Frances Hesselbein
On Tuesday, the Women’s Network for a Sustainable Future held its 7th annual summit, entitled “Sustainability, We Get it… Now What?”
Ann Goodman, Ph.D., Executive Director of WNSF, said, “By now the term sustainability has entered the vernacular. Now that everybody gets sustainability, how can we use it to drive [business].
Kathy Robb, Head of Environmental Practice at Hunton & Williams and a WNSF board member, explained explained that WNSF was founded around the belief that “women in business want to bolster sustainability efforts in their companies.”
She continued, “Caring about the environment allows companies to attract and retain women employees, customers, stockholders, and stakeholders – and create a better world for everyone.”
Dr. Goodman introduced the program’s keynote speaker, Frances Hesselbein as a personal “she-ro.” Hesselbein, Chair, Leader to Leader Institute; Chair, Study of Leadership, West Point Military Academy; former CEO, Girl Scouts of the USA is someone who has accomplished much, including being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the US’s highest civilian honor. Yet, in spite of her achievements, Goodman said, Hesselbein continues to be “generous, friendly, down to earth, straight forward, direct, [and] empathetic.”
Hesselbein opened her discussion on creating a sustainable society with a poem:
Be careful of your thoughts, for your thoughts become your words.
Be careful of your words, for your words become your actions.
Be careful of your actions, for your actions become your habits.
Be careful of your habits, for your habits become your character.
Be careful of your character, for your character becomes your destiny.
– Anonymous
“Today is all about destiny,” she began.
35 Under 35: Sara Grillo, CFA, Principal, Diamond Oak Capital Advisors
35 Under 35“Lead with your heart and don’t be afraid of who you are,” said Sara Grillo, Principal at Diamond Oak Capital Advisors and Adjunct Professor at Marymount Manhattan College.
She continued, “If you’re a leader, a role model, a mentor, you have to live it. You have to breathe it.”
Grillo takes her duty as a leader seriously, working to mentor or teach as many women as possible that they can succeed if they believe in themselves. Why? Grillo says she is on a crusade to increase the number of female CFA Charter holders to 50% – currently only 19%.
While she serves as a mentor within the New York Society of Security Analysts (NYSSA), Harvard, and the NYU Stern School of Business, Grillo explained, “Mentors are more in need for women who aren’t in programs – like the woman who gets picked on by her boss or who doesn’t quite fit in with the other girls at school.” From the subway to the schoolroom, Grillo does her best to inspire women to reach higher.
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What Does “Board Ready” Really Mean?
Breaking the Glass CeilingBased on the latest Catalyst figures, women constitute only 11 percent of U.S. Fortune 1000 company board seats and 25 percent of Fortune 1000 companies still have no women on their boards. Numbers are similar in Europe, where women account for just 9.7 percent of board members in the top 300 European companies. When discussing why it is that women are still so underrepresented on boards in the U.S. and abroad, there are differing opinions. Some strongly believe there is a glass ceiling in place that hinders women from moving up the ranks, while others believe it’s a matter of too few qualified women being in the pipeline. According to new research released by the three-year-old London-based company Bird & Co Board & Executive Mentoring, the glass ceiling is a distraction and the real problem is clearly a lack of “board ready” women in the pipeline.
In 2008, the company undertook a research project to identify what will help get more women into board positions – and what resulted was their Glass Ladder Report [PDF]. According to Kathleen O’Donovan, founding partner of the company, their aim with the report was not just to identify barriers, but to seek opportunities for positive change and to find out what would help more women get to the top.
“Our research confirmed there is widespread recognition that a board’s performance can be enhanced by the addition of one or more women and indeed, there’s much enthusiasm for programs to increase the number of women in senior management positions,” O’Donovan said. “Our research also made clear that this is a supply-side issue. Increasing female representation on boards is simply not going to be feasible without a significant increase in the pool of women who have the experience and preparation to be classed as genuinely board ready.”
By being board ready, O’Donovan means having a real sense of what is expected of board directors and how to deliver; understanding that a non-executive directorship is not merely an extension of the executive role – it is another job with its own requirements and responsibilities; being clear about what they bring to the board and what experiences they have that will be of value to that board; and understanding the process of board search and nomination committees and being prepared for interviews and board panels.
