked Career Path in Technology
As technology has changed our lives and become pervasive in every way, Shen notes that much of technology (e.g., software, smart infrastructure, machine learning, artificial intelligence) runs horizontally through every single industry. She’d love to see more women get involved where so much future value creation is coming and consider the breadth of options to create their own purposeful path.
“There tends to be two main paths in technology careers in conventional thinking. One path is a purely technical path, often as an individual contributor as well as a super-doer. But there is another path where people get into more of the operational and business side, around product management and distribution as well as considering emerging topics such as ethics, fairness, governance in technology and especially in AI and machine learning. There is also a lot of opportunity to get into highly critical technology areas such as cybersecurity. In my experience, a lot of the influence and ability to make changes come from working at the intersection of different disciplines and taking that experience to management and leadership.”
Shen continues, “In technology or in any industry, being able to have that broader aperture allows someone to see more opportunities and navigate better decisions about where they want to go and how to do it to make a broader impact in an organization.”
Create Your Own Career Ladder
“The entire career landscape is shifting and new opportunities are emerging rapidly. Developing a portfolio of skills you can apply in many ways, no matter what path you take, makes your career more dynamic and resilient,” advises Shen.
While in some industries, career development still looks like a vertical ladder, technology disrupts that paradigm, and Shen feels watching her parents create their own ladder as immigrants gifted her the agility to do that.
“Conventional wisdom would say the path you follow is a ladder and you progress according to that ladder, but in business and technology there isn’t a ladder that is given to you even though it can seem that way,” says Shen. “You can create that ladder yourself, and it doesn’t really matter what shape it takes, as long as there is a strong purpose to the work and that you are enjoying the journey and making an impact. It doesn’t have to be the same ladder that everybody is climbing.”
Knock Until The Door Opens
Working at the intersection of technology and finance and business, Shen has become used to being the “only,” but she’s focused on leveraging her strategic thinking, expertise and her deep set of skills relevant in her fields. Her parents’ immigrant experience and her moving often as a child taught her to put herself out there and work hard to prove herself. She is energetic, outspoken, direct, and down-to-earth. Sitting down with seasoned executives was an intimidating experience early on when she embarked on her career, but not once she stopped making giants of them.
Shen encourages women to focus on making an impact. Before going into a meeting, she focuses on her own clarity of how she will show up and what she wants to learn and can contribute. She encourages her students to own their voice and show the value of their work. She also encourages women not to give up just because someone doesn’t take interest in your aspirations or you don’t get that assignment.
“What I learned is that everybody who has accomplished a great deal had a lot of help and support from other people. Giving and receiving opportunities are very important to women” Shen says. “So if you ask for an opportunity and you’re told no, and you’ve been doing an amazing job, find another person to ask. Sometimes, women take that ‘no’ very hard and in a personal way, but please don’t be discouraged. Keep knocking on doors until one opens, because you will find people who will see your potential. It is definitely hard but remember don’t get discouraged.”
Shen encourages women to hold the inner strength and confidence. If one day is really tough, another day is going to be better, and amidst the unique structural challenges for women, you have to leverage all the resources within and around to keep progressing on your career journey.
Leadership that Empowers and Includes
Her mother often called Shen a natural leader, and Shen agrees leadership is innate in her. The growth has been honing her leadership for others in different capacities as a corporate executive, investor, board director, and educator.
“I was exposed to the highest levels of leadership at IBM very early on, and I’m a keen observer of human behavior,” says Shen. “From start-ups to larger companies and across different functional areas, I still take the approach of observing and picking up what are the leadership skills that create incredible teams and organizations that have strong culture and purpose.”
What did not work for Shen was detailed and controlling micro-management that didn’t inspire innovation or empower people to leverage their own strengths to add value. From her first management experience, she realized the importance of recognizing and empowering individuals.
“I realized that I had the responsibility to make sure not only that we deliver great work as a team, but also that we take care of each other,” reflects Shen. “It’s not just having an open door policy. It’s having empathy and treating my employees as human beings who have different needs and aspirations. Listen to them and create an environment where they can thrive as individuals, so that as a collective we are more powerful team.”
Shen has seen the difference that makes, more starkly in start-ups: “I think the most incredible leaders are those who can create clear vision, mandate high expectations, but also at the same time, show empathy and flexibility to the team.”
Inspiring Others Behind Her
As a woman who breathes technology and business and finance during most of her waking hours, Shen loves keeping on top of technology innovations, emerging trends, and potential investments. She’s a part-time faculty lecturer at UC Berkeley’s Master of Information and Data Science where she teaches the Capstone course. Among other volunteering, through SEO, she mentors underserved college students in getting hired into technology and finance roles in Corporate America.
“My work gives me a lot of energy because I’m making a difference and helping others,” she reflects. “I get very energized working with portfolio companies and teams, and when I see former employees or my students grow in their careers and thrive.”
She also loves spending time with family and friends, many of whom have a strong overlap in personal and work values. She cycles, runs marathons, and cooks as a daily analog way to unwind.
By Aimee Hansen
Women in Tech: Five Interventions to Develop and Keep Your Talent
Career Advice, Women in TechnologyHere are five key interventions that leaders in tech and organizations can do to develop and hold onto valuable female talent.
1) Tap a Broader Talent Pool and Recruit Returners
On the hiring front, Deloitte recommends that companies extend to a broader talent pool with “work from anywhere” models as well as recruit from overlooked sub-segments such as women who are returning to work or transitioning from other industries and upskilling career-switchers and those with resume gaps. BCG also recommends that tech organizations carve various pathways to leadership such as returnships that gradually reintegrate returning women into the workplace, to leverage this experienced talent for mid-level and senior-level positions.
2) Link Tech Opportunities to Purpose and Influence
Research has shown that women stay around for enjoyable work that they can fit in with other areas of their lives and that gives them opportunities to make a difference. Tying tech roles more closely to the impact they make in our world will drive appeal and job satisfaction.
As tech trailblazer Joyce Shen recently told The Glass Hammer, women who may not think of tech as a career option or career twist might want to reconsider: “There tends to be two main paths in technology careers in conventional thinking. One path is a purely technical path, often as an individual contributor as well as a super-doer. But there is another path where people get into more of the operational and business side, around product management and distribution as well as considering emerging topics such as ethics, fairness, governance in technology and especially in AI and machine learning. There is also a lot of opportunity to get into highly critical technology areas such as cybersecurity. In my experience, a lot of the influence and ability to make changes come from working at the intersection of different disciplines and taking that experience to management and leadership.”
3) Address Early Promotions (first five years) in Tech
McKinsey argues that companies need to address equitable advancement in early promotions. Whereas generally, 86 women are promoted to manager for every 100 men promoted, in tech it plummets to 52 women promoted to manager for every 100 men. Women hold only 34% of entry-level engineering and product roles in tech (versus 48% generally) and just 26% of first-level manager positions in tech (versus 41% generally).
Early promotions are the most critical to future success. McKinsey found that companies which have a more systemic approach to promoting women in tech roles are creating more diverse, inclusive and better performing workplaces by:
4) Address and Mitigate Bias In All Aspects of Talent Development
Men in tech (67%) feel more comfortable than women (52%) to ask for a promotion – with 39% of women saying gender bias is the reason for not receiving one. Korn Ferry offers up that women don’t lack belief in their abilities but how they will fair in the assessment process. Removing unconscious bias at the level of hiring and throughout promotion processes, with clear and visible data to illustrate target areas and impact, is critical in tech.
