by Heather Cassell (San Francisco)
Shellye Archambeau, chief executive officer of MetricStream, a market leader in quality governance, risk, and compliance process and management solutions for diverse multi-national corporations, always knew she wanted to run a company.
More than 20 years experience in the technology industry, Archambeau is one of the few African American women leading the way in government compliance software, but it’s no mistake she’s where she is today.
“I’m a big believer in planning,” says Archambeau, 46, pointing out that many people believe that by working hard they will achieve their goals, but “unfortunately it just doesn’t always work that way. For some people it happens, but if you just look at the odds the odds are actually against you.”
“So, therefore you have to do things that increase your odds and for me that was planning,” Archambeau continues.
With her focus on running a company and her interest in technology in the early 1980s, Archambeau set off after the commencement of her tenure at the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Business to run IBM.
“At 22 years old you are naive enough to be so big and bold,” says Archambeau laughing. “So, that’s what I did.”
Like many of the technology behemoth’s CEOs that she studied, she started her 15 year career on IBM’s sales floor, but she immediately differentiated herself from her collogues broadening her experience by utilizing her marketing degree. Keeping her focus she identified and achieved goals, such as obtaining a profit and loss position and eventually an overseas assignment, in spite of obstacles by making the “right decisions” to stay on her timeline.
“It wasn’t anything that was written down or part of a development plan,” says Archambeau about her path to becoming an IBM executive and ultimately the first African American woman sent on an international assignment to Tokyo, Japan to run a $1.6 billion dollar business for the computing giant.
Achambeau’s path to success was having a vision and filling in the details with careful research, planning, prioritizing, and evaluation, but she didn’t get there alone.
A variety of mentors helped her achieve success in her career goals as well as having a strong “personal cheerleader” in her corner—her stay-at-home husband of 25 years, Scottie, who she met while they both worked at IBM.
“I’m a big believer in mentors,” says Archambeau, but not just as a career resource or opportunity mine. She discovered mid-career that mentors help people “do their current job very well” and that an outside perspective is important.
“It didn’t occur to me to actually build advisors or mentors outside of the company,” says Archambeau when a colleague asked her about professional guidance separate from the company. Since then she’s developed an out-of-company team of advisors.
“Whatever job you have somebody has done it before,” says Archambeau about leveraging other people’s experience to assist you with doing a better job in the current position you hold. ”You won’t get the next one until you do the one that you’ve got exceptionally well.”
Planning and mentors have been key elements in her success, but the foundation has been her “phenomenal partnership” with her husband, she says.
“I owe a great deal of my success directly to him,” says Archambeau of Scottie about not only managing their busy family life with two, now college-age kids, and many moves around the world, but also in believing in her.
“Everybody, especially every woman, needs a personal cheerleader,” says Archambeau, stating that cheerleaders don’t need to be a “stay-at-home husband,” but people who counterbalance the negative messages by telling you no matter what happens, “‘Hey you are good. You are capable. You can do this.’”
“There are a lot of messages out there telling you just the opposite,” Archambeau tells The Glass Hammer. That support strengthens the plan both at home and career.
“You have to think through, “How are you going to do it and what has to be true to make it work?” she says about how she makes it all work saying that it’s a “constant self-check” asking yourself what is important and why it’s important as “elements of your life” and priorities shift.
The plan and examining the “elements” especially came into play when she decided it was time to transition from being an executive of a large company to becoming a CEO of a smaller company.
The market wasn’t a friendly environment in 2002 for a technology executive without experience at the very top tier to make the transition to CEO—it was flooded with more experienced CEOs vying for the very few open positions. Rather than going ahead with the original plan, Archambeau took advantage of the time to research the experiences of other executives who had left large companies to run smaller companies.
Finding that a great percentage of CEO’s failed at their first few attempts, she decided to increase her odds of success by accepting executive officer level positions at a few small companies in order to gain an understanding of the dynamics of running the business, she says. Her plan paid off. Three companies later, Archambeau turned around formerly challenged MetricStream to being the leader in compliance management technology as its CEO.
Archambeau starts her days off with an early workout at the gym, before heading off to lead MetricStream into its future and ending the day at a board meeting for Arbitron, Inc., Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Executives, IT Senior Management Forum or Silicon Valley Leadership Group.
