Starting Your Next Life Chapter: Five Tips to Protect Your Legacy

By Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)

For many women, the most difficult part of leaving a company they’ve spent years at – no matter the reason for their departure (retirement, reinvention, or realignment) – is the fear of what will happen to the legacy they’re leaving behind. Whether special projects, women’s initiatives, or a groundbreaking career path, how do you protect the legacy you’ve built at a company as you prepare to leave?

Michelle Flowers Welch finds herself in this exact situation. After an illustrious 35-year career in public relations and after spending the past 21 years of her life building her award-winning multicultural communications firm Flowers Communications Group, she’s leaving it all behind not for retirement, but for a new venture.

Here are a few ways Flowers Welch advises women to protect what they’ve built, while still looking ahead.

Passing the Torch: Identify a Protégé

After working for the Chicago Urban League, Flowers Welch joined Chicago’s wildly successful communications firm GolinHarris, which would change the path of her career forever.

“I walked into GolinHarris in 1983 and I knew I was home,” Flowers Welch said. “I loved the agency side and I knew that one day, I would have my own agency. I began to develop an interest in ethnic marketing and I always knew that I would be an entrepreneur and that I would follow a path that I felt would allow me to control my destiny.”

Flowers Communications Group is considered a powerhouse in the industry – as is Flowers Welch, who’s been awarded the Hall of Fame Award from PR News and Northwestern University, the National Black Public Relations Society’s Founders Award, and the Public Club of Chicago’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Flowers Welch’s firm recently celebrated its 20-year anniversary and its matriarch has handed over the glass baton.

“The theme for our anniversary was 20 Years and Blooming, and I really feel good about the agency’s future and its next 20 years,” Flowers Welch said. “This company will be in great hands under our new president Rashada Whitehead, the first person other than me to carry that title.”

Whitehead joined the company fresh out of college in 1999, but left to work at a general market agency for a few years. Whitehead returned in 2008 sharper than ever, so Flowers Welch worked with her protégée to develop a succession plan designed to create a legacy of leadership and continue building the company.

Flowers Welch is now in the process of writing her next chapter with the creation of her new company Welch Enterprises. In many ways, she’s luckier than most women who are leaving companies that are not their own, which makes protecting their legacies all the more difficult.

“Rashada is an outstanding communications professional who shares my vision and passion for business and I sleep well at night knowing that with Rashada’s vision and leadership, this company will live on and thrive,” Flowers Welch said. “I understand what a blessing it is to have such a dynamic young leader who is doing an outstanding job of guiding Flowers Communications Group into the future with the same dedication and drive that I embraced 21 years ago.”

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35 Under 35: Vivian Lau, Partner, Serengeti Asset Management

By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“What excites me and makes me driven is that I love to invest capital,” began Vivian Lau, Partner at Serengeti Asset Management. “And when it comes to investing, the markets are exciting. Every year it’s hard to make money until you finish the year and find ways to make money. I just love coming to work every day.”

At 34 years old, Lau has achieved quite a bit. After graduating from Harvard in 2000, she began her career at Goldman Sachs on its distressed investments desk. Six short years later, she became managing director at the firm. She ran Goldman Sachs’ proprietary business until 2008 when she joined Serengeti Asset Management as a partner.

At Serengeti, she is responsible for managing the business as well as the portfolio. “Our goal is to find investments that are cheap or misunderstood in some way.”

“I’ve never been someone tremendously proud of accolades, but I think what I’m most proud of is what we have accomplished here at Serengeti. We’re a five year-old business with a billion dollars in capital,” Lau continued. “I’m also proud of the team we have built. We’ve attracted people we’ve worked with in the past – I’ve worked with these colleagues for seven to ten years.”

“I work with people whom I trust and whom I truly love working with. When you find the right people and work with them, I think you can build a tremendous investment firm.”

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Thought Leaders: Davia Temin, CEO, Temin & Co.

thought-leadershipToday, with our myriad platforms on which to publish, promote, “like,” and share, maintaining a reputation is both easier and more difficult. The Internet as a tool can make our thoughts and feelings public instantly – so you had better be sure what you do share is authentically you, and carefully considered. That goes doubly for leaders – because especially when they self-publish over social media, leaders are the subject of other people’s scrutiny and discussion. And that’s the essence of reputation – you can craft it with your own behavior, but it is spread by other people.

