This week The Glass Hammer is celebrating Hispanic professional women – each day this week we’ll feature a profile of a Hispanic woman breaking the glass ceiling.
By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)
After graduating from the University of Florida with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and a master’s degree in tax, Yesenia Scheker-Izquierdo started as an intern at KPMG’s Miami office. Now a partner in KPMG LLP’s Financial Services Practice, she recalled, “Being born in New York, I always had in my mind that I would move back to New York after college. But I had started working for a very senior real estate tax partner based in Miami who became my mentor and I continued to work with him for many years.”
She added, “But five or six years into it, he retired from KPMG, and I took that opportunity to move to New York.”
In 2005, Scheker-Izquierdo transferred to the New York office and joined its Financial Services – Alternative Investment practice. “It afforded me an opportunity to join a practice that was expanding. My goal was always to become a partner,” she said. And she counts becoming a partner in the New York office among her highest professional achievements.
Additionally, she said, she is proud of her ability to build a new career after moving to New York. She explained, “Moving to New York meant starting over. I didn’t know anyone, and had to build a book of business and find new mentors and sponsors.”
One of the ways she did this, she said, was through networking. “One of the things I decided to do was co-found the Women’s Executive Circle of New York (WECNY) as a way to build my network.” WECNY is a not-for-profit organization with the mission of accelerating the advancement of women from diverse backgrounds to executive positions of leadership.
Currently Scheker-Izquierdo is involved with KPMG’s Alternative Investment practice’s growth initiatives. “It’s an exciting time to be part of this practice and our firm,” she said.
Intrepid Woman: Leaning In – A New Graduate in the Real World
Intrepid Women SeriesThis past May, Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, stood in front of me and told me to “lean in.” To jump in, make a change, think big, to “pick a field…and ride it all the way to the top.” It was Barnard College’s graduation ceremony, and all around me were 600 women who, just like me, had completed their education. We had, over the past four years been trained to believe in ourselves as women, as leaders, as intellectuals, as scientists, as writers, as human beings who could make a difference. And Sandberg stood in front of us and told us that yes, there were still inequalities in the work place, but we were poised to make changes.
Her speech was replayed across the country – it was a main photo of the New York Times, it was mentioned in the Huffington Post, Forbes said that she “crushed it.” It was described as a speech for the ages, the one that would be remembered, the most influential one of the graduation speeches that year. It was the speech that sent Barnard College’s class of 2011 off into the great world, and we were ready for it.
Read more
Developing Your Personal Work-Life Balance
NewsIn her book The See-saw: 100 Ideas for Work-Life Balance, Julia Hobsbawn speaks from experience. As a working mother with five young children and a young business, Hobsbawn had spent had spent a long time working extremely hard on finding her priorities and her own work-life balance. “I realized that the metaphor I came back to in my mind was one of a see-saw, constantly having ups and downs,” she recalls. “And I couldn’t find a book which expressed in the words of women like me but also some men, what this time feels like, in which we have everything but are also so overloaded we often feel empty of power or opportunity,” she adds.
The result is a practical, upbeat book that addresses a critical issue in today’s society. While some people still refer to it as “work-life balance,” others have begun using phrases like “work-life effectiveness” and “work life fit.” New York University sociologist Dalton Conley has coined a further term called the “weisure” principle, which underlines the blurring of the line between work and leisure. According to Conley, the 24-7 life of “weisure” is the next step in the evolving work-life culture.
Regardless of the terminology, however, what remains true is that work-life issues are a challenge for many people, men and women alike. As Hobsbawn notes, “what matters in the end is not the language – it is the meaning of our actions.” She herself prefers words like “efficiency” and “fitness” because they describe a positive work-life balance. But how exactly do we achieve a successful work-life balance?
Read more
Benchmarking Progress: The Gender Equality Project’s Next Phase
Industry Leaders, Leadership“We’ve been working on our own journey of promoting and measuring progress in gender equality,” explained Pamela Craig, CFO of Accenture. “We’ve always been interested in a global approach – and there are differences among countries. For example, in the Philippines we have a long history of women in leadership. But in other locations – like Japan – it’s more challenging.”
Craig continued, “That’s why it was interesting at this year’s World Economic Forum to hear from Nicole [Schwab], who very much has a global approach – to get to a global standard. It was inspiring to hear her vision and how it’s evolved.”
The Gender Equality Project (TGEP) was launched earlier this year at Davos, with the goal of helping global companies measure gender equality quantitatively and qualitatively across national borders and cultures.
“The approach to TGEP is extremely thoughtful, in terms of how it is intended to measure progress and understand what equivalency is. It is thought-provoking. For me, the light bulb just went on,” she explained.
Read more
Op Ed: What If Being Authentic Was Your Ticket To The Top?
Expert AnswersThere’s no snappy research study to prove that “just being yourself” is every woman’s ticket to upper management, but I believe it’s true. I’m going to make a good argument for it in this article, and why – when your head hits the glass ceiling and “playing by the rules” isn’t working – tapping into your unique personal power is an awesome hammer.
There’s a lot of research coming out that paints a dismal picture of women’s chances of getting into top leadership posts. Here’s a small sampling:
This data, plus the ever present equal pay dilemma make it hard to find the silver lining in being a woman aspiring to leadership positions these days.
However, there is tons of evidence that women in leadership actually help companies perform better than those with fewer women up top.
Read more
How to Manage Young Professional Women: 5 Tips for Female Supervisors
Managing ChangeIn the last few years, a significant portion of the 70 million Generation Y individuals has entered the workforce – and studies show that this new generation of employees is unique: Gen Y are both high-maintenance, but also high-performance.
