By Tina Vasquez
If you ever needed a reason to get over your fear of public speaking, new research from Weber Shandwick should do the trick. The public relations firm reports that a full 60 percent of women who speak at executive conferences also have a seat on boards, which the firm says demonstrates a “direct ‘speak and sit’ correlation.” The firm also asserts that top US women business leaders who engage audiences are more apt to be acknowledged as effective leaders.
Liz Rizzo, Weber Shandwick’s research partner on the study, says that in reality, only a third of board seats are filled using “traditional” methods.
“Most board appointees come from networking and referral, so what better way to make those connections than by speaking at a conference?” Rizzo asked.
According to Weber Shandwick’s executive vice president, Carol Ballock, there’s no better time to consider speaking at conferences. The EVP says the opportunities in the conference space have never been better – but you have to choose the “right” space.
“You have to be strategic if you want your efforts to translate in a bigger way,” Shandwick said. “Who will be in the room? What will you be talking about? If you’re speaking at a well-chosen conference, there’s more than your time on stage to consider. You’ll have conversations with editors, interviews with writers, one-on-one meetings, and opportunities for joining new networks, networks you may not have been able to join otherwise. If you choose the right conference, you don’t have to do a whole lot to get a high return.”
Taking The ‘Right’ Approach
Raleigh Mayer, founder of Raleigh Mayer Consulting, and a frequent partner contributor to theglasshammer.com on topics such as public speaking, executive presence, and leadership agrees landing a speaking engagement is phenomenal and can clearly add a much-needed boost to your career.
Mayer goes on to say it’s important “that when the opportunity is given, you’ve got to be ready for it, making sure to avoid the mistakes often made when speaking to a large group of peers.”
The seasoned public speaker says this includes diminishing yourself, both physically and verbally, by apologizing, refusing to take credit, or shrugging off and avoiding attention.
“We do this because we are taught that it’s wrong to be the center of attention, or we feel uncomfortable attracting it,” Mayer said. “We sit when we should stand, sometimes ramble and fail to make solid points, and often engage in reflexive and inappropriate apologizing, or what I call diminishing disclaimers: ‘This is just an idea’; ‘It’s only my opinion’; ‘I may be way off-track here’, rather that stating our viewpoints or recommendations directly. Teenage girls criticize their counterparts who behave too confidently by saying, ‘She thinks she’s all that,’ meaning, ‘She thinks she’s better than everybody else.’ Executive women should take a tip from the men: earn that label, and take it as a compliment.”
Company Visibility & Career Advancement
At just 36, Czarina Walker is CEO of InfiniEDGE Software, Inc., a Louisiana-based custom software development company. She has also participated in a wide-range of speaking engagements, from local and national to entrepreneurial and technical. The benefit, she says, is two-fold.
“It kept us in front of the public when we are traditionally a field that people do not think much about. We found that customers generally remembered us better because they saw that I had spoken at various events,” Walker said. “The ability to think on my feet while speaking has also had a great deal to do with my personal and professional success. Within eight-months of agreeing to do at least monthly speaking engagements in business or industry, I was asked to participate in four boards at the same time.”
Too Much Visibility
What the CEO didn’t anticipate, however, was the amount of time that all four boards would involve, and that they would also require her to take on additional speaking roles. Walker came to realize that she had to be more careful about the amount of time she was devoting to speaking and serving on boards. The realization came after she asked her employees what made their company different.
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Building the Talent Pipeline: Developing Your Networking Skills within Your Organization
PipelineIt is clear that any woman who is going after a high-powered position in any industry, but especially in financial services, law and business, will need to have a strong resume. While many focus on painstakingly compiling their credentials, career background, accomplishments, spending weeks on application materials and making everything look as perfect as can be on paper and online, as well as conducting external networking by attending various events etc., they are forgetting one important thing – the Art of Internal Networking!
We have all heard of the saying “it’s not what you know, but who you know!” and how networking can benefit our careers. But have you thought about how your own network, especially your internal network, is your most powerful tool. Most people focus on the external networking aspect of developing their careers. Sometimes the most effective networking takes place where you dwell on a day to day basis. This relates back to the 6 Degrees of Separation theory highlighting the importance of information flow, building networks in one’s own organization and developing the tools for communication.