Davia Temin, Founder and CEO of the global reputation management firm Temin & Co., sincerely believes that your reputation is your biggest asset – and it’s also a big responsibility. She explained, “The first quote on our website is by Warren Buffett and I think it’s the best and most true way leaders think about reputation. He says, ‘It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.’”

Your reputation encompasses how you conduct yourself, what you say and do, what you say about yourself, and what other people say about you. It’s built on a lifetime of actions and interactions, Temin says. Leaders need to be sure they’re living up to the reputation they want to have. “Seek to create an authentic and consistent reputation that encapsulates and captures your best self. And then live up to it.”

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Resolution: Three Ways to Help Other Women While Helping Yourself

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Happy New Year! It’s January 2013, and time to think about the year ahead. What better way to start than with a little history lesson?

Celebrating the New Year on January 1st goes back as far as the ancient Romans. In fact, the Romans had a god dedicated to new beginnings: Janus, which is where we get the name January, today. On the first day of the year, people made offerings to Janus, and, then as now, they spent the day wishing one another health and prosperity for the year ahead.

We can also see the essence of another contemporary New Year’s Day tradition in Janus. In artwork and literature, he is depicted as having two heads, one looking forward and one looking back. Similarly, when we set New Year’s resolutions, we do so looking both forward and to the past.

For decades, professional women have had to deal with the false stereotype that women try to thwart other women’s success or seek to hold one another back at work. We believe its time to move past that tired myth. It’s time to acknowledge that, while some people may work against their colleagues, it’s not a trait specific to or more prevalent in women. In fact – as Catalyst research showed last year – women do help one another. A lot.

Looking back at this old stereotype, and the research showing that it’s just not true, we believe it’s time to move forward. Out with the old biased myths and in with real progress on the image of women in the workplace! We hope you’ll join us in making a Women Helping Women resolution this year.

We want to make it so clear that women are helping each other advance that the queen bee stereotype gets laid to rest for good, and we can move past the negative vision of women perpetuated by the myth. Let’s all make some noise about the ways in which women help other women succeed.

Here are three ways you can help women – and help yourself in the process.

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Happy Holidays from The Glass Hammer

By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

As the end of the year approaches, The Glass Hammer will be taking an editorial break for the holidays. We will return Wednesday, January 2 with new articles to inform, empower, and inspire you for the year ahead.

In the meantime, we hope that you will also take brief pause to reflect on the year gone by. What did you hope to achieve in 2012? What did you successfully accomplish? What new strategies did you learn for career advancement this year that you hope to leverage or amplify in 2013?

Please share your successes and challenges in the comments space below – we would love to catalogue how you have advanced in 2012!

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Women Leaders Share Wisdom at Second Annual Toigo Groundbreakers Summit

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By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

Last week, the Toigo Foundation held its Groundbreakers Summit for female leaders. While this was just the second annual summit, the Foundation has worked for over two decades to bring diversity to the financial sector.

That’s why Toigo Alumna Nicole Pullen Ross, Managing Director and Mid-Atlantic Region Head at Goldman Sachs, said with a laugh during her welcome remarks, “Stand back and be prepared for what is in many ways a homecoming. You may get in the way of a hug.”

Ross, the first African American to become a managing director at Goldman’s Private Wealth Management business, said she wasn’t sure where she would be without the Toigo Foundation’s guidance. “Outside this room, we’re very accustomed to being the first or the only. But today, we are collectively one of the many,” she said.

The goal of the summit was to share insight into how and why women break through to leadership in the financial industry and in the broader business community. Speakers shared their advice and experience with guests at the sold-out conference.

Here are a few key insights by leadership speakers Lisa Garcia Quiroz, Chief Diversity Officer at Time Warner; Gwen Ifill, Moderator and Managing Editor at Washington Week and Senior Correspondent and Co-anchor at PBS Newshour; Janet Hill, Principal at Hill Family Advisors; Abigail Disney, Filmmaker and Philanthropist; and Debbie McCoy, Director of the SEED Institute at Stanford University.

