This week The Glass Hammer is publishing a series of profiles on top leaders in corporate diversity. Check back all week long to learn about the women making a difference.
By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)
“I’ve always been a really driven person,” said Amy Williams, Principal at Edward Jones. “I was fortunate to realize early on that I had a passion for serving others.”
Williams began her career at Edward Jones as a Branch Office Administrator. “I thought it was a great way to learn about the new field, and I soon realized I wanted to be on the other side of the desk. So I started an office from scratch.”
An early defining moment in Williams’ professional path was when her husband began experiencing health problems about six years into her career. “I had a one year-old and a five year-old and a really sick husband. But I knew that with the practice I had built, and with the sense of entrepreneurship I had built at Edward Jones, I knew that it was going to be okay. I could support my family. It didn’t end up coming to that, but it was a powerful realization.”
“That’s when I knew I had to get other women involved in this work,” she added.
Williams championed the cause of attracting women to financial advisory while developing her practice. “After 15 years of helping others build their business, I became a general partner, leading programs to develop women and minorities.”
Today, Williams is one of the Principals in charge of talent acquisition specifically responsible for diversity at Edward Jones. She continued, “And now, a little over 20 years at the firm, I’m humbled at the people I work with, at the grassroots efforts to bring in more talented women and minority advisors at the firm. I’m really proud of that.”
Helping Young Women Lawyers Develop Global Skills
Analysts and AssociatesOne of the most important lessons for younger lawyers to understand these days is the impact of globalization. The need to develop a global consciousness and comfort in working with clients around the world is growing, and growing quickly – according to Katie Larkin-Wong, an Associate at Latham & Watkins, LLP and President of Ms. JD, a national non-profit comprised of female law students and younger associates.
Larkin-Wong continued, “Any top lawyer talks about how globalization affects what we do. This is a client-driven profession, and there are too many opportunities in other nations. Our generation does not have the option of not being global.”
Helping to develop that global consciousness is one reason the group created its Global Education Fund, which enables young women in Uganda to attend law school at Makerere University. The other reason, Larkin-Wong explained, is to help these women achieve their dreams and inspire their communities.
The program has also helped Ms. JD’s members in their own professional development. Here’s how.
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Voice of Experience: Edie Hunt, Chief Diversity Officer and Advising Director, Goldman Sachs
Voices of ExperienceThis week The Glass Hammer is publishing a series of profiles on top leaders in corporate diversity. Check back all week long to learn about the women making a difference.
“I say this with rose colored glasses,” began Edie Hunt, Chief Diversity Officer and Advising Director at Goldman Sachs, “but I wait for the day when we don’t need an Office of Diversity and Inclusion – because everyone gets it.”
Hunt has spent the majority of her career advocating for diversity, initiating powerful ideas like Goldman Sachs’ Returnship, its women’s network, and its practice of awarding fellowships to diverse rising stars. She predicts that day when diversity offices are no longer needed is still 15 to 20 years in the future, but says she’s pleased with the current progress of the field.
“I think the next idea in diversity will be the concept of diversity being for everyone,” she said. “We had a watershed moment in 2010 during our Americas Diversity Week, which was that diversity is not about having events for women, Asians, LGBT employees, or any specific group. But that the events were for everyone in the firm to learn about the unique attributes of everyone else in the firm.”
She explained, “We have celebrations and events throughout the year. Whereas, five years ago at a women’s history month event, we’d have 95% women, now I’d say there’s at least 30% men. That is really where we want diversity to be heading.”
Hunt is also pleased to see an increase in the number of line managers taking the issue seriously. “I think the layer of people who really don’t live and breathe diversity initiatives is becoming thinner and thinner.”
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Voice of Experience: Amy Williams, Principal, Edward Jones
Voices of ExperienceThis week The Glass Hammer is publishing a series of profiles on top leaders in corporate diversity. Check back all week long to learn about the women making a difference.
“I’ve always been a really driven person,” said Amy Williams, Principal at Edward Jones. “I was fortunate to realize early on that I had a passion for serving others.”
Williams began her career at Edward Jones as a Branch Office Administrator. “I thought it was a great way to learn about the new field, and I soon realized I wanted to be on the other side of the desk. So I started an office from scratch.”