If you are a woman on the verge of making a big move or wanting to make such a move, consider these top ten tips for making an impact:
1. Become a Connector– Connectors have a different kind of power as they always know someone. They may be good at making suitable introductions. Hence, there is great value in forming and maintaining a strong circle of contacts. It is important to factor in first impressions and guide what you want new contacts to say about you after the initial meeting. Connectors love social connections as it is in their human nature and collect friends like stamps. It is the nurturing and coordinating of introductions that they enjoy the most which is the art of networking. That said, lots of people are not naturally social but they can become a Connector by learning the main skills. This can range from emailing or calling colleagues in other areas of the organisation who they have not seen in a while and organizing a lunch or coffee catch up to update them on various activities which may be of use and/or interest to them.
2. Focus on giving versus getting – internal networking is an investment for yourself and your organisation hence try to adopt an attitude of giving to your network. This should ultimately be a “give and take” relationship not just “take”.
3. Constantly add value to your network – Think about the ways you can add value to your network and continue to do this on a regular basis. It is important that you are playing your part and not just turning up every day to do the bare minimum. If you work in the finance industry, you could email your own area or another internal area about the latest news in the trading market or various banking regulations which are fast and flowing at the moment. Hence, who do you think they will approach should they need advice on trading or banking regulation information? I hope you are beginning to see the value in this personal branding through your internal network which could be extended to your external network. This links into my next tip where your knowledge can make you powerful within your organisation.
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Voice of Experience: Miranda Brawn, Barrister and Director, Daiwa Capital
Voices of ExperienceOne of Brawn’s first mentors advised her to treat this industry like a marathon, not a sprint. “There are far too many people who burn out and age rapidly due to burning the candle at both ends and not looking after themselves,” she said.
“Achieving a senior leadership role will not happen overnight,” Brawn added. “Stay focused and be patient.”
A Multitude of Experiences
When Brawn decided to enter the financial services industry after completing her A levels, she only intended to work for one year before entering University. Life, as it would have it, had other plans for her as she went on to enjoy a successful and multi-faceted career in the male-dominated worlds of financial services and law.
Since entering the workforce at age eighteen, Brawn has held many different roles at some of the world’s leading financial institutions, including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, and Deutsche Bank. She has also worked for law firms where she has acted as a consultant legal advisor. Currently, Brawn is a Director at Daiwa Capital, where her primary role is to manage the company’s legal risk across Europe for the derivatives and securities financing businesses.
“It is a transformational time for the industry right now as changes in banking regulations are presenting new challenges,” said Brawn.
Although she did not follow a strictly traditional path, Brawn is proud of the fact that she was able to complete all of her studies while working full-time in demanding positions. “I am not afraid of a challenge,” remarked Brawn, who has earned her MBA, Law degree, Journalism Diploma, and most recently, completed her studies in Political Philosophy at the University of Cambridge.
It is this same mentality that keeps Brawn busy outside of her daily 9-5 responsibilities. “I have other interests such as being a board director, barrister, freelance writer, motivational public speaker and now a brand ambassador for The Fold London,” said Brawn. Additionally, Brawn is also the founder and CEO of Pluto Law Limited.
Keeping Diversity on the Agenda
Brawn is very passionate about diversity issues, which is why she has been extremely committed to networking, mentoring, and sponsorship initiatives throughout her entire career. “I wish I had realized the value of having mentors early on in my career,” Brawn noted.
She continued, “It can be difficult for women to break into that established ‘old boys’ network especially within Front Office client facing roles where it is still pretty much a male dominated environment.” According to Brawn, women need to increase their networking efforts in order to gain the mentoring and sponsorship relationships that will ultimately have a positive impact on their career growth and advancement.
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The Imposter Syndrome: Why Owning Your Success is Critical to Your Career
FeaturedSurely someone more experienced or more knowledgeable should be in this position instead of me.
These feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt – which some of us have experienced throughout our career –can be harmless. However, if they present themselves frequently, leading us to frequently doubt our abilities, they can have a detrimental impact on our careers.
This phenomenon of feeling undeserving of our accomplishments despite evidence to suggest otherwise, was first coined as the Imposter Syndrome by Dr. Pauline Clance and Dr. Suzanne Imes in 1978. After studying 150 highly successful women, they found that although the women were high achievers in their various fields, they struggled to internalise their successes – pointing more to other factors such as luck, or support from others, as opposed to their own knowledge and skills. Now, over 30 years later, the imposter syndrome is still a concept widely used to explain –at least in part –the lack of female business leaders.
