By Andrea Newell (Grand Rapids, Michigan)
If you are a professional woman with children, you have faced the decision about whether to keep working or stay at home. No matter which route you chose to take, most likely the bulk of household responsibilities still fall on your shoulders, and you have begun the inevitable balancing act of work and family.
There are endless articles, books and discussion about work/life balance. But those of us who are currently trying to walk that tightrope know – there is no balance. Something has to give, and more often than not, the woman is the one who gives.
In their book Glass Ceilings & 100 Hour Couples – What the Opt-Out Phenomenon Can Teach Us About Work and Family, authors (and working mothers) Karine Moe and Dianna Shandy highlight the growing trend of highly educated women who walk away from their rising star careers in order to focus on family.
I admit that it sounds nice. On days when I am in my car, taking my kids to daycare before going to work, I see other mothers waiting for the bus with their children and pushing strollers around the neighborhood and I sigh, thinking the grass is greener in the neighbor’s lawn. But I also know the reality – I’ve stayed home with three small kids for 12 hours at a time, and it’s no picnic. Stay at home moms work hard, too. So, what, then, is the answer? Through numerous interviews, research, and surveys, Moe and Shandy paint a picture of the road not taken for women on both sides of this decision. One constant that remained through all conversations, data, and feedback, is the 100-hour couples – the norm rather than the exception in America today – are most poised to fall off the tightrope and report the highest levels of stress.
New Accenture Report Released Today – The Power of Resilience
Industry Leaders, LeadershipAnyone’s who’s ever had to struggle or overcome extreme hardships knows the power of being resilient; the importance of being able to bounce back and keep trudging onwards. According to a new study by Accenture, resilience – or the ability to overcome challenges and turn them into opportunities – also happens to be a much-needed characteristic in the business world; one that is key to keeping your job in a harsh economy.
The global research study entitled Women Leaders and Resilience: Perspectives from the C-Suite was conducted in support of International Women’s Day and the study marks Accenture’s sixth consecutive celebration of this global celebration, which honors the economic, political, and social achievements of women past. It is the company’s hope that their female-focused research helps fuel the dialogue on key issues affecting women in the workplace.
The Findings
Accenture surveyed more than 500 senior executives – including CEO’s, COO’s, CFO’s, and CHRO’s – of mid- to large-size companies in 20 countries across Europe, Asia, North America, and Latin America. According to the research, these execs believe that women are slightly more resilient than men. Results showed that companies are providing female professionals with a variety of programs aimed at developing resilience.
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Celebrating International Women’s Day: A Message From Our CEO
Industry Leaders, LeadershipAn encouraging start to this week was Kathryn Bigelow’s historic double Oscar win for best picture and best director.
We believe this is a step in the right direction, not just for the entertainment industry, but for all industries. We need to achieve a critical mass of female leaders to change perceptions around what a leader looks like.
We also believe that there is immense value in building a strong network based on educational content. This week we are hosting our second networking breakfast for senior women in investment management. If you wish to join us to discuss Risk and Transparency in this field, please contact me – we may have couple of spots left. You can also read glasshammer2.wpengine.com on Thursday for full coverage, or sign up for our newsletter to receive this and other top stories in your inbox each week.
Every day is International Women’s Day on glasshammer2.wpengine.com. We want to see you succeed.
Sincerely,
Nicki Gilmour
CEO
Theglasshammer.com
Voice of Experience: Michelle McCarthy, Chief Risk Officer, Russell Investments
Voices of ExperienceAs the saying goes: “A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.” That is certainly the case for Michelle McCarthy, Chief Risk Officer of Russell Investments. While she attributes much of her success to luck, it’s clear that her moxie is really what’s allowed her rise to the top of her profession. Said McCarthy: “I’m willing to be a bit of a maverick and willing to do things even when I don’t feel completely ready.”