Gen Y employees are known to be excellent team-players, multitaskers, and innovators. However, they are also known to be fickle, demanding, and selfish when unmotivated in a job. That is why the manager’s role in the workplace has ever increasing importance on the Millenials’ retention and performance. Here are five things you can do as a female manager to get your junior employee to perform at her best.
Read more
10 Tips from Dual-Career Couples Who Are Making It Work
Work-LifeIn 1970, 30 percent of children under the age of six had both parents working outside of the home. According to Catalyst, the amount of dual-earner marriages is now closer to 80 percent and that number is only expected to increase as more families seek out greater economic security. We’ve had over half a century to get used to the idea that both partners in a family can be career-focused while also maintaining a happy, healthy home life.
But as Marie Wilson, Founder of the White House Project recently mentioned, each generation of women is told that they need to return to the home for the sake of the family. In the 1980s, she said it was the “new traditionalists,” who were featured in glossy magazines discussing how they’ve left their high-level jobs to tend to their homes and children. According to Wilson, “the pictures and magazine covers were alluring, inviting women to join the exodus.” Later on, the tactic was fear. How could anyone forget the 1986 Newsweek article about the poor marriage prospects of educated women over 40 that included the line, “Women over 40 are more likely to be killed by a terrorist than find a husband”?
And in the early 2000s we learned about the so-called Opt-Out Revolution, a term coined by Lisa Belkin in her now infamous New York Times piece. Today we see reports of radical homemakers and homesteaders of the green movement, which are urging women to make their homes the center of their lives by opting out of “consumer culture.”
In fact, we rarely see portraits of women as career-focused as their partners. That needs to change. Here are profiles of thriving dual-career couples – and ten tips for making it work.
Read more
Voice of Experience: Lucy MacDonald, Managing Director, London and CIO, Global Equities, RCM
Voices of ExperienceFor Lucy MacDonald, Managing Director of RCM and CIO of its Global Equities division, developing a communication style that works is an important part of developing leadership skills.
“It means being able to speak your mind and add value without frightening people away,” she explained with a chuckle.
Read more
Fabulous in the Boardroom: Owning It
Expert AnswersFabulous women who have risen to the top are a different breed. Their confidence is palpable. Their self-assurance is awe-inspiring. Their energy level is enervating, energizing and contagious. And their charisma–you can’t buy that kind of high-wattage aura. The secret: they’re fabulous.
To get to the top of the mountain, they’ve worked hard to create a persona that is more than just good at what they do. They lead. They inspire. They mobilize. And they inspire loyalty because they’re authentic.
Let’s look at how fabulous works in the boardroom…
Read more
Voice of Experience: Yesenia Scheker-Izquierdo, Partner, Financial Services Practice, KPMG LLP, and Co-President and Co-Founder, Women’s Executive Circle of New York
Voices of ExperienceThis week The Glass Hammer is celebrating Hispanic professional women – each day this week we’ll feature a profile of a Hispanic woman breaking the glass ceiling.
By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)
After graduating from the University of Florida with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and a master’s degree in tax, Yesenia Scheker-Izquierdo started as an intern at KPMG’s Miami office. Now a partner in KPMG LLP’s Financial Services Practice, she recalled, “Being born in New York, I always had in my mind that I would move back to New York after college. But I had started working for a very senior real estate tax partner based in Miami who became my mentor and I continued to work with him for many years.”
She added, “But five or six years into it, he retired from KPMG, and I took that opportunity to move to New York.”
In 2005, Scheker-Izquierdo transferred to the New York office and joined its Financial Services – Alternative Investment practice. “It afforded me an opportunity to join a practice that was expanding. My goal was always to become a partner,” she said. And she counts becoming a partner in the New York office among her highest professional achievements.
Additionally, she said, she is proud of her ability to build a new career after moving to New York. She explained, “Moving to New York meant starting over. I didn’t know anyone, and had to build a book of business and find new mentors and sponsors.”
One of the ways she did this, she said, was through networking. “One of the things I decided to do was co-found the Women’s Executive Circle of New York (WECNY) as a way to build my network.” WECNY is a not-for-profit organization with the mission of accelerating the advancement of women from diverse backgrounds to executive positions of leadership.
Currently Scheker-Izquierdo is involved with KPMG’s Alternative Investment practice’s growth initiatives. “It’s an exciting time to be part of this practice and our firm,” she said.
Read more
Position Yourself for Success: Female Leaders Share Advice at the 2011 Women on Wall Street Conference
Featured, Industry Leaders, LeadershipLast night, Deutsche Bank hosted its 17th annual Women on Wall Street conference at the Marriott Marquis in New York City. The event drew over 2,000 people, mainly women in the financial services industry.
Jeffrey Mayer, Managing Director and Head of the Corporate and Investment Bank in North America at Deutsche Bank, opened the evening by pointing out that although the industry is seeing a generational shift when it comes to gender diversity – roughly 20% of attendees were at the Managing Director level or above, while 80% of were either “fresh out of college” or at the director level – “the percentage of women in senior front office roles falls short.”
He continued, “We need to attract, develop, and retain more women who can punch through to the senior ranks.”
The theme of the evening was “Breaking Through to the C-Suite.” Keynote speaker Sharon Allen, Former Chairman of the Board of Deloitte LLP said she believes that the ability to get to the top really comes from within.
“I know what a difference the organization can make because Deloitte was really a trailblazer with our [women’s] initiative.” But, she continued, “No matter what your organization may do to help promote your career, at the end of the day, it won’t matter unless you perform and watch out for your own career.”
She explained that to make it to the top, women must plan their own career, seize the opportunities that come along, and be willing to promote their own accomplishments.
Read more