According to Ann Harriman, both women and men tend to define their successes or failures using four “attributional causes”: ability, effort, luck, and task difficulty. The first two attributes, ability and effort, are categorized as being stable and internal. Thus, successes attributed to these causes will likely be repeated because they result from internal capabilities. However, when someone attributes their success to external causes like luck or task difficulty, it is unlikely they will continue to build on their achievements. Instead of owning our successes, these external causes lead us to feeling like imposters.
The Imposter Syndrome and Women
It turns out that while men also experience the imposter feeling (albeit less frequently and with less intensity than women), they are more likely to see their successes as a result of stable and internal causes. Women, on the other hand, tend to select unstable and external causes when they are asked to identify the factors that led to their success. Moreover, women also have a tendency to assign stable and internal causes when acknowledging their failures. This, in turn, feeds the imposter syndrome.
Studies show that imposters are motivated to succeed in order to demonstrate that they are worthy of their position, rather than to meet longer term personal development goals. Imposters are also more likely to isolate themselves to avoid being exposed. According to Valerie Young’s research, these behaviours impact the talent pipeline and the overall success of organisations. She explains that employees who suffer from the imposter syndrome are less likely to take risks, procrastinate (for fear of being found not able to complete a task), and fall into the “expert trap” where they stick with what they know instead of seeking out promotions and other challenging opportunities to grow professionally.
How can we ensure that the imposter syndrome doesn’t negatively impact the gender balance of our leadership groups by keeping women out of the top spots?
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The False Choice Between Kindness and Success
LeadershipYahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer, was ranked the eighth most powerful woman in business by Forbes in 2013. Not too bad for a 38-year-old self-professed technology geek from Wausau, Wisconsin, who took the helm of Yahoo in July 2012, while she was six-months pregnant. Although there has been much written about her golden girl looks, her workaholic schedule, and her blinding ambition as she climbed her way up in a male-dominated industry at two of the world’s biggest technology companies – Google and Yahoo – nobody has ever described Mayer’s personality or leadership style as “too nice.”
In fact, the technology industry and the media were in an uproar when she banned remote-working from home privileges at Yahoo and, in doing so, she came under intense scrutiny for this huge shift in Yahoo’s corporate culture. A lot of anger and criticism was directed towards the fact that Mayer was a woman who just had a baby and somehow that meant, as a female CEO, she had a greater responsibility to be – how shall we put it – more understanding, more flexible, possibly, nicer?
Mayer chose business goals over personal feelings when she eliminated remote working privileges and while this may not have been considered a “nice” business decision to some, it is unfair to say Mayer wasn’t being ”kind” to her employees. After all, it is unlikely that if a male CEO chose to make the same business decision as Mayer he would have faced the same amount of scrutiny.
Leading with Kindness, Demanding Respect
Societal stereotypes of the sexes have made it difficult to view female leadership decisions as we would male leadership decisions. Women leaders like Mayer have the extra burden of not sacrificing business goals to avoid hurt feelings, but also showing a level of decency and kindness towards others. The pressure women face to balance these stereotypes remains a challenging task.
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Voice of Experience: Kim Posnett, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs
Voices of ExperienceAccording to Kim Posnett, a Managing Director in the Technology, Media and Telecom (TMT) group in the Investment Banking Division at Goldman Sachs, diversity is something she became accustomed to early on in her life. “I was born in Nashville, Tennessee and raised in New York City. I grew up as an American kid in multi-ethnic family with a Vietnamese mother and Swiss father,” she explained.
“I was always comfortable being different. More importantly, I grew up with the instinct to bridge gaps and find commonalities among different people. That has carried over into my professional career and has been very helpful,” Posnett added.
Career in Investment Banking
“I had a non-linear career path,” said Posnett, who attended Yale University to study History and Theater. After graduating Yale, Posnett moved to California in her early twenties to work in the media and entertainment industry. Then, in her late twenties, Posnett decided to make a career shift, and attended The Wharton School of Business to study finance and earn her MBA. After graduating from business school, Posnett joined Goldman Sachs. Early in her career, Goldman Sachs asked her to cover internet and eCommerce companies, which she has been doing ever since. Posnett noted, “I am fortunate to work with the leading internet, eCommerce, software and technology companies that are disrupting their industries through innovation and technology.” She finds that working with visionary founders, CEOs and CFOs is the most rewarding aspect of her job, and is something she has remained passionate about throughout her decade of working as a banker in the industry.
“I feel most proud when I know I have earned the trust, respect and loyalty of my clients,” Posnett added. “I am also incredibly proud of our Goldman team’s commitment, integrity and singular focus on helping clients, and helping each other.”