One of the top three motivators for women in tech is development, but they report lacking the same opportunities as their male peers – and 2/3 don’t see a clear path forward in their company. In additional to clear and structured career paths, tech companies need formal mentorship and sponsorship programs to even the playing field so women can advance. According to Ipsos, 57% of UK tech women said mentorship and sponsorship would attract them to a company, but only one in five women felt they had access to sponsorship. Importantly, 55% of those who did felt it has greatly benefited their career.
BCG recommends, as the remote workplace has eased some of the obstacles to influence for midlevel women, tech firms could take heed and structure meetings to give all voices equal opportunity to contribute. Also making sure the frequency and value of manager-employee interactions are not being driven by affinity bias, and that mentorship and sponsorship are operational (and equitable) in the hybrid world.
5) Promote Well-Being Among Tech Women
A March 2022 study among IT professionals in 33 countries showed women (69%) were likelier to report feeling “run drown and drained of physical and emotional energy” than men (56%), and were more at high burnout risk (46% versus 38%).
Korn Ferry points out that burnout is driving the great resignation, especially for women. Tech companies need to be aware that hybrid working is part of both the problem and the solution. Promoting work-life separation and balance in tangible ways is important. Allowing for sabbaticals and extra paid leave can help returners to come back refreshed and more impactful. Embody a culture of inclusion for women.
Women who enter into tech roles of any kind have already crossed a hurdle by claiming their own belonging despite cultural messaging. Savvy organizations will make sure to reflect that belonging back to them in tangible and visible ways.
By Aimee Hansen
Women Leaders in Tech: Insightful Tips Across Twelve Career Themes
Career Advice, People, Women in TechnologyOn being broadly curious:
“Curiosity is a hallmark of who I am and has been a huge enabler to my success. I personally like to know enough about everything ‘to be dangerous’ and went out of my way to equip myself with that knowledge,” said Aine Leddy. “That curiosity has served me, particularly with my entreé into the tech COO world. I could show up at the table and enter right into a discussion about the business strategy and where technology fits in, and that was apparent to the people who have given me the opportunities.”
Words from: Aine Leddy: Information Technology Business Partner, AIG Investments
On recruiting for tech (and all) roles:
“As a product team leader, when recruiting, I seek out qualities like resourcefulness, creativity, and other traits that don’t necessarily jump off the page when reading a resume or browsing a LinkedIn profile,” said Loredana Crisan. “I’d encourage all product leaders to be more open-minded throughout the recruitment process. Just because a candidate’s background differs from the conventional, doesn’t mean they aren’t qualified.”
Words from: Loredana Crisan: VP, Messaging Experience — Messenger & Instagram (update: Crisan is now VP at Messenger)
On leveraging the advantage of your difference:
“My professor told me that when he goes into a classroom, he doesn’t know who the best students are. But when he sees a female student or person of color, they get his attention right away,” recalled Rose-Gaëlle Belinga from university. “That’s how my professor challenged me, not to look at being underrepresented as holding me back but as an advantage… Because I really have people’s attention, I make sure that my work speaks for itself, that people take me seriously.”
Words from: Rose-Gaëlle Belinga: Technology Associate, Morgan Stanley (update: Belinga is now a VP at Morgan Stanley)
On the freedom that comes with risk-taking:
“You can have loads of failure but if you have tenacity, the chances are you’re going to figure it out as you try and fail, as you go along,” said Niamh Bushnell. “There’s a lot of freedom when you’re comfortable with risk, and with freedom comes creativity. Don’t worry if every single step isn’t going to come out as you want it to. Often times you don’t even know what the ideal outcome is, until you start.”
Words from: Niamh Bushnell: Chief Communications Officer (CCO), Soapbox Labs (Update: Bushnell is now Chief Marketing Officer at Soapbox Labs)
On the self-validating reflection of mentors and sponsors:
“Sometimes you don’t even see your own potential,” said Sabina Munnelly. “But when someone makes it clear that they see something in you, their belief in you can help grow a belief in yourself that you might have not even had.”
Words from: Sabina Munnelly: Partner, Baringa
On inviting support and asking uncomfortable questions:
“Reaching out for help or advice does not subvert you from your task of getting to what you want to do, and it could have gotten me there faster. Be open to others’ opinions. Don’t be afraid to ask uncomfortable questions, but also be prepared for the tough answers,” said Trisha Sircar. “It’s really important to get different perspectives from different people, from different backgrounds and different facets of the profession.”
Words from: Trisha Sircar; Partner, Privacy, Data and Cybersecurity, Katten
On why different perspectives are essential:
“It’s essential to create the space for people to be heard, especially when some aren’t as comfortable voicing their opinions,” said Stephanie Schultz. “I don’t want to be in a meeting and have everybody agree with a particular direction or discussion. I want to hear the people who are dissenting, or might have a different perspective, because it’s a pressure test – it’s helping to make sure that we’re getting to the most thoughtful outcome.”
Words from: Stephanie Schultz: VP & Head of Partnerships, Amex Digital Labs
On listening deeper as a leader:
“In an emotionally charged situation, I will encourage the team to tease out the facts, take the personalities out of it and then listen for what is not being talked about,” said Danielle Arnone. “The leaders that I admire most have the ability to listen deeply and surface the question behind the question, without putting people on the defensive, and in a way that takes the conversation to the next stage.”
Words from: Danielle Arnone: Chief Digital & Technology Officer, Combe
On embracing failure as part of growth mindset:
“I want to see what happens, and if I am going to fail, I want to fail fast, learn from my mistakes and get up and run again,” said Anna Thomas. “Everyone is going to fail at some point. Everyone is going to have their bad projects. Try to just do it in small cycles, learn fast, and then apply your learning and keep moving.”
Words from: Anna Thomas: Vice President, Private Banking Technology at Brown Brothers Harriman (update: Thomas is now Director, Operations & Technology Transformation at Citi)
On getting real with yourself about work-life effectiveness:
“If one part of the pie gets more dominating than you want it to be, you have to consider how to make that part smaller so you can ‘right-size’ your family life or your spiritual life, for example. That has really helped me to compartmentalize what I’m doing and how it impacts the other parts of my life,” said Kate Kenner Archibald. “If your work is really impacting your home life, take that step back to figure out what and how you can fix it. Push for flexibility, which is becoming more common, or figure out what the issue is. But if you’re not satisfied with how much time you have with your family, you’re never going to be happy at work, no matter how much money you’re making.”
Words from: Kate Kenner Archibald: Chief Marketing Officer, Dash Hudson
On keeping knocking at the door, regardless:
“I think women do ourselves a disservice, because we take things personally and get annoyed with our manager if we don’t get the raise or promotion,” said Aine Leddy. “Whereas men seem to think, ‘If it doesn’t happen, I’ll get back in the ring and I’ll fight the good fight again next year.’ Ultimately, promotion is a numbers game. It can’t happen for everybody all of the time, so rather than take it so personally, elevate your case and prepare to ask again.”
Words from: Aine Leddy: Information Technology Business Partner, AIG Investments
On the potential to impact meaningful change in tech:
“Is your AI developed in a way that is equitable – that doesn’t have inherent gender bias or racial bias? If voice tech doesn’t recognize a kid’s dialect and gives them a lower score on a reading assessment because they don’t pronounce words in the way the AI has been built to understand them, they’re going to lose out at school,” said Niamh Bushnell. “The way technology is built these days hugely impacts people’s quality of life – including their physical and mental health – and it can impact them socioeconomically too. Equity is a big piece.”