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Voice of Experience: Pamela J. Craig, Chief Financial Officer, Accenture
Voices of ExperienceAccording to Pamela J. Craig, Chief Financial Officer at Accenture, the best piece of advice she has to offer is: “Just go for it.”
“It sounds so simple,” she said. “That was particularly the case with my job as CFO… it just came up. And, my husband and co-workers were supportive and gave me the confidence that made a very big difference. It’s easy to lack confidence. It’s harder to have it. Go for it and make it all it can be. This a big deal for me.”
She continued, “Be open to stretch roles and go out of your comfort zone. It’s easy to say, ‘I’m not sure I can do that.’ You should say, ‘I bet I can do that.’”
Moving Up and Giving Back
“I graduated [from Smith College] in 1979 with a liberal arts degree – and I wasn’t quite sure what to do with that. So I entered an MBA program at NYU in Accounting,” Craig began. “After a couple of years, I realized I didn’t want to be an auditor all my life. I switched to consulting.”
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In Case You Missed It: Business News Round-Up
NewsWeak US employment data – non-farm payrolls unexpectedly fell by 95,000 last month – emphasized the fragile nature of the economic recovery in the US. Talk of currency wars resulted in high volatility in foreign exchange markets and protectionism as countries are trying to boost their exports at the expense of others. The dollar weakened against the yen – the most closely watched indicator of the week. The B of E, the ECB, and the Reserve Bank of Australia kept rates on hold – and the Bank of Japan lowered rates.
Economic Backdrop
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Talkin’ About a Revolution in Female Charitable Giving
Women and Philanthropy“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give” – Winston Churchill
So reads the quote on the site, Women In Philanthropy, an organization for women transforming the
South Carolina Midlands community through active and collective philanthropic investment.
The group is in partnership with United Way of the Midlands and the Central Carolina Community Foundation. This is one of the many philanthropic groups solely supported by women across the United States.
With women commanding more than half of the U.S. wealth and on track to hold two-thirds of it by 2030, it appears that a seismic shift in the way philanthropic endeavors are doled out to various charities and foundations is underway. While the University of Tennessee Alliance of Women Philanthropists reports that men are more inclined to leave money to the arts and humanities, a majority of participants surveyed by the National Foundation for Women Business Owners identified education as one of the top three causes they support, followed by women-related groups and the arts. Other beneficiaries include health-related charities, religious organizations, youth-related groups, social and human services, local community service groups, political organizations, and environmental issues.
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Women on the Buy-Side: What Does Dodd-Frank Mean for the Capital Markets?
Featured, Industry Leaders, Leadership, Women on the Buy-SideModerated by journalist Heidi Moore, our panelists discussed how Dodd-Frank will impact the investment management field – regarding transparency, compliance, consolidation, and more – and what those changes mean for individuals in the industry, and their companies.
The panel featured Gina M. Biondo, Tax Partner, Financial Services, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP; Christine Hurtsellers, Chief Investment Officer, Fixed Income and Proprietary Investments, ING Investment Management; Donna M. Parisi, Partner and head of the Asset Management Group, Shearman & Sterling LLP; Marcy Engel, Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel, Eton Park Capital Management, LP; and Holly H. Miller, Partner, Stone House Consulting, LLC.
Dodd-Frank’s Biggest Surprises
Moore opened the debate with a discussion of how the regulatory bill had evolved since reform was first being considered – and asked the panelists what Dodd-Frank’s biggest surprises were.
Engel replied, “The biggest surprise was the Volcker Rule saying that proprietary trading by banks should be prohibited.” Early on, she said, no one had thought that it was likely to be included. “The more banks lobbied against it,” she explained, “the harder the push back.”
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Next Generation Sustainability: WNSF’S Annual Summit
Corporate Sustainability, Intrepid Women SeriesFrances Hesselbein
On Tuesday, the Women’s Network for a Sustainable Future held its 7th annual summit, entitled “Sustainability, We Get it… Now What?”
Ann Goodman, Ph.D., Executive Director of WNSF, said, “By now the term sustainability has entered the vernacular. Now that everybody gets sustainability, how can we use it to drive [business].