The pace of innovation in internet and eCommerce is exciting for Posnett, who enjoys working in a dynamic sector that is undergoing fundamental shifts. “We are entering a post-PC era,” said Posnett, “where consumers can transact anytime and anywhere off their mobile devices. Companies are leveraging data and analytics to drive personalization and relevance for their customers. Powerful interest communities and vertical content companies are changing the way people browse, discover and shop online. There’s much more — it’s a very exciting time.”
According to Posnett, there can be misperceptions about what a career in investment banking actually means. “I don’t think young people grasp how interesting and dynamic investment banking can be,” she explained, “especially in technology banking, where our clients are entrepreneurs who are changing the world as we know it. The job can be incredibly entrepreneurial and creative.”
Women in Investment Banking
“I think it is really important for young women to figure out what they want in life. Everyone has a different definition of happiness and success,” said Posnett. She explained how lucky she was to have her parents as role models. “They both loved what they did for a living, and as a result, they always encouraged me to pursue what I loved most,” she added.
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Committing to Purpose Can Provide Real Results for Women Leaders
Guest ContributionWhat does it mean for business leaders to be truly committed to purpose and to lead a company that brings its purpose to life every day?
As women business leaders, committing to purpose can be one of the most valuable, meaningful decisions we make. But if you don’t mean it, don’t do it. Ultimately, it will only hurt you to claim purpose and not follow through. When you’re truly committed, every stakeholder can see it.
Female leadership is enhanced by a dedication to purpose. Not only does this focus utilize the traditional traits associated with women leaders – like collaboration, empathy and selflessness – it also can help female leaders build continuous engagement with employees, customers and other key stakeholders. Studies have shown that leaders committed to purpose are more able to retain key talent and improve employee engagement regardless of their gender.
As women leaders, we have an opportunity to be in the forefront of this type of purpose-driven focus. A dedication to purpose begins by sharing the benefits of connecting with a core corporate purpose; it is the foundation upon which all business decisions should be balanced. When developed, women leaders can use this to guide their company’s direction, mission and all the business decisions that lead to success. It is a roadmap to align all internal behaviors to deliver on purpose and train every employee toward that goal.
But don’t consider this strategy soft. A focus on purpose produces hard and fast results. Corporate cultures based on shared values outperform other firms by four times in revenue growth and 12 times in stock growth, according to the book Corporate Culture and Performance by John Kotter and James Heskett. Additionally, purpose explains up to 8% of the variation of the financial performance of companies operating within the same industry, and companies devoted to a larger purpose than maximizing profits outform the S&P 500 by a ratio of 9:1, according to a Burson-Marsteller survey.
Here are some ways that women business leaders can demonstrate their companies are delivering on purpose:
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The Importance of Visibility: Taking the ‘Right’ Approach to Speaking Engagements
Pipeline, What's OnIf you ever needed a reason to get over your fear of public speaking, new research from Weber Shandwick should do the trick. The public relations firm reports that a full 60 percent of women who speak at executive conferences also have a seat on boards, which the firm says demonstrates a “direct ‘speak and sit’ correlation.” The firm also asserts that top US women business leaders who engage audiences are more apt to be acknowledged as effective leaders.
Liz Rizzo, Weber Shandwick’s research partner on the study, says that in reality, only a third of board seats are filled using “traditional” methods.
“Most board appointees come from networking and referral, so what better way to make those connections than by speaking at a conference?” Rizzo asked.
According to Weber Shandwick’s executive vice president, Carol Ballock, there’s no better time to consider speaking at conferences. The EVP says the opportunities in the conference space have never been better – but you have to choose the “right” space.
“You have to be strategic if you want your efforts to translate in a bigger way,” Shandwick said. “Who will be in the room? What will you be talking about? If you’re speaking at a well-chosen conference, there’s more than your time on stage to consider. You’ll have conversations with editors, interviews with writers, one-on-one meetings, and opportunities for joining new networks, networks you may not have been able to join otherwise. If you choose the right conference, you don’t have to do a whole lot to get a high return.”
Taking The ‘Right’ Approach
Raleigh Mayer, founder of Raleigh Mayer Consulting, and a frequent partner contributor to theglasshammer.com on topics such as public speaking, executive presence, and leadership agrees landing a speaking engagement is phenomenal and can clearly add a much-needed boost to your career.
Mayer goes on to say it’s important “that when the opportunity is given, you’ve got to be ready for it, making sure to avoid the mistakes often made when speaking to a large group of peers.”