Words from: Niamh Bushnell: Chief Communications Officer (CCO), Soapbox Labs (Update: Bushnell is now Chief Marketing Office at Soapbox Labs)
On defining your own career ladder:
“The entire career landscape is shifting and new opportunities are emerging rapidly. Developing a portfolio of skills you can apply in many ways, no matter what path you take, makes your career more dynamic and resilient,” said Joyce Shen. “Conventional wisdom would say the path you follow is a ladder and you progress according to that ladder, but in business and technology there isn’t a ladder that is given to you even though it can seem that way. You can create that ladder yourself, and it doesn’t really matter what shape it takes, as long as there is a strong purpose to the work and that you are enjoying the journey and making an impact. It doesn’t have to be the same ladder that everybody is climbing.”
Words from: Joyce Shen: AI investor, board director, author, and data science at UC Berkeley
Interviewed by Aimee Hansen
Women in Tech: Why the “Big Quit” is a Big Deal
News, Women in TechnologyWomen’s technical propensities are being undertapped and the belonging divide continues to inhibit participation at different hurdles. Far fewer women who majored in computer science (38%) are working in the field compared to men (53%). Women hold a low share of tech roles – 16% in engineering and 27% in computing. They hold 28% of leadership roles, per BCG, and in the biggest 1,000 tech companies, only 18% of CFOs or CIOs are women. Between 2019 to 2021, the number of U.S. tech managers increased by 9%, but the share of women went down by 2% points.
But on a global level, Deloitte estimates that the overall tech workforce has increased 6.9% from 2019 to 2022, while share of tech roles is up by 11.7%. They project a gain of nearly 20% for women in leadership, stating 1 in 4 leadership roles at global tech firms would be held by women in 2022, a 4% increase.
In no where more than tech right now is diversity needed to help debias the technologies that are ever more pervasive in our daily lives. Not only that, but women in tech matters to the bottom line relative to competitors. The most gender-diverse companies are 48% more likely to financially outperform the least gender diverse. Companies with good representation of women at the top earn up to 50% higher profits and share performance.
Job Satisfaction, Work-Life and Retention
According to Deloitte’s Women @ Work global survey, among women, satisfaction with work-life balance has dropped to 32% from 70% before the pandemic, and in every category – productivity, mental well-being – satisfaction has dropped by double digits. Half of women in tech drop out by mid-career and women comprise less than 1/4 of senior roles. Women leave their tech jobs at a rate 45% higher than men.
In line with the continued resignations, 57% of women in tech said they expect to leave their employer for a new role within 2 years—with work-life balance as the biggest reason and Deloitte says 22% are considering leaving the workforce altogether. In a BCG survey, 73% of digital workers said that they expected to leave their job in the next two to three years, and 40% were job-searching.
Retention is also an issue in the tech C-suite. While men across Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft average eight years in executive roles, women stay for only 6.4 years. And while White execs last eight years on average, that’s five for Asian leaders, six for Black leaders, and four for Hispanic leaders.
Different Experiences of Hybrid/Remote Workplace in Tech
According to BCG research, the impact of the pandemic had different impacts for different women in tech. Midlevel women particularly found that work-from-home arrangements made their managerial work easier – such as chairing meetings, influencing decisions and delegating work, and they were even promoted at rates above midlevel men. Midlevel men found those same tasks had become more difficult, suggesting that some of the gender bias is neutralized in the remote workplace.
Women of color (47%) were more likely to report that it was more difficult to connect with mentors and sponsors in the remote setting than white women (35%). Both men and women of color reported less frequent and valuable interactions than their white peers, and women of color (41%) were more likely to report a negative impact on work-life balance than white women (28%) – suspected in part to be impacted by caring for family members other than children.
Senior women (36%) were more likely than senior men to switch jobs (31%), but they were less likely to get a pay increase (39% versus 50%) after doing so. After the pandemic, having a good work-life balance jumped ahead of financial compensation as the top priority for senior women.
Reset Tech Culture Towards Inclusion
Tech firms are still judged as “bro cultures” by many women, and it’s been substantiated that a widespread cultural reset is what is needed to get women back into tech and feeling they fully belong, again. Ipsos research in the UK indicated that 58% of women said that visible role models are one of the things that attract them to organizations, but many noted the lack. 83% of tech women in the UK rate an inclusive manager and 76% rated an inclusive culture as important for joining a tech firm.
But a culture of inclusiveness is not created only by an atmosphere of belonging and being valued, if it doesn’t show up tangibly in action throughout the career journey. It as good as an organization’s ability to remove bias from access to development opportunities, promotions, pay and leadership so that women can participate and advance to their full potential. Next week, we will focus in more on actions that organizations can take.
By Aimee Hansen
Joyce Shen: AI investor, board director, author, and data science at UC Berkeley
People, Voices of Experience“You can’t be too risk-averse in your own career journey. It takes risks to create a portfolio of valuable skills and find purpose. It takes risks when structural factors or personal reasons mean one path isn’t working and fulfilling, and it’s time to create another,” says tech trailblazer Joyce Shen. “Instill confidence, and say, ‘I can create my own path. Maybe I’m only at the first step of this path, but it’s a path that I want to pursue.’”
Shen talks about the value of contrarian moves, the often overlooked career paths in tech, how tech is changing the shape of career trajectories and why leaders need to hold both vision and empathy to drive innovation.
Growing at the Pace of Tech
Between accompanying her scientist father to the research lab on weekends as a young girl, being immersed in academia on her mother’s side and growing up in college towns, Shen has always been interested in science, technology and continuous learning. She dropped her pre-med surgeon trajectory when she discovered how economics, statistics and math can model what is happening in the world at The University of Chicago.
Shen then interviewed with a non-profit named Sponsors For Education Opportunity (SEO), an organization that helps to close the academic and career opportunity gap for college students from underserved communities, and was placed as an intern in her sophomore year at IBM in procurement finance. A year later upon graduating with two degrees in Statistics and Economics in three years, Shen joined IBM full time in Corporate Development focusing on mergers and acquisitions. She quickly immersed herself in high-stake projects. Shen was energized by the fast pace of innovations in the technology industry and began to evolve, rapidly.
By 25 years old, she was leading an international finance team of nine people, ranging from fresh college graduates to baby boomers. By 29 years old, she was the first (and youngest) global CFO leading and managing the IBM Cloud Platform, an internal start-up at the time. As a fast-rising star, she was recruited by Thomson Reuters, a global company in information services and technology, to build and lead the emerging tech practice, including establishing emerging technology strategy and launching the corporate venture fund and a blockchain program. Having achieved all milestones including investing in over 12 startups in machine learning, data, digital identity, and blockchain, she was recruited to join Tenfore Holdings, a private investment firm in New York.
Shen has also been lecturing at UC Berkeley and has previously lectured at Saïd Business School, and has published books on innovation and blockchain. For the last ten years, she is also actively involved as a career mentor for SEO.