An early defining moment in Williams’ professional path was when her husband began experiencing health problems about six years into her career. “I had a one year-old and a five year-old and a really sick husband. But I knew that with the practice I had built, and with the sense of entrepreneurship I had built at Edward Jones, I knew that it was going to be okay. I could support my family. It didn’t end up coming to that, but it was a powerful realization.”
“That’s when I knew I had to get other women involved in this work,” she added.
Williams championed the cause of attracting women to financial advisory while developing her practice. “After 15 years of helping others build their business, I became a general partner, leading programs to develop women and minorities.”
Today, Williams is one of the Principals in charge of talent acquisition specifically responsible for diversity at Edward Jones. She continued, “And now, a little over 20 years at the firm, I’m humbled at the people I work with, at the grassroots efforts to bring in more talented women and minority advisors at the firm. I’m really proud of that.”
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The Three Revolutionary Traits of Today’s Leaders
Industry Leaders, LeadershipThis year, the Council of Urban Professionals (CUP) is seeking to recognize change agents who have flown under the radar in the past. With the first ever CUP Catalysts: Change Agents 2012 awards, CUP will honor women and people of color who hold significant leadership positions in their organizations, and have given back to their communities in a big way as well.
Chloe Drew, Executive Director of CUP, explained, “We are committed every day to bringing more diversity to the business table. Considering the shifting demographics of the United States, we’re in the business of preparing the succession plan for the next generation of leaders.”
The award will recognize people between the ages of 35 and 50, who have met with “extraordinary professional success” and demonstrated a “commitment to community leadership.” Three individuals in financial services, law, and media & entertainment will be recognized.
Drew believes the character of leadership is changing. Here are her “big three” traits embodied by today’s leading change agents.
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Voice of Experience: Deb Wheelock, Partner, Global Leader of Talent Management & Diversity Center of Excellence, Mercer
Voices of ExperienceThis week The Glass Hammer is publishing a series of profiles on top leaders in corporate diversity. Check back all week long to learn about the women making a difference.
“At Mercer, our primary focus is helping our clients maximize the potential of their human capital,” began Deb Wheelock, Partner and Global Talent Management & Diversity Leader at Mercer. “Unlike other companies, we don’t produce widgets. We market the professional knowledge of our people. They need to be our competitive edge.”
“Thinking back to my tech days, another way I put it is ‘our people are our next killer app,’” explained the former e-learning specialist. “Diversity is becoming an imperative because we have people of different backgrounds with diverse approaches and innovative solutions to bring to our clients.”
She added, “You just don’t get that level of innovation from a homogenous workforce, no matter how bright they might be.”
Wheelock believes diversity is undergoing a generational shift. “We’re seeing a change in what our colleagues are bringing to work in terms of their outlook as well as their biases. That pushes us toward inclusion – from tolerating differences, to appreciating and leveraging those differences.”
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Voice of Experience: Lisa Jacobs, Partner, Capital Markets Practice, Shearman & Sterling
Voices of ExperienceThis week The Glass Hammer is publishing a series of profiles on top leaders in corporate diversity. Check back all week long to learn about the women making a difference.
After working as a part-time lawyer for the majority of her career, today Lisa Jacobs is a high-profile lawyer at Shearman & Sterling, a prominent member of the firm’s Diversity Committee and a staunch supporter of women in law. She wants women to know: you can build the life and career you want.
“I’m not a subscriber to the Sheryl Sandberg ‘ambition gap’ idea,” said Jacobs, a partner in Shearman & Sterling’s Capital Markets Practice in New York. “Success is how you define it.”
“I’m not a woman partner who will tell you, ‘this is what success is,’” she added. “Success is what you want it to be and what you take it to be. I wanted a family and to be a truly participatory mom – and I wanted to be a deal lawyer. Fortunately, I found a way to do both.”
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Voice of Experience: Joanne Rodgers, Chief Diversity Officer, New York Life
Voices of ExperienceThis week The Glass Hammer is publishing a series of profiles on top leaders in corporate diversity. Check back all week long to learn about the women making a difference.
Joanne Rodgers, now Chief Diversity Officer at New York Life, began her career at the National Association of Securities Dealers (now FINRA) before moving to New York Life’s Compliance Department. Eighteen years later, Rodgers has held a variety of roles in the company, moving from compliance to marketing and, most recently, corporate strategy. “I also had the opportunity to head up the company’s women’s leadership program and that definitely helped with my new role as Chief Diversity Officer,” she said. Rodgers says she is looking forward to promoting diversity on a broader scale.