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Leadership and Authorization: Our Publisher’s 2012 Year End Review

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By Nicki Gilmour, Founder and CEO of The Glass Hammer

Last week saw a flurry of activity around women’s progress at work. It was a fitting end to a year that has been coined the Year of the Woman, due to increased female political representation here in the US and perhaps due to a few high profile appointments in the business world, such as Marissa Mayer as CEO of Yahoo and Virginia Rometty as CEO of IBM.

But before we start celebrating that our work is done here at The Glass Hammer, I would like to suggest that excessive media coverage of one or two appointments of women to top spots does not gender parity make.

Good Conversations

Last week, the 2020 Women on Boards campaign produced a series of events across the US on 12/12/12. 2020 WOB ’s mission is raising awareness to help get more women on boards – 20 percent by 2020 to be precise. I attended one of these events hosted by the Forté Foundation and Ernst & Young in New York.

I was impressed by the event’s dialogue, which recognized that corporate practices needed to change if women are to be recruited onto boards. I was encouraged by the poignant discussion around systems and policies being reviewed – such as terms limits for board members and retirement ages, which average 75 years old.

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Fast Contributors Make More Money than Fast Learners – Which One Are You?

Contributed by Melissa Llarena

Conversations with 15 executives, many who earn more in one hour than some employees make annually, revealed that progressing toward important goals commands more money than simply being a fast learner. I find that many aspiring career changers focus on their ability to quickly learning complex subjects while hiring managers unanimously say that no one cares about fast learners.

As a finance professional, you risk career suicide if you cannot prove you are a fast contributor to a hiring manager. Why? Thousands of finance professionals are being involuntarily s-q-u-e-e-z-e-d out of work. For example, the US finance sector contracted by 200K jobs in 2011, according to a Bloomberg article. Preparatory skills for a career transition matter more if you are a Gen X-er because you are on the cusp of your highest income earning years. Outstanding debts and family needs do not permit unemployment outside of your sector. Therefore, you must attract a strong job offer wherever you land.

If you have worked in finance, then being a fast learner is a given. When banks consolidated, you quickly adapted to post-merge cultures. Alternatively, to survive the finance industry’s ever-changing regulations, you figured out on-policy ways to maximize profit.

Instead, hiring managers want to know that you are a fast contributor.

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Say “No” with Power and Grace

Contributed by CEO Coach Henna Inam

I have a confession to make. I am not exactly an expert in saying “No.” I spent the entire day recently running from one meeting to another. It was Sunday. I was taught early on that it’s impolite to say “No.” A lot of my executive coaching clients have a hard time saying “No” too, yet it’s a critical skill we need to succeed and keep our sanity. Saying “No” is hard because it’s inconsistent with the beliefs we have about ourselves (we’re supposed to be collaborative, empathetic, care-taking), and the expectations others have of us. I often catch myself resenting a woman establishing boundaries when I would never think twice about a man doing it. So how do we as women leaders establish boundaries with both power and grace?

In order to be able to say “No” powerfully, we have to switch our own belief system first.

We need to align our beliefs with our goals if we are going to be powerful. Here are three possible belief systems that prevent us from saying “No” and ways to switch them.

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Women Explore New Derivatives Landscape at First Annual WILD Symposium

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By Jessica Titlebaum, President, Women in Listed Derivatives

The derivatives industry will come out stronger from the past year’s challenges. Dodd Frank legislation was keeping people up at night, MF Global failed, and then the industry was hit with Peregrine Financial Group. It’s enough to shake anyone in their boots, some of them even high heeled!

This was the backdrop of the first annual Women in Listed Derivatives’ WILD Symposium: Industry in Transition. Hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the Symposium featured high caliber speakers like Carol Burke, the woman tasked with implementing Dodd Frank at the Federal Reserve, and Terry Savage, one of two women on the CME Group Board of Directors, who discussed how the industry was changing and how women could prepare for surfacing opportunities.

Women in Listed Derivatives, or WILD, was founded in 2009. It is managed by a group of women that work in an “old boys club” known as Chicago’s derivatives industry. Now a global community, the not-for-profit WILD organization is dedicated to helping women in the listed and over-the-counter derivatives space advance their careers, find mentors, and learn how to network effectively. This was the group’s first half-day conference.

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