The Value of Being a Contrarian
“My career has been non-traditional and multi-dimensional. I took risks that most people normally would not take, and each built on the other without me knowing at the time how each step will fit together – my decision was anchored by pursuing knowledge, innovation, making impact, and doing things that I think matter in the world I live in,” says Shen. “And because I took risk in my career, I built a reputation of being a multi-faceted leader, strategic thinker, a problem solver in any environment, and being able to work through tough assignments and execute end-to-end against entirely new visions.”
Shen has been driven by her interdisciplinary and multifunctional skills in the intersection of business, technology, and finance. Her last three positions have been particularly created for her with a blank slate: “Even more than taking a risk, I’ve often been the contrarian and not done what everybody else was doing,” says Shen. “I wanted to keep developing at a different growth vector and bring others along with me.”
Those contrarian choices include going into corporate development out of university instead of consulting or banking, going for her full-time MBA degree at The Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago after only two years as a young professional, returning to IBM after her MBA instead of a new firm, leaving Corporate Development in Armonk for the grittier challenge of leading a mature, less-glamorous business unit to gain management and restructuring experience, departing IBM after starting and growing the cloud computing platform startup to an billion dollar business as the global CFO to gain experience in making emerging technology innovation, procurement, and investing decisions in the CTO office at Thomson Reuters, and then leaving a highly coveted position working with innovative technology startups for an investment firm that had less than seven people and to focus 100% on technology investing and advising founders and management as a lead investor and board member.
Shen attributes her ability to adapt and figure things out in part to a childhood spent moving often as well as her own travels and exposure to different cultures and systems of thinking.
“The world is changing every day,” says Shen, “and the ability to immerse in your environment and have that sixth-sense ability to see opportunities and create value, regardless of the environment or infrastructure or market condition, is incredibly and increasingly valuable and highly demanded.”
The Overlooked Career Path in Technology
As technology has changed our lives and become pervasive in every way, Shen notes that much of technology (e.g., software, smart infrastructure, machine learning, artificial intelligence) runs horizontally through every single industry. She’d love to see more women get involved where so much future value creation is coming and consider the breadth of options to create their own purposeful path.
“There tends to be two main paths in technology careers in conventional thinking. One path is a purely technical path, often as an individual contributor as well as a super-doer. But there is another path where people get into more of the operational and business side, around product management and distribution as well as considering emerging topics such as ethics, fairness, governance in technology and especially in AI and machine learning. There is also a lot of opportunity to get into highly critical technology areas such as cybersecurity. In my experience, a lot of the influence and ability to make changes come from working at the intersection of different disciplines and taking that experience to management and leadership.”
Shen continues, “In technology or in any industry, being able to have that broader aperture allows someone to see more opportunities and navigate better decisions about where they want to go and how to do it to make a broader impact in an organization.”
Create Your Own Career Ladder
“The entire career landscape is shifting and new opportunities are emerging rapidly. Developing a portfolio of skills you can apply in many ways, no matter what path you take, makes your career more dynamic and resilient,” advises Shen.
While in some industries, career development still looks like a vertical ladder, technology disrupts that paradigm, and Shen feels watching her parents create their own ladder as immigrants gifted her the agility to do that.
“Conventional wisdom would say the path you follow is a ladder and you progress according to that ladder, but in business and technology there isn’t a ladder that is given to you even though it can seem that way,” says Shen. “You can create that ladder yourself, and it doesn’t really matter what shape it takes, as long as there is a strong purpose to the work and that you are enjoying the journey and making an impact. It doesn’t have to be the same ladder that everybody is climbing.”
Knock Until The Door Opens
Working at the intersection of technology and finance and business, Shen has become used to being the “only,” but she’s focused on leveraging her strategic thinking, expertise and her deep set of skills relevant in her fields. Her parents’ immigrant experience and her moving often as a child taught her to put herself out there and work hard to prove herself. She is energetic, outspoken, direct, and down-to-earth. Sitting down with seasoned executives was an intimidating experience early on when she embarked on her career, but not once she stopped making giants of them.
Shen encourages women to focus on making an impact. Before going into a meeting, she focuses on her own clarity of how she will show up and what she wants to learn and can contribute. She encourages her students to own their voice and show the value of their work. She also encourages women not to give up just because someone doesn’t take interest in your aspirations or you don’t get that assignment.
“What I learned is that everybody who has accomplished a great deal had a lot of help and support from other people. Giving and receiving opportunities are very important to women” Shen says. “So if you ask for an opportunity and you’re told no, and you’ve been doing an amazing job, find another person to ask. Sometimes, women take that ‘no’ very hard and in a personal way, but please don’t be discouraged. Keep knocking on doors until one opens, because you will find people who will see your potential. It is definitely hard but remember don’t get discouraged.”
Shen encourages women to hold the inner strength and confidence. If one day is really tough, another day is going to be better, and amidst the unique structural challenges for women, you have to leverage all the resources within and around to keep progressing on your career journey.
Leadership that Empowers and Includes
Her mother often called Shen a natural leader, and Shen agrees leadership is innate in her. The growth has been honing her leadership for others in different capacities as a corporate executive, investor, board director, and educator.
“I was exposed to the highest levels of leadership at IBM very early on, and I’m a keen observer of human behavior,” says Shen. “From start-ups to larger companies and across different functional areas, I still take the approach of observing and picking up what are the leadership skills that create incredible teams and organizations that have strong culture and purpose.”
What did not work for Shen was detailed and controlling micro-management that didn’t inspire innovation or empower people to leverage their own strengths to add value. From her first management experience, she realized the importance of recognizing and empowering individuals.
“I realized that I had the responsibility to make sure not only that we deliver great work as a team, but also that we take care of each other,” reflects Shen. “It’s not just having an open door policy. It’s having empathy and treating my employees as human beings who have different needs and aspirations. Listen to them and create an environment where they can thrive as individuals, so that as a collective we are more powerful team.”
Shen has seen the difference that makes, more starkly in start-ups: “I think the most incredible leaders are those who can create clear vision, mandate high expectations, but also at the same time, show empathy and flexibility to the team.”
Inspiring Others Behind Her
As a woman who breathes technology and business and finance during most of her waking hours, Shen loves keeping on top of technology innovations, emerging trends, and potential investments. She’s a part-time faculty lecturer at UC Berkeley’s Master of Information and Data Science where she teaches the Capstone course. Among other volunteering, through SEO, she mentors underserved college students in getting hired into technology and finance roles in Corporate America.
“My work gives me a lot of energy because I’m making a difference and helping others,” she reflects. “I get very energized working with portfolio companies and teams, and when I see former employees or my students grow in their careers and thrive.”
She also loves spending time with family and friends, many of whom have a strong overlap in personal and work values. She cycles, runs marathons, and cooks as a daily analog way to unwind.
By Aimee Hansen
Op-ED: Return to Office or Hybrid Forever?
Leadership, NewsAs 2023 marks the entry into what appears to be the fourth year of the Covid pandemic, the big question remains – has the world of work changed due to Covid forever? Or are we just in the messy middle with an eventual return to office building based situation for most people, most of the time?
Statistics sit at around 75% of workers, both nationally and internationally, not wanting to return to the office full-time. Adding fuel to the fire this week, there are studies that show productivity, after a counterintuitive spike in the pandemic, is now trending downwards. Economists and psychologists agree that high burnout rates, noted by social listening on sites like Glassdoor as well as traditional employees surveys, tell the story that the unsustainable pandemic period of overwork is behind it. The term “Quiet Quitting” has surfaced with a range of interpretation around what that is, exactly, from healthy boundary setting in order to hold lines between work and home in a remote world where it all blurred and work became an endless flow to doing the bare minimum as the ‘social contract’ has loosened for employees over the past three years.