Having just moved into the CDO role this year, she is now charting the future diversity strategy for the company. “I’m currently working with all of the business units to analyze and develop our diversity strategies so that we remain an employer of choice. My experience in the corporate strategy group has been a real asset, since much of my work involved working with the business units, being engaged with critical strategic goals and understanding the environmental landscape that affects us. My directive is to make sure New York Life has strong diversity and inclusion practices and I am pleased that my colleagues at New York Life take this very seriously.”
She continued, “If you simply look at the changing demographics in this country, the business case for diversity becomes more apparent based on the makeup of our customers and of the workforce today and in the future.”
“We want to really consider how those changing demographics affect us as an organization and how our increasingly diverse workforce can make us a better company.”
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Using Failure as Fuel: The Anti-Bio
Next LevelThe failed start-up. The lost job. The botched client pitch. The college rejection letter. Most missteps along our career path make us cringe and want to put the experience out of sight and out of mind as quickly as possible. In our efforts to move on and put our best foot forward, we may omit setbacks from our professional stories that we tell others, and even from what we tell ourselves.
Yet there may be more value in owning our failures than running from them. “Failure is an inescapable part of life as an executive,” says corporate psychologist Patricia Thompson, PhD. “While some people are more likely to make errors of commission, in which they jump in and make a mistake, others may be more likely to make errors of omission, in which they are not aggressive enough and miss out on opportunities.”
Thompson suggests that the best leaders are those who are able to maintain perspective: when you recognize that making mistakes is inevitable, you can use them as growth opportunities rather than trying to pretend that the mistake never happened.
This sounds good, but how can you really flip failures into your favor? One way is to consider constructing an “anti-bio.”
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Voice of Experience: Laura Friedrich, Partner, Global Asset Management Group, Shearman & Sterling
Voices of ExperienceIn her position as a leading private equity funds lawyer and as a former hiring partner at global law firm Shearman & Sterling in New York, Laura Friedrich has learned a few things about work/life balance.
“I have two children spread ten and a half years apart,” she said. “I had my first when I was a fifth-year associate, then I had another last year. It’s interesting to see how different it feels this time – easier in some ways and harder in others.”
Friedrich is adamant in her recommendation that junior women commit to their careers for the longer term, despite periodic work/life challenges. “Too many women are looking to have everything exactly how they want it throughout their whole career,” she said. “But you’ve got to take the ups and downs as they come. I think women drop off the fast-track too soon. Anticipating that it’s going to be difficult, they don’t even try.”
“I love my career and I love my family,” she continued. “Sometimes I do feel stretched thin, but I wouldn’t give up any of it.”
In fact, when she first began her career, she herself didn’t anticipate the level she would reach in the profession. “But the momentum kept me going,” Friedrich said, “and I stayed, and I love what I do now.”
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Leadership Practices for Work Life Sanity
Ask A Career CoachWant to take the 24 out of 24/7? I was at lunch the other day with a friend who is a senior leader at her company. She was talking about how many junior women “opt out” as they think about having families. This, despite all the work her company, a leader in work-life flexibility options, has done to improve the situation for working families. In fact, a McKinsey study [PDF] reports that C-suite executives believe the top two barriers to the advancement of women are women’s “double-burden” (work and family responsibilities) and our 24/7 “always on” work environments.
The recent debate about “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” has thrown fuel into the fire. The article is written by Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former state department official who gave up her position to spend time with her family. On one side of the debate are those who feel we’ve made tremendous sacrifices to pave the way for others, and want the next generation to believe that women can have it all. On the other side of the debate are those who want to acknowledge that there is still a lot of work to be done in society, our workplaces, cultural expectations that prevent women from having it all. They don’t want to set women up for disappointment and self-blame if they discover that they cannot have it all.
I’m not sure what the right answer is. But I do wonder if we’re asking the right questions. Asking the questions, even if I don’t have all the answers, creates a new perspective on the debate.
We tend to blame society, our workplaces, our bosses for putting us on the 24/7 treadmill and preventing us from “having it all.” And yes, I am a strong proponent of the many changes still to be made in our work cultures that demand us being “on” 24/7. However, my challenge to myself and others is to look inside first and see what needs to be changed within ourselves. How can I claim my own power to make the choices that are right for me?
Here are seven leadership practices that help me and I’d like to share with you.
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