By Natalie Sabia (New York City)
We’ve come a long way, baby. And we have a handful of highly-capable, courageous women to thank for it, according to the fascinating “Women on Wall Street” exhibit at the Museum of American Finance in New York City.
A Smithsonian affiliate, the Museum of American Finance is the nation’s only public museum of finance. Founded in 1988 after the 1987 stock market crash, the institution’s mission is to support financial literacy and to help people understand the history, as well as the current information about the financial markets. “We were trying to speak to different levels of interest,” said Leena Akhtar, Director of Exhibits & Archives.
The idea for the “Women of Wall Street” exhibit developed after the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was passed in the early part of this year. “I’ve had this idea in back of my mind, and then, when the legislation was passed, it got the wheels turning,” said Akhtar. The interactive exhibit, which opened this summer, is important because, as the museum website notes: “The story of women on Wall Street is the story of women in America. Issues of self-determination, freedom and financial independence clashed with societal norms in the traditionally male domain of finance.” Said Akhtar, “It’s a story of independence and strength through the progression of women over different time periods. The idea behind the exhibit was to tell history that is not often told.”
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The White House Project: Promoting Women Leaders in the Public and Private Sectors
News“When we started there was absolutely no attention paid to how stuck women’s leadership was in the US,” says Marie Wilson, founder and President of The White House Project. That was 1998. Today, she says, “people actually care about women’s leadership.”
The White House Project aims to advance women’s leadership in all communities and sectors—up to the U.S. presidency—by filling the leadership pipeline with a richly diverse, critical mass of women. Wilson’s objective was to help foster a representative democracy, with women leading alongside men in all areas of life. The last decade has seen The White House Project become a leading voice on women’s leadership.
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Five Tips to Help You Become a Transparent Leader
Expert AnswersContributed by Colleen J. Payne-Nabors of www.colleenjpayne.com.
Leadership is neither an art nor a science, rather a combination of both. It is an art form because it must continually change and evolve, requiring energy and creativity. And it is a science because there are certain essential principles and techniques required to become a good leader.
Management positions give you the power to make decisions, but this power does not make you a leader. It makes you merely the boss. A good leader empowers, motivates and inspires others to reach a common goal. Anyone can manage, but leading requires transparency.
Transparency is the ability to clearly see the relationship between oneself and one’s environment. Transparent leaders know their strengths and weakness but, above all, know who they are and how their actions impact the actions of others.
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The MOVE Project: Top Accounting Firms Trying to Find Out Why Women Leave the Industry
NewsBy Tina Vasquez (Los Angeles)
According to Joanne Cleaver, the founder of Wilson-Taylor Associates, there’s a pattern for women in public accounting: they love it, but leave it. There are many theories as to why, but Cleaver, a research project manager and business journalist, has partnered up with the American Society of Women Accountants (ASWA) and the American Woman’s Society of Certified Public Accountants (AWSCPA) for some solid answers. Together, they’ve created the Accounting/MOVE Project, a national survey research effort to measure and advance women at public accounting firms and corporate accounting employers.
MOVE stands for Money (fair pay practices), Opportunity (advancement and leadership development), Vital supports (work/life programs that remove barriers), and Entrepreneurship (operating experience for managing business ownership). According to Cleaver, this study will be the first of its kind. “The key thing is [that] our methodology combines quantitative with qualitative. Nearly all of the other companies that do similar projects just collect self-reported survey results and draw conclusions from that. We go far beyond, which is why we think this will become the most authoritative measurement of women’s progress in accounting,” Cleaver said.
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Ask-A-Career Coach: When Is The Best Time To Start A Job Search
Ask A Career CoachContributed by Caroline Ceniza-Levine of SixFigureStart.
I am securely employed at a premier management consulting firm. I know that I want to relocate sometime next year but I can take my time. Now that the market is picking up, is it better to start now, or do I wait in January? When does most hiring take place?
Congratulations to this person for recognizing that she can take her time with the job search. Too often people jump into it and settle for the first thing that comes. Even if you have more time urgency, you still want to launch a thoughtful search, and you certainly don’t want to show any time urgency to prospective employers. So a take-my-time attitude is good.