Adding the fact that Generation Z have decided that airless cubicle dwelling is not for them, the future of work, or rather where work gets done, remains an exciting consideration for our times.
Is Hybrid a Blessing or a Curse?
Hybrid is only as good as its implementation. If done right, it offers great flexibility features so that people can do their best at work and even increase productivity while maintaining their mental health and running the aspects of their lives outside work successfully.
The challenge is that if a hybrid strategy is just jammed in, as if it was a complete return to work strategy without an evaluation of needs operationally and technically, and creation of a plan, then it offers the worst of flexible working. It really is all about the user experience. For example, commuting to a place to sit on a video conference inside your cubicle and see no one will negate one of the top reasons for going in- which is connection and social capital. This along with a lack of trust will seal the fate of a bad hybrid strategy outcome.
Equally, if companies do not create conditions purposefully for equitable merit rewards, regardless of where work is done, and instead fall into a schema of explicit or implicit proximity bias where you have to sit outside the boss’s door to get promoted, then hybrid will be an epic fail for productivity and engagement. Yet remote work will probably get the blame, not the lack of leadership and planning for this third way.
Leadership in a Time of Need
Many CEO’s have gotten over what Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, coins as “productivity paranoia” in their well-documented study on workplace of the future. The Microsoft CEO and Chairman goes on to state that companies must trust and empower their staff and understand more elements to make Hybrid work as a strategy. These organizational actions include re-recruiting your employees by surfacing the benefits of working there, such as internal job mobility over changing firms. 2 out of 3 employees surveyed in their 20,000 employee strong study say they would stay longer at their company if it were easier to change jobs internally and have career discussions.
Another aspect is learning and development – if employees feel that they aren’t learning, they are more likely to leave. This study points out that social capital and connection is something that people want to increase – with results pointing to desiring a flexible attitude from their managers about how and when they come in, so that they can have meaningful connections with “work friends” and hold important meetings, as opposed to having to see their boss in person or the senior leadership. Modeling is not a strong factor it seems.
Like any change initiative, there are a range of opinions that fall on a spectrum – addressing the “why” for both returning, hybrid and staying remote.
However, 73% of respondents in the Microsoft survey stated that the company’s “why” regarding return reasons didn’t resonate. Ultimately, there is legitimacy in all opinions as they are based on belief sets that are formed from starting constructs on the way it is and how we process experiences – even to the wide gamut of pandemics. No human mind is exactly alike when it comes to processing information and experiences that can feel very personal and universal at the same time.
That is where empathetic leadership comes into play as getting outside one’s own experiences and paradigms as a leader or a manager will be crucial to rise to the occasion of validating each employee’s own pandemic experience and circumstances. Recognizing that safety is still a concern and that people have trauma is key, as Poonam Sharma PhD writes in Fast Company, “Removing the real risks posed by COVID-19 has been the first step. You must then actively show people it is safe.”
Leadership is needed to navigate hybrid – with Great Place To Work stating the five prerequisite behaviors of trusting and listening to employees, as well as setting out clear structures and rules of the road for people to follow – and then empowering them while co-creating the future by design.
By Nicki Gilmour, Founder and CEO of theglasshammer.com
Ashley Shan: Associate, Finance Group, Shearman & Sterling LLP
People, Rising StarsReflecting on her past three years at Shearman, Ashley speaks to the value of building relationships, supporting diverse lawyers and taking the initiative to make things happen.
From Philosophy to Finance
Realizing her B.A. in philosophy and sociology from Vanderbilt wasn’t going to adequately prepare her for modern legal practice, Ashley took advantage of everything Duke Law had to offer to broaden her experiences. She enrolled in the JD/LLM dual-degree program at Duke, which took her to an internship in Tokyo and a summer school in Geneva. “I was a research assistant, a teaching assistant and a senior editor on law review; I took a legal clinic, a practicum course at the business school, and an externship at the Environmental Defense Fund. I had friends from the business school, med school, public policy school and the environmental school.” She continues being active within the Duke NY community.
She encountered Shearman during 1L at a presentation on navigating the on-campus interview process while attending a diversity summit for Asian law students. She stayed in touch with the recruiting team and met other Shearman attorneys, who generously shared their experiences and mentored her. She also spent the rest of 1L reaching out to connections and getting to know other law firms, but the people she met from Shearman made the post-OCI decision simple: she took Shearman’s offer as soon as she received the letter.
Since starting at the Finance Group in 2019, Ashley has worked on a variety of transactions representing corporate borrowers, private equity sponsors and lenders in leveraged finance, structured finance and fund finance. “In the last year, I’ve gravitated towards representing corporate and private equity clients in middle market transactions because you really get to know your clients more holistically. You build a relationship and gain insight into all aspects of their business. I’ve also had the opportunity to dig deeper into more niched topics like liability management transactions and the ins-and-outs of the UCC from working with experts at the firm.”
As a problem solver, she enjoys the variety of the practice, building relationships, and working with senior attorneys, opposing counsel and specialist groups.
Building Community and Inclusion For Asian American Lawyers
When she’s not chewing on her bread-and-butter finance work, Ashley dedicates her time to building communities for AAPI lawyers inside and outside of Shearman. She is the co-chair of Shearman’s AAPI attorneys’ inclusion network – Asian Attorneys for Community, Empowerment and Success (AACES) – as well as the Vice Chair of the Membership Committee of Asian American Bar Association of New York (AABANY).
“Building relationships and showing up for my community is something that I enjoy and that motivates me,” says Ashley.
In addition to being a community for AAPI lawyers within Shearman, AACES also connects them with the broader AAPI legal community in New York State and nationally through organizations like AABANY, South Asian Bar Association of New York (SABANY) and the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA). Last year, through Shearman’s sponsorship, Ashley attended her first NAPABA convention. “It was my first time being surrounded by so many successful AAPI legal professionals. I saw the different ways one’s career can unfold, regardless of where you were born and whether you had lawyers in your family. There’s no ‘right track’ for your career and not just one way of succeeding.”
Compelled by the experience, Ashley has taken steps to strengthen the AACES community. Working with the other co-chairs, she advocated for Shearman to sponsor more professional organizations, increased Shearman attorneys’ participation in external networking events such as the NAPABA convention and brought in a distinguished Shearman alum to share his experience and advice for junior lawyers.
Raising Your Hand Brings More Opportunity
Ashley observes that many new lawyers keep their heads down, do what is told and treat their jobs as a nine-to-five. “I’m not a dabbler; I’m a diver. So if I go into a deal, I want to understand everything about it,” says Ashley. “I won’t let a conversation finish without clearly understanding next steps. I want to know where things are and who is doing what to keep the ball rolling.”
She feels her proactive attitude has invited opportunities, especially at a well-known New York law firm like Shearman. “Since joining Shearman, I’ve worked on headline-worthy deals, presented multiple CLEs, attended industry events, put on my own events, recruited external speakers and sent colleagues to conferences across the nation.” She is well aware of the power of mentors and sponsors along the way. Last year, her practice group leaders nominated her to attend a virtual development program for diverse junior associates at the New York City Bar Association. She also regularly receives support from partners and senior attorneys who guide her based on where she wants to go. In her opinion, sponsorship is a two-way street: “Opportunity only lands on people who seek it. If you want to be sponsored, you need to give people an opportunity to get to know you: what you want to do, what your strengths are, and what challenges you might be facing.”