At 13, a fearless McCarthy declared her intention to major in political science. For many, that would be precocious; for McCarthy, it was just part of her college life, which began at that age. Of the University of Washington’s experimental “Early Admissions” program, said McCarthy, “was a really enjoyable experience. In high school, they are much less forgiving of ‘nerds’ than they are at college. It was a kinder situation socially than I’d been in before. ”
After graduating university at the age of 17, she attended Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Science. To earn some money while earning her Master’s, she took a part-time job at a student loan agency updating spreadsheets. After a short time there, she realized that she had found her true calling—finance.
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10-Minute Workouts for Busy Women
Work-LifeWe want you to become a stronger businesswoman. Literally. But while you know exercise can strengthen your body, did you know it can strengthen your brain too?
A number of recent studies show that aerobic exercise increases brain functioning (see articles from the New York Times, Scientific American, and ABC News). With exercise being both good for your mind and body, there’s no excuse to not do it, right?
Oh wait, there’s just that one small detail: time. In this post we offer some tips for both finding the time and also wanting to find the time (in other words, how to make exercise fun).
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Movers and Shakers: Shannon Vetto, Global Exchange Traded Funds (ETF), Russell Investments
Movers and ShakersKnowing how to maintain a high level of productivity while sticking to a grueling travel schedule may have given Shannon Vetto an edge when she came to Russell Investments in 1997. Before then, at Price Waterhouse LLP, Vetto worked as a client service audit manager in the firm’s investment company group—in Boston, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle. Every few weeks she found herself in a new location, examining a new set of books and addressing a new set of circumstances.
For a financial asset firm seeking management capacity for a global product launch, itinerant experience like Vetto’s would prove to be a prescription for success. “It was pure luck,” she insists, “that I managed to get involved in an effort that was really Russell’s development overseas.” Vetto took a job as a manager in Operations at Russell, a role in which she was responsible for global vendor relationship management, fund accounting oversight, and financial statement preparation. She was quickly positioned to lead the development of operational infrastructure for Australian Funds products in Russell’s Sydney office, and in Russell’s investment trust business in the Tokyo office. Vetto recalls that she was new to the firm and wasn’t yet anchored in such a way that would make it difficult to relocate overseas.
Vetto’s tongue-in-cheek observation: The deal closer may have been that “I was okay with the travel.”
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Who Is Holding the Purse-Strings at Foundations and Endowments?
Featured, NewsEndowments and foundations need to do well in order to do good. The funds of endowments and foundations did very well—prior to 2009. Now, Chief Investment Officers of these institutional funds must forge strategies that can get the funds back on track and safeguard their missions.
Reihan Salan, who writes a weekly column for Forbes and is a fellow at the New American Foundation, believes that women will play a leading role in the restoration of a healthy financial realm. Salan believes the shift of power to women has taken a revolutionary tack “dramatically accelerated by the economic crisis.” As the woman who is managing the clean-up of the Countrywide Mortgage mess for Bank of America, Barbara Desoer may be closer to the thrust of that revolutionary tack than most. She believes that men in finance suffer from “the bravado effect”—the excessive risk-taking, independent mentality of a trader.
Here we have three parts to a new equation: More women are taking the lead in the investment world; leaders are needed who understand the power of collaboration, coordinated communication, and studied, ethical decision-making; and endowments and foundations are lining up for more moderate pathways to future earnings.
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Movers and Shakers: Virginia Volpe, CFA, Director, Hedge Fund Services, Global Transaction Services, Citi
Movers and Shakers“Get comfortable in your own skin as fast as you can,” recommends Virginia Volpe, Director of Hedge Fund Services at Citi’s Global Transaction Services division. “You will be so much happier so much sooner – I only realized that four years ago,” she explained with a laugh.
Volpe exudes a good-natured confidence, something she attributes to to her flexibility. “One of my professional achievements is how easily I’ve been able to slip in and out of various roles, whether at Citi or going back to being a member of a small village,” she said, referring to her time in the Peace Corps in Sri Lanka working as a community developer.