Kathy Robb, Head of Environmental Practice at Hunton & Williams and a WNSF board member, explained explained that WNSF was founded around the belief that “women in business want to bolster sustainability efforts in their companies.”
She continued, “Caring about the environment allows companies to attract and retain women employees, customers, stockholders, and stakeholders – and create a better world for everyone.”
Dr. Goodman introduced the program’s keynote speaker, Frances Hesselbein as a personal “she-ro.” Hesselbein, Chair, Leader to Leader Institute; Chair, Study of Leadership, West Point Military Academy; former CEO, Girl Scouts of the USA is someone who has accomplished much, including being awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the US’s highest civilian honor. Yet, in spite of her achievements, Goodman said, Hesselbein continues to be “generous, friendly, down to earth, straight forward, direct, [and] empathetic.”
Hesselbein opened her discussion on creating a sustainable society with a poem:
“Today is all about destiny,” she began.
Read more
Move over Time Management: Increasing Your Power, Effectiveness, and Fulfillment with Choice Management
Expert AnswersLife is busy. Perhaps that’s a huge understatement. For many, life is moving at a very fast pace and it has become a never ending to do list. You have careers and personal lives and no matter how much you do each day, it is often hard to feel like you are ever getting ahead. So how do you try to solve this problem? By better managing time.
You may attend time management seminars, buy time management calendar systems, or endlessly play with your outlook schedule in search of more time. But in truth, time is finite. There are only 24 hours in a day and 168 in a week. Time actually can’t be managed, as hard as we may try. Sure there are times when you get a lot done but you may feel as if you are on treadmill with no way to get off. You are moving fast but not feeling inspired or fulfilled by your accomplishments Bottom line, you may feel like you hardly have enough time to manage all of you roles and responsibilities let alone contemplate how you can be more fulfilled and inspired. Given this reality and how much is on your never ending, ever growing to-do list, what are your options? How you can stop trying to manage time? How can you find a way to be more powerful and effective in the face of everything you juggle and end the day with sense of fulfillment and purpose? You can begin managing your choices – instead of focusing on time.
Choice management is fundamentally about consciously choosing how you direct your energy, what actions you take in life, and what you agreements you make. At the heart of choice management is awareness of your values and what matters most in your life. It is about having a vision for your life and what you want it to look like. So instead of managing time, you start to manage the choices you make so they are in greater alignment with your vision and values. For example, if you are clear that you highly value family, then each night at dinner you have the opportunity to choose family. You can put your Blackberry away and allow yourself to be present and enjoy each and every person at the dinner table. At work, if you value collaboration, you can pick up the phone and have a conversation, rather than perpetuating an endless round of emails to resolve an issue.
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Ask-a-Career-Coach: How to Get Pulled to the Top
Ask A Career CoachHR pros have a saying: “You don’t push yourself to the top, you get pulled there.” Which begs the question: Whose hand is reaching out to give you a lift?
If the names aren’t leaping from your lips, then it’s time to take action. You need to assess, plan, and implement a strategy that will build your cadre of helping hands. Here are two strategic options to get you going:
The first strategy, recommended by Catalyst (a nonprofit membership organization working to expand opportunities for women and business), takes a singular approach: find a sponsor. In “Be Somebody—Get Sponsored,” Catalyst president and CEO Ilene H. Lang explains that a sponsor is a mentor with a difference: she actively advocates for your advancement.
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Women in Charge: The Next Critical Step for Work/Life Progress
Work-LifeThis weekend saw the release of another study revealing the value of women in leadership roles. The study, by researchers at MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, and Union College, showed that the inclusion of women in a group can increase its effectiveness in decision making.
The crux of the study – that more women equals better decision making – was a surprise to researchers, who said they did not set out to study gender, but rather what they have termed “collective intelligence.” The more collaborative a group was in the decision making process, the better its decisions turned out to be – a result of “social sensitivity,” or how well group members understood each others’ feelings.
According to the researchers, the women in the study showed higher levels of social sensitivity – and groups with more women tended to do perform better. The researchers even went to so far as to say that their study would have implications in the business world.
This is pretty convincing work. But what effect will one more study really have on increasing the tiny percentage of leadership positions held by women? So far, similar research hasn’t exactly caused a sea change in leadership diversity. What’s missing?
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