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Goldman Sachs Returnship (SM) Program Helps Top Women On-Ramp Into Finance
NewsBy Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)
On September 15, 2008, 11 women walked through the doors of the Goldman Sachs office in Manhattan. Some had decades of experience in finance; others had substantial careers in law, technology, operations and accounting. All had voluntarily taken a hiatus from the workforce—from two years to two decades—and were there to explore the possibility of returning to the world of finance through the pilot Returnship (SM) program offered by Goldman Sachs.
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Faith-Based Fund Management: You’ve Got to Have Faith
Featured, Newsby Liz O’Donnell (Boston)
While so many people have lost faith in Wall Street and the stock market during the past year, many others have renewed theirs. They are the faith-based investors—people investing based on criteria set by religious and social beliefs. Faith-based funds are considered a subset of socially responsible funds, or SRIs. According to Morningstar, faith-based offerings have been launched at a fairly rapid rate since 2000 and currently represent more than half the total of all SRI funds. This is significant when you consider that green funds, also part of the SRI category, are experiencing tremendous growth. In fact, the total of assets under management in faith-based funds has grown from about less than $500 million 11 years ago to more than $31 billion today, per Morningstar.
While many faith-based funds have similar investing criteria as socially responsible funds, like generally avoiding investments tied to alcohol, weapons and tobacco, some add a layer of religious filtering to their investment strategy as well. Take Financial Planning Services, a Washington, D.C. company that employs socially responsible investing, speaking to the Christian community about their financial lives and the difference between “man’s economy and God’s economy.”
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Voice of Experience: Monica Mandelli, Managing Director, Investment Management Division, Goldman Sachs
People, Voices of ExperienceThat piece of paper (and its message) has traveled with Mandelli from London to Harvard and from a small cubicle to the large office she now inhabits as a managing director at Goldman Sachs. Said Mandelli, “It encourages me to not become complacent when I win and never to give up when I’m struggling. It reminds me to wake up every day and fight. I’m very confident and relentless and it sums me up quite well.”
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In Case You Missed It: Business News Round-up
NewsContributed by Martin Mitchell of the Corporate Training Group.
Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke says the US recession is probably over, and Governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King expects a slow recovery for the UK. Banks will face limits on the total amount they pay their staff in bonuses under proposals being drawn up by the Financial Stability Board. The board’s plans will be submitted to the G20 countries in advance of their summit in Pittsburgh next week. These are but a few highlights of important market events that we’ve gathered to help you start the week well informed.
Economic Backdrop
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Field Trip: The History of Women on Wall Street Exhibit
Pipeline, What's OnBy Natalie Sabia (New York City)
We’ve come a long way, baby. And we have a handful of highly-capable, courageous women to thank for it, according to the fascinating “Women on Wall Street” exhibit at the Museum of American Finance in New York City.
A Smithsonian affiliate, the Museum of American Finance is the nation’s only public museum of finance. Founded in 1988 after the 1987 stock market crash, the institution’s mission is to support financial literacy and to help people understand the history, as well as the current information about the financial markets. “We were trying to speak to different levels of interest,” said Leena Akhtar, Director of Exhibits & Archives.
The idea for the “Women of Wall Street” exhibit developed after the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was passed in the early part of this year. “I’ve had this idea in back of my mind, and then, when the legislation was passed, it got the wheels turning,” said Akhtar. The interactive exhibit, which opened this summer, is important because, as the museum website notes: “The story of women on Wall Street is the story of women in America. Issues of self-determination, freedom and financial independence clashed with societal norms in the traditionally male domain of finance.” Said Akhtar, “It’s a story of independence and strength through the progression of women over different time periods. The idea behind the exhibit was to tell history that is not often told.”
Read more
Dark Pools: Sink or Swim?
NewsBy Elizabeth Harrin (London)
The verdict has long been out on whether dark pools of liquidity improve the investment process, but the fluctuations in the market this year have certainly seen these trading systems gaining plenty of column inches. Are dark pool investments taking market share from traditional exchanges? Or are their trades falling off, as a result of economic slowdown? I’ve read commentators who argue for both sides, but dark pools can’t be doing well and failing, can they?
Dark pools are off-exchange electronic trading venues. They are also known as ‘alternative trading systems’ and they work by allowing large blocks of shares to be traded outside of the normal exchange, and with greater ease. Dark pools have been particularly successful in partnering with hedge funds as the prices aren’t public. Cloaked in secrecy, and yet a very obvious form of liquidity, dark pool prices are only published publicly once the trade is done.
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