Looking back at her career, half of which was spent during the pandemic where the practice of law was anything but normal, she credited her growth to an advice from a CrossFit coach: “He told me when you are new to the gym, just be a sponge and observe everything. That’s exactly what I did when I started my career at Shearman.” She regularly encourages law students that she mentors to embrace spontaneity and explore what interests them instead of what they think their career should look like: “There’s no one way to approach being a lawyer, and you never know how each experience is going to ultimately serve you.”
Since participating in pub runs in Durham during law school, one of the craft beer capitals of the U.S., Ashley has seriously upped her running game. She’s done a couple half-marathons and she’s also now completed the nine races and volunteering efforts that guarantee her entry in the New York City 2023 Marathon. Like Ashley says, she’s a diver.
Women Leaders – Walking Out or Walking Onwards?
Career Advice, Career Tip of the Week!“We’re finally seeing the moment where women in leadership are voting with their feet,” said Alexis Krivkovich, a managing partner at McKinsey and cofounding report author.
In this “profound change,” women are indeed deciding to vote for the workplace they want with the most compelling power they will ever have: their presence, time and energy. Nothing short of this will shake up the workplace as we have known it. No matter the current representation, senior women are going beyond just getting access to upper levels and getting clearer on what they would like to experience and see happen there, and seeking that out. Could senior women’s participation from this place of self-empowerment catalyze greater change?
Women Aren’t Leaving, They’re Leaving For Better
“We are in the midst of a Great Breakup in corporate America. Women leaders are leaving their companies at the highest rate we’ve ever seen. They aren’t leaving the workforce entirely but are choosing to leave for companies with better career opportunities, flexibility, and a real commitment to DEI,” said Sheryl Sandberg, founder of Lean In, who leaned out of Facebook this past summer.
About 10.5% of female leaders (senior management and above) left their companies in 2021, compared to 9% of male leaders. On the average year, the spread is close with only a half-point gap.
Senior women leaders, after all the journey they have gained, aren’t walking out because they don’t think they have choices. They are walking about because they finally know they do – and they are taking their leadership assets with them in search of better opportunities. Having now recovered from pandemic job losses, women are more attuned to the relationship they want (and the ones will not tolerate) within the workplace. Women’s threshold to tolerate toxicity and inequity has been thinned, yet the broken rung is still there and the broken record of unequal outcomes plays wearingly on repeat. Women leaders are voting for the relationships they want to have with work.
Cultures That Work for Women’s Advancement
Women are as ambitious as men. Black women leaders (59%) and women of color (41%) are even more likely to want to be top executives (27%). But only 1 in 4 C-Suite leaders is a woman and only one in 20 is a woman of color. For every 100 men promoted from entry level to manager, just 87 women and 82 women of color are promoted.
And the signals that counter advancement come across in microaggressions or more overt dynamics: Female leaders are twice as likely as male counterparts to be mistaken for someone junior. 37% of women leaders said they’ve had a co-worker get credit for their idea, compared to 27% of men. Black female leaders are 1.5x more likely than women overall to have had their judgment or qualification questioned. Many women still feel undermined or passed over in the workplace.
Recognition for and Performance Consideration Of Essential Work
While women are twice as likely to do be doing DEI-related and inclusion work that is helping with company performance, they are disproportionally carrying an increasingly ‘valued’ aspect of leadership that too often goes unrecognized and 40% say does not factor into the performance review. Meanwhile, women leaders are more burnt out (43%) than male counterparts (31%).
Flexible Work Cultures that Embody the Talk Around Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Women want a better work culture. Only 1 in 10 women wants to work on-site most of the time, and women will move for flexibility. It’s not surprising considering that 52% of senior female leaders do most of the family housework and childcare compared to 13% of senior male leaders. Women who work the way they want to feel far happier, feel they have more equal opportunity to advance and are less likely to leave their job. Remote work also provides a reprieve from office-based exclusion and as McKinsey points out, that is a fundamental issue for organizations to address: “Companies cannot rely on remote and hybrid work as a solution; they need to invest in creating a truly inclusive culture.”
Over the past two years, being in a culture committed to well-being and DEI has become more important to women, and they are 1.5 more likely to have left a job because they wanted a more inclusive culture.
Better And More Supportive Managers
Having a supportive manager is a top three criteria for women when thinking of joining or staying with an organization. Only about half of women say their manager encourages respectful behavior on their team regularly. Less than half say their manager shows interest in their career and helps them manage their workload. Black women and Latinas are particularly less likely to feel their manager shows interest in their career, checks in on their well-being or promotes inclusion on the team. They also experience less psychological safety. Women with various intersectional identities see gaps between the lip service to inclusion and what is actually happening in their experience.
Towards A Work Paradigm That Works For Women?
Female directors are becoming more sensitive to the conditions that don’t work for them, and it matters for them and future generations. Women under 30 are highly ambitious to become senior leaders, but 2/3 would be more interested if they saw senior women with a covetable work-life balance, an increasingly important career requirement for younger people.
The press isn’t focused on how bad this attrition of women leaders is for women. It’s focused on how bad the attrition of women leaders is for organizations. McKinsey has previously found that executives teams in the top quartile of gender diversity have a 25% greater likelihood of outperformance (above average profitability) than those in the bottom. LeanIn.Org and McKinsey have several recommendations for organizations following this recent report.
Stepping back, we are interested in what happens when women leaders take stock of their own value. All along, women have been trying to pave the way for those behind them by fighting to have a seat at the table. But increasingly, women are realizing that modeling leadership is not only about the rooms you are able to walk into, but also the rooms you are willing to walk away from. Because we need to walk towards creating organizational missions and cultures where all women (and people) are welcome and supported to lead and live their lives.
That is the power of esteeming the self. How would that mindset shift, at a collective level, give rise to more change in our workplace?
By Aimee Hansen
Sabina Munnelly: Partner, Baringa
People, Voices of ExperienceMunnelly speaks to openness on your path, being a force of nature, surpassing the barriers and the value of mirrors that reflect and magnify your possibilities.
Embracing Opportunity and Switching It Up
Since the moment that computers were introduced in the ‘90s halfway through her education at Trinity College in Dublin, Munnelly began a career she would never have seen coming.
“Embrace what comes at you. You don’t have to control everything, and it doesn’t always have to fit in with what you originally thought,” says Munnelly. “I got a whole other opportunity because I opened my mind to the technology piece.”
After starting in banking as a technology tester, Munnelly worked for Compaq and Hewlett Packard, gaining vast experience with big players. Rather than transition to management, she joined Accenture so she could continue to keep her hands in project work. Across 16 years, she jumped between various tech and data related areas of expertise, becoming a Managing Director at Accenture Applied Intelligence, and moving to New York from Europe.
“I always like to pivot every three years or so, to keep myself up to date. I’m a bit of a magpie,” confesses Munnelly. “Anything that is white space. Give me a white board, and I’ll figure it out. I prefer that, so my journey has been a constant evolution.”