The seasoned public speaker says this includes diminishing yourself, both physically and verbally, by apologizing, refusing to take credit, or shrugging off and avoiding attention.
“We do this because we are taught that it’s wrong to be the center of attention, or we feel uncomfortable attracting it,” Mayer said. “We sit when we should stand, sometimes ramble and fail to make solid points, and often engage in reflexive and inappropriate apologizing, or what I call diminishing disclaimers: ‘This is just an idea’; ‘It’s only my opinion’; ‘I may be way off-track here’, rather that stating our viewpoints or recommendations directly. Teenage girls criticize their counterparts who behave too confidently by saying, ‘She thinks she’s all that,’ meaning, ‘She thinks she’s better than everybody else.’ Executive women should take a tip from the men: earn that label, and take it as a compliment.”
Company Visibility & Career Advancement
At just 36, Czarina Walker is CEO of InfiniEDGE Software, Inc., a Louisiana-based custom software development company. She has also participated in a wide-range of speaking engagements, from local and national to entrepreneurial and technical. The benefit, she says, is two-fold.
“It kept us in front of the public when we are traditionally a field that people do not think much about. We found that customers generally remembered us better because they saw that I had spoken at various events,” Walker said. “The ability to think on my feet while speaking has also had a great deal to do with my personal and professional success. Within eight-months of agreeing to do at least monthly speaking engagements in business or industry, I was asked to participate in four boards at the same time.”
Too Much Visibility
What the CEO didn’t anticipate, however, was the amount of time that all four boards would involve, and that they would also require her to take on additional speaking roles. Walker came to realize that she had to be more careful about the amount of time she was devoting to speaking and serving on boards. The realization came after she asked her employees what made their company different.
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Voice of Experience: Grace Wang, Chief Financial Officer, Green Dot Corporation
Voices of Experience“Early on in your career, the quality of your work will get you noticed.” said Grace Wang, Chief Financial Officer at Green Dot Corporation, “But as you grow older and move up the scale, you have to be cognizant of how you partner, how you are perceived, and how you are helpful to others around you.”
Sharing experiences and giving back to the upcoming generation of women is extremely important to Wang, and she encourages women at all career levels to make sure they are supporting other women along the way.
Making a Difference in Her Career
Currently, Grace Wang serves as the Chief Financial Officer at Green Dot, the top provider of prepaid debit card products and prepaid card reloading services in the United States, and creator of the award winning mobile bank account, GoBank. “Throughout my career, I have always been drawn to roles where I am part of a team that is driving both innovation and change,” said Wang.
Wang began her professional career in management consulting working for A.T. Kearney, and later Booz, where she focused on financial services, telecomm, media, and technology companies. For the last nine+ years, Wang worked at JP Morgan, where she started as the Head of International Strategy and Business Development. In this role, she ran teams in EMEA, Asia Pacific, and Latin America for their $8 billion Treasury and Security Services business.
After this role, Wang advanced to become CFO for Europe, Middle East and Africa for the same business where she was responsible for managing several hundred people primarily based in London. Wang continued to grow with JP Morgan, eventually becoming CFO for their Investor Services business.
“At the beginning of my career with A.T. Kearney, I had the opportunity to help build out the financial services practice,” said Wang. “This experience sparked my passion for building businesses in addition to doing my day job of analysis and advising large banks and corporations.”
One of the most rewarding aspects of working for Green Dot is the mission and purpose driven environment, according to Wang. “This is a company that believes in existing for the consumers, especially those who are unbanked –which is an astonishing 50 million people in the U.S. alone –and need a way to make purchases,” she explained. “The Green Dot product suite gives people that capability.”
For example, Green Dot is currently partnering with the Steve Harvey Show to provide pre-loaded Green Dot prepaid debit cards to individuals who have made an impact in their community. “It is our way to say ‘thank you’ and recognize people making a difference who could use a hand themselves,” said Wang.
She continued, “It’s about launching, promoting, and building new products that are transforming the financial services landscape for the future in a way that is helpful to the people who need it the most.”
An Advocate for Women in the Workplace
A key moment in Wang’s career came when she was nominated for the Asian Women of Achievement Award in the business category while working in London, where she was based for 15 years. “The award was for sponsoring and supporting diversity in the workplace,” said Wang, who founded and led JP Morgan’s Women MDs committee in EMEA along with two other senior women at the firm.
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Women in Venture Capital: Is There Progress on Both Sides of the Deal?