It was during her time in Sri Lanka that Volpe developed an interest in finance. “I was really intrigued by microfinance, but did not have a firm understanding of capital markets” she explained. After receiving her degree in Economics and Latin American Studies from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, Volpe began a career as an analyst at Reuters, and eleven years ago, she says, “I was invited to work at Citi and haven’t looked back since!”
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2010 Catalyst Award Winners: Campbell’s Soup, Deloitte LLP, Royal Bank of Canada, and Telstra
Industry Leaders, LeadershipEach year the Catalyst Award recognizes businesses that support women’s advancement in the workplace. For 2010, Catalyst Awards were given to the Campbell Soup Company, Deloitte LLP, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), and Telstra Corporation Limited. See a list of the 69 companies that have won Catalyst Awards since 1974 on the Catalyst web site.
Companies apply for the award by submitting initiatives to Catalyst that promote “recruitment, development, and advancement of all women.” The Catalyst Awards Committee then evaluates each initiative through on-site visits and “interviews and focus groups with executive management, high-level women, human resources professionals, and other employees at various levels.” Through the evaluation process initiatives are judged on six factors (from the Catalyst web site):
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Voice of Experience: Mara Topping, Partner and Head of the Fund Formation Practice in the D.C. Office of White & Case
Voices of ExperienceWhen Mara Topping, a partner in the D.C. office of White & Case, was a young girl, she lived in five countries on three continents, moving wherever her father, a high ranking USAID official, was stationed. Her childhood abroad—and her experiences with the beauty, diversity and poverty in Africa in particular—triggered a lifelong interest in other cultures and in international development. She applies this passion to her role as the head of the fund formation practice in the D.C. office of White & Case. “Emerging markets are a good part of the focus of the work that I do in private equity fund formation. I feel very good about seeing foreign capital mobilized into emerging markets where there is tremendous economic opportunity and a great deal of need.”
But the road to fund formation was not a direct one—Topping originally pursued a career in archeology. “Between Rome and Tunisia where I lived when I was younger, there are some of the best classical Roman sites in the world. It would have been hard for me not to be an archeologist. The experience of living in different cultures and the cultural diversity and issues of international development and social and cultural change were what I grew up with. And that’s what archeology really is—looking at long term cultural change and how societies develop and why.”
She completed her undergraduate archeology degree at Cornell University and a Master’s degree at the prestigious Institute of Archeology at the University of London. Topping went on to earn a Ph.D. in archeology from the University of Chicago, using two of the three Fulbright Scholarships she’d been awarded to do her Ph.D fieldwork in the Fiji Islands. There, she excavated one of only two known large pre-historic South Pacific ocean-going vessels.
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On Your Bookshelf: Glass Ceilings & 100-Hour Couples
ReviewsIf you are a professional woman with children, you have faced the decision about whether to keep working or stay at home. No matter which route you chose to take, most likely the bulk of household responsibilities still fall on your shoulders, and you have begun the inevitable balancing act of work and family.
There are endless articles, books and discussion about work/life balance. But those of us who are currently trying to walk that tightrope know – there is no balance. Something has to give, and more often than not, the woman is the one who gives.
In their book Glass Ceilings & 100 Hour Couples – What the Opt-Out Phenomenon Can Teach Us About Work and Family, authors (and working mothers) Karine Moe and Dianna Shandy highlight the growing trend of highly educated women who walk away from their rising star careers in order to focus on family.
I admit that it sounds nice. On days when I am in my car, taking my kids to daycare before going to work, I see other mothers waiting for the bus with their children and pushing strollers around the neighborhood and I sigh, thinking the grass is greener in the neighbor’s lawn. But I also know the reality – I’ve stayed home with three small kids for 12 hours at a time, and it’s no picnic. Stay at home moms work hard, too. So, what, then, is the answer? Through numerous interviews, research, and surveys, Moe and Shandy paint a picture of the road not taken for women on both sides of this decision. One constant that remained through all conversations, data, and feedback, is the 100-hour couples – the norm rather than the exception in America today – are most poised to fall off the tightrope and report the highest levels of stress.
Read more