In 2021, she joined Baringa, a global management consultancy working across multiple sectors including energy, financial services, telecoms, media, consumer goods, retail and government. As a leading advisor on the energy transition globally, sustainability runs through much of the business’s work across sectors. In addition to enjoying the entrepreneurial spirit of building a fast-growing team in the U.S., Munnelly feels she’s come full circle to interests at her roots, having written her thesis on wind farming back in college.
“From a financial services perspective, there’s a lot of momentum behind the notion that if you can put the capital to make the most impact in the right place, then change happens where the money goes,” notes Munnelly. “If I can be involved in making change happen through climate activity and how investors deploy their capital to fund those changes, that really resonates with me.”
Equally, culture was a big factor in her move: “For me, you have to be able to get up in the morning and love what you do and love the people your work with. A people-focused business was really important to me.”
A Force of Nature
Describing herself as driven, Munnelly feels curiosity and a love of learning and problem solving motivate her. She enjoys start-to-finish involvement, and smiles saying she would be called “a force of nature” by her colleagues.
“It’s definitely an energy, but also a cohesion with the team.”
While she’ll come into a room with a strong point of view, she feels ‘nature’ implies a melding with the environment. She’s very much about being ‘in it together’ as a team and enjoying the adventure, and feels energized by working with others. These days, she would admit that her intuition and her attunement to reading the energy of a room have been important contributions to her success, as well as self-care.
Her sensitivity to her own and other’s energy has increasingly been a validated part of how she navigates her work-life: “I balance my energy. So I don’t think about the hours I work. I actually think about the energy I expend in a day.”
If You Can See It…
Growing up with three younger brothers, Munnelly was both accustomed to being in male-dominated spaces and being respected in them. So when she went into finance and tech, her context didn’t phase her.
“I enjoyed going into rooms and finding those moments where I’d pipe up with an interesting point of view or a question, and all of a sudden, people would shift around and look at me,” she says. “So I find it quite empowering. I’ve used the difference to my advantage.”
Only as she grew more senior did the gaps in representation of women become far more visible to her. And being one of the few in that space, she felt her role was to vocalize what she saw.
“It increased my use of my voice. It’s important that it doesn’t become a silent observation or be held in,” says Munnelly. “It’s important to make sure that things are noted and vocalized, and even with the reasons, considered.”
Mary Robinson, the first female president of Ireland who held term from 1990-1997, was a real inspiration in envisioning possibility. It made such a difference to teenage Munnelly that it stirs up emotion even today. Robinson allowed her to see not only what could be, but what was possible.
“I think all of these factors combined meant I didn’t buy into the barrier, and just ignored it, and still today it hasn’t stopped me, because I have a deeper belief that it can happen – at least in the spaces where I’m operating in.”
Coming to Baringa, she was met with a U.S. office that held a 50/50 gender representation at senior levels, and where every individual has an advisor. Having doubled down on its U.S. growth in the past 5 years, a DEI approach has infused the internal culture and focus for external impact from the outset.
Do What You Love, and Empower Others
Due to her extensive background in consulting and taking an advisory role, Munnelly has become adept at taking the listening seat to consider all voices when it comes to coming up with the best way forward, rather than just pushing her initial viewpoint. She’s learned to take her own ego out of the way.
As she thinks of the shift from ‘doing’ to ‘enabling’ as a leader, and the amount of letting go required, Munnelly is grateful for the people that saw her potential and trusted her. Having your ability reflected back to you matters, she feels, regardless of what level you’re at. She focuses on paying that back, in witnessing, encouraging, motivating and empowering her team through trust: “At the end of the day it’s belief and self-belief that matter.”
“Build your skills using the best of others that are ahead of you,” she suggests. She encourages women to pick up the best of what they observe in managers and leaders, integrate what inspires you and make it your own.
Do what you love is a practical direction she recently received from a leader that empowered her: “She didn’t say ‘meet these numbers’ or ‘I want you to do these things.’ She gave me the freedom of saying ‘just continue, but do what you love.’ She probably knew that if I heard that, then I would already motivate myself and do more than what others would ask from me,” reflects Munnelly. “If I’m in a positive frame of mind, loving what I’m doing, then I’ll be even more successful.”
She suggests to ask yourself if is it possible to tweak your work to get more enjoyment out of what you’re doing. Family, friends, a good chat and laughter are core to Munnelly. She enjoys spending time with her young daughter who keeps her more than busy and grounded. She also loves cycling, and while she’s always loved adventure and fast movement, in the past years she’s begun taking up more energy balancing activities like acupuncture and massage. She’s also a Reiki master.
By Aimee Hansen
Do You Have an Intrapreneurial Mindset?
Career Advice, Career Tip of the Week!According to Wikipedia, intrapreneurship “is the act of behaving like an entrepreneur while working within a large organization. Intrapreneurship is known as the practice of a corporate management style that integrates risk-taking and innovation approaches, as well as the reward and motivational techniques, that are more traditionally thought of as being the province of entrepreneurship.”
Psychology Today says that “teaching employees to become mindful intrapreneurs is the way to future-proof an organization.”
Intrapreneurial Assignments
According to Investopedia, intrapreneurship happens when an employee is “tasked” with the initiative of developing an innovative idea or project inside an organization – and given the freedom and autonomy to explore it. Although unlike entrepreneurs, an intrapreneur has access to the resources of an established company and doesn’t face the same level of outsized risks or outsized rewards. And yet, the intrapreneur does put skin in the game.
In one way or another, the intrapreneur is leading the charge on developing something that hasn’t been done in the organization before – whether a new section, a new department, a new product – or perhaps even a new approach or new team. Intrapreneurship has an internal start-up feel. Also, the Post-It Note, Gmail and Facebook like button are all arguably products of intrapreneurial thinking.
Just as formal sponsorship would change visibility and increase equitability in opportunity for women in the leadership pipeline, Forbes has argued that intrapreneurship is one way to fast track women to high-profile and high-potential initiatives, build leadership profiles and ultimately boost female executive numbers.
But also, in the same way that entrepreneurial spirit implies an intrinsic fire, an intrapreneurial spirit does not wait around to be assigned a task. Nor should you wait for permission, if you resonate with an intrapreneurial mindset.
An Intrapreneurial Mindset
Senior leaders have told us about the value of holding an intrapreneurial attitude – which we’ve counted among top tips for elevating your leadership mindset.
Linda Descano, Executive Vice President at Red Havas, told us: “So as I think of being an ‘intrapreneurial executive,’ I bring that same sense of acting like an owner to the organization I work for. I’m going to be constantly thinking about ways of improving the business. I act like I own it, as if it’s my investment. It’s working with that same sense of responsibility and drive to make it grow.”
Indhira Arrington, Global CDEIO at Ares Management, asked: “Outside of your day job responsibilities, what are you doing to contribute to the greater good of the organization and to make yourself an impact player? Anybody can get work done. People want to promote impact players.”
With creative passion and risk-tolerance akin to entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs focus on evolving the business from within. They see opportunities that are not obvious to others. They are willing to take risks, expansive in their thinking and often dynamic in their network. They keep an eye towards opportunities. They understand the internal cultural context and external business context.
Intrapreneurs are also ideas-driven and intrinsically motivated to break down barriers and collaborate with others to make new things happen at scalable levels. That often involves going outside of departmental silos and means impacting your surroundings in a way that goes above and beyond your job description. It requires stakeholder management and ability to manage upwards, as well as project management.
It also means being organizationally savvy and knowing how to sell and pre-sell your ideas. It requires a high level of accountability, resilience and willingness to see failure as a valuable part of the journey.