Money TalksAccording to recent data from PitchBook, more women-founded companies are receiving venture funding than ever before. Specifically, 13 percent of venture capital deals favored women-founded companies in the first half of 2013, compared to only 4 percent in 2004. While this growth signals a step in the right direction, it is undoubtedly a slower rate of growth than we would expect.
In that same period, the percentage of women earning MBAs increased slightly from 34.8 percent in 2004 to 35.9 percent in 2011-2012. These numbers are an improvement considering that in 1990, 33.9 percent of women graduated with MBAs. Women continue to make up a larger percentage of MBA graduates in the United States, so this makes us question just how much change is occurring when it comes to start ups and funding new ventures. Is it really still such a strongly male-dominated landscape? Where are the women?
Furthermore, PitchBook’s data reflects all industries and sectors and interestingly almost half (40 percent) of the distribution of money was allocated to women-founded companies in the retail sector in the first half of 2013.
However, when you put the industries –such as technology where women continue to be underrepresented–under the microscope, it is clear that there still a lot of progress to be made.
Looking at this from the lens of women on boards and in decision making executive roles, technology companies with at least one woman founder comprised just 10 percent of the venture capital deals through the first half of 2013.
Addressing and Overcoming the Underlying Issues
A research report entitled, “Women Entrepreneurs and Venture Capital: Managing the Shadow Negotiation,” released by the Simmons School of Management explored how gender constructs impact the male and female entrepreneurs, as well as the investors responsible for providing the capital. Simmons’ researchers claim that in addition to the overt business procedures taking place in a venture deal, there is also a very important underlying interaction occurring simultaneously: the shadow negotiation.
They write, “As Kolb and Williams suggest (2000), women in negotiation face additional issues both on and off the table as hidden agendas and masked assumptions play out as a result of often unintentional, but still powerful gendered biases and assumptions.” That being said, the researchers suggest several things that successful female entrepreneurs do in order to gain access to funding.
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Voice of Experience: Amy Tsui Luke, Managing Director, Accenture
People, Voices of Experience“Find your mentors,” advises Amy Tsui Luke, Managing Director at Accenture.
“They have taught me, shared their networks with me and most importantly, stepped in with encouragement when I doubted myself.” According to Luke, the right mentors can help you find confidence within yourself, open doors that lead to career advancement opportunities and offer advice during critical transition points in your career.
Making a Difference at Work and Beyond
After graduating from Wellesley College, Luke began her career in investment banking before attending Harvard Business School to earn her MBA. Now, as a managing director at Accenture, Luke has the opportunity to do what she loves each day.
Luke has always believed in having a clear and direct voice, even if it means occasionally deviating from the status quo. “Early in my career, I found myself in situations in which I felt I needed to make my points of view known,” says Luke. “I decided that if I wanted to be a leader, I needed to speak my mind and have the strength to make tough decisions.” Displaying courage and confidence have been instrumental in making Luke the influential leader she is today.
Not only does Luke find it gratifying to provide her clients with practical business solutions, she also is very active in her community through Accenture’s corporate citizenship initiative, Skills to Succeed. “Education was the gateway to opportunity for my family,” explains Luke, whose grandfather emigrated from China on a scholarship. “He was skilled in engineering but he didn’t speak English and struggled to communicate and fit in. Despite these challenges, he persevered, acquired skills and created a new trajectory for all of us who followed.”
Her grandfather’s experiences inspired Luke to become the executive sponsor of a recently launched LaGuardia Community College program that helps non-native English speakers who hold an advanced degree in accounting or bookkeeping from their home country find jobs in this field in the US. “We provide these students –who typically range in age from 29 to 41 years old –with both hard and soft skills to enable them to pursue jobs with strong career growth opportunities,” she notes.
Inspiring Professional Women
According to Luke, giving back through mentoring is one of the most rewarding aspects of her role at Accenture. She underscores the importance of creating a diverse network that includes many different types of mentors. “Often, I find that people look for a mentor to be an ideal role model across the many dimensions of their lives – professional, personal, etc. This expectation is unrealistic; I advise people to have a variety of mentors along many dimensions with varying skills – a personal ‘Board of Directors’ so to speak. You never know the type of advice and help you may need in life. ” explains Luke.
“I am always ready to help others, lend a supportive ear or provide words of advice. I try to create an inclusive environment, with my team and with my mentees, so they can feel comfortable to try new things, take chances and even make mistakes. It is this combination of exposure and encouragement that builds resilience and confidence.”
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