As written by Tendayi Wiki in Forbes, intrapreneurs need to have a particular mindset because they are operating within larger organizations. They need to focus on creating tangible value for the organization or clients, not just on the ‘theater of innovation.’ They focus on building relationships to garner support and enthusiasm and focus on getting others behind the clear value proposition of their ideas. They also have an ‘ecosystem mindset’ that focuses on identifying repeatable processes that will apply for future projects and build environments for ideas to emerge.
The Organizational Context of Intrapreneurship
According to Samantha Paxson, CMO of CO-OP Financial Services, “What makes intrapreneurs so successful is their empathy toward colleagues’ challenges and their ability to apply critical creativity to generate new ideas.”
Paxson argues that intrapreneurship draws upon innately feminine leadership qualities of being receptive to how to better serve colleagues, clients or customers from a leadership stance. She points out that research has indicated that women score higher than men in 3/4 of the important leadership competencies that support intrapreneurshi – including taking initiative, motivating and developing others, championing change, collaboration and teamwork, problem-solving and driving results.
Though according to Women Unlimited, Inc, intrapreneurship requires two sides – both the intrapreneurial mindset and an environment that is ready to support it (and from that individual).
Organizational characteristics conducive to supporting intrapreneurism include:
How many women of color have left the corporate workplace for entrepreneurialism because they did not find an environment which was prepared to fully include their intrapreneurial mindset? An important part of encouraging an intrapreneurial mindset is that individuals are validated and rewarded for what they bring forward.
And sometimes, as Claudia Vazquez, Founder of elevink told us, it requires refusing to let go of the vision, and waiting for new opportunities and new angles, or even new contexts, to drive ahead.
Cultivating Creativity For an Intrapreneurial Mindset
While there are many components to an intrapreneurial mindset, and not everyone wants to take up that role, it’s possible to build up the qualities that support it.
Some playful advice for improving the muscle of your creative intelligence to support your ability to cultivate an intrapreneurial mindset includes:
If you hold an intrapreneurial mindset, embrace it as a leadership asset and find a culture in which you can thrive for your ability to cast your vision above and beyond the day job.
By Aimee Hansen
Cassandra Cuellar: Partner, Venture Capital, M&A and Capital Markets, Shearman & Sterling LLP
People, Voices of ExperienceTaking Ownership To Grow
“What gets me out of bed in the morning is the opportunity to work with people that are pouring their personal energy, time and wealth into the companies they’re growing,” says Cuellar. “It’s very rewarding to be a part of their journey as they start those companies, grow them and hopefully realize a successful exit. It’s life-changing for them.”
Cuellar must understand the concerns and interests of both founders and investors in her practice. She emphasizes that a collaboration mentality and solution-orientation is required to effectively advocate for her clients: “Our job is not to identify 20 roadblocks and then say we can’t go further. Our job is to identify the roadblocks, figure out if this is truly something that will be detrimental to our client, and then bring our clients in on that, figuring out the solution together.”
Cuellar enjoys the fast pace of work these days: “You get so many more people that have new ideas and diversity of thought starting companies and taking a chance on themselves. It’s great to see that and be able to be part of that.”
She is also comfortable leaning in and taking a chance on herself. “I have a willingness to take ownership over things without necessarily having to be so dependent on a hierarchical structure,” she says. “Startups run lean, so that’s the way my group approaches the practice and it’s how I’ve developed as an attorney.”
From early in her career, she had to get comfortable communicating with CEOs, CFOs, and key decision makers, but she relates learning through taking ownership to even earlier in life.
“I grew up in a small town as the oldest of four kids, and my parents had their hands full. I had to take ownership of my own professional career – getting into college, getting scholarships and making sure I was set up to move away and do my own thing,” says Cuellar. “Having that ability to do that from a young age translated well into being successful at this practice. I’m not afraid to take ownership over issues and clients and get stuff done.”
The Confidence To Trust Yourself and Others
“Latinx students going into law school don’t necessarily have readily-accessible role models that have gone into BigLaw, so often Latinx students make a choice to opt out of BigLaw, despite being more than qualified,” cautions Cuellar. “But I have found that because Latinx students often have to figure things out on their own without role models, that makes us uniquely qualified for this profession. You are used to navigating unknown waters, so it makes it easier to approach novel legal issues, transactions, and clients. The one thing I’ve learned – through negotiating the law school process, getting a job in a big law firm and now building my career – is that whatever you can throw at me, I’m going to figure it out,” she notes. “I don’t get scared off by challenge. I can rise to it because I have done it before.”
While launching herself into responsibility came naturally, her stretch zone has been releasing control. As a senior associate, she was accustomed to knowing every detail in every transaction and trusted herself to deliver on the high expectations she set. As she’s moved up, she’s had to learn to let go and trust in her team. Cuellar echoes other Latinas we’ve spoken to in expressing that being the one Latina within her practice, or one of few, feeds the drive to validate through performance. It makes letting go harder because more has felt at stake.
“Being a Latina, there’s not that many of us doing what I do, so I do feel a certain responsibility to be able to prove myself here and make sure that anything I work on is done at 100%,” she reflects. “That part of my identity and proving myself is impacted by this other part of me that needs to grow and trust other people to do things, even though I don’t have 100% control.”
Along with that self-awareness, she’s found that empathy is important.
“Letting go of some of that control has been hard, but I’m working on it,” she admits. “I’ve realized that everyone is an individual, and they’re not all like me, and I have to manage to each person versus to what my personal expectations, approaches, or processes would be.”
Encouraging Each Other’s Potential
Inspired by leaders she’s worked with, Cuellar models her practice upon listening and showing understanding to clients and those she is working with. She would love to see more Latinas follow a law path, and attributes her own decision to meeting a Latina lawyer in the Texas legislature, who encouraged her on the path.
At Shearman, Cuellar has felt supported in opening her possibilities by other women mentors: “I’ve always found someone willing to sit down and talk to me about things in a very honest fashion, who would guidepost, for example, that I needed to be thinking about business development, even as a second year, if I ultimately want to make Partner.”
In formal mentoring of law school students, especially Latinas and Latinos, she implores students not to limit themselves based on context or precedents, but instead to take a good look at whether a big law firm could be a match: “You work a lot, but you learn a lot, and have a lot of professional opportunities. I think it’s important that more Latinos and Latinas feel comfortable taking that risk, even if it might not be something your family understands at the time. You’re setting yourself up for your future professionally. You can at least try, and you could even be successful.”
Finding Out What Works For You
Cuellar admits it has taken her years to get comfortable in networking, but she tells students to take networking seriously as a skill to develop, the earlier the better.
But she’s also found her own approach to creating connections. “What I’ve discovered, whether it’s within the firm or with a volunteer opportunity, is my best networking is done when I’m working with someone. I take that approach of trying to get to know people by doing a good job with work they send my way, making sure that they feel valued and working from there (with common interests etc) – versus attending every networking event, because I find it hard to make deep connections in that context.”
Cuellar considers it part of the trial and error of getting to know yourself. Try out different things to see what works for you, and develop your own network style.
Her close-knit family and three year old son Max come first in her life. They enjoy cooking, celebrating birthdays and planning holidays. She enjoys connecting with close friends through the early experiences of motherhood. In this particular moment, it appears her son Max is rebelling against preschool yoga.
By Aimee Hansen