Just as much as she enjoys her professional life, Archambeau loves socializing with her family and friends. She runs a gourmet dinner club as well as going out to the theater, enjoying music, and dancing with her husband and friends, she says.
Pride Month: Top 5 Ways NOT to Tell Your Co-Workers You are a Lesbian
NewsYou are a professional woman in finance, law, or business. You probably went to a great university, have paid your dues, and are making way up the career ladder as we speak. Yet, you feel incomplete. You are likely either:
(a) a straight woman reading this thinking its hard to find a decent man to live with/marry/have a baby with (delete as appropriate, ladies); or
(b)a lesbian reading this thinking its hard to find a decent woman to live with/get married to in Vermont (or some other same sex marriage friendly jurisdiction)/ have a baby with (including the endless conversations with your partner about who can father the child) (delete as appropriate, ladies).
But, if you fall into category (b), your challenges are different, especially if you are not yet “out” at work.
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Pride Month: Making it Easier for Professional Women to “Come Out” in Corporate America
Office Politics“It was very uncomfortable for me to figure out how to say something to him,” she said, “The idea of actually having to tell him was so weird. I hadn’t had to think about it [when I was running my own company] and all of a sudden I was in a position where I had to choose to explain.” She decided to “come out” to her boss in an indirect way, through an offhanded mention of her same-sex partner in casual conversation. And, she added, while her boss was noticeably surprised, it was “no problem.” She continued, “It was just a very interesting sort of experience from that social/work perspective.” To avoid the same awkward situation in the future, she decided to head up the company’s LGBT initiative. “I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone,” she laughed. “I was excited about the opportunity to lead the group. And it was an easy way to “come out.” I just say, ‘Oh, by the way I lead the Pride group.’”
But for lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT)-identified individuals who have chosen not to “come out” as LGBT in the workplace, simple coffee break conversations represent a potential minefield. While heterosexual couples comfortably discuss their significant others, LGBT employees who choose to remain closeted may not be as comfortable.
Anika K. Warren, co-author of “Building LGBT-Inclusive Workplaces,” the recently-released Catalyst report on LGBT employees in corporate Canada, says that even the simple question of weekend plans, posed to a LGBT co-worker who is not “out” can cause significant added stress: s/he may have to edit activities that might “out” her/him or must be particularly conscious of the pronoun used for her/his significant other.
Warren, a scholar with over 10 years of work on LGBT issues, says that the “hetero-normative assumptions” of heterosexual co-workers is one of the main stumbling blocks. “The everyday assumptions that people make create a hostile work environment for people who don’t have similar experiences or who don’t necessarily want to share their experiences.”
So what stops people from disclosing to co-workers that they are LGBT? Warren said, “Although there are diverse perspectives among the LGBT community in general, we’ve identified for the purposes of our research that employees who were not out in the workplace were not out for one of two reasons: either they have a preference to keep their personal and professional lives separate or they fear potential repercussions. For those employees that are out at work, they cited a range of reasons—personal and professional—including the desire to (1) be authentic (2) form stronger relationships, (3) become role models, and (4) combat homophobia directly.”
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From Big to Boutique: The Changing Face of Investment Banking
NewsFrom UBS to Aladdin Capital; Merrill Lynch to Evercore Partners, Lazard, and Greenhill; Morgan Stanley to Perella Weinberg – one-time Wall Streeters continue their defection from large investment banks to boutique banks following the sub-prime mortgage crisis.
Boutique banks, which typically focus on smaller deals than the traditional big firms, garnered a lot of positive attention last year in the midst of the country’s financial crisis and the negative attention focused on Wall Street. Today, these smaller, specialized firms show no sign of slowing down. They are enjoying preferred status as the workplace of choice for some of the top talent in the financial services industry. There are several reasons for the attraction:
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New York vs. London: Which is the Best City for Executive Women?
Top 10Both London and New York are, without question, bustling cultural centers with amazing diversity and a lack of cheap parking. And, because both are considered the world’s predominant financial centers, home to the largest corporations and professional service firms in the world, an epic battle continues to rage on as to which is really the best, the most welcoming, and the easiest to live and work for professional women.
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Ask-A-Recruiter: How Do Recruiters Search and Screen Resumes?
Ask A RecruiterLast week I wrote about the two main factors that every resume needs – authenticity and specificity. Specificity (i.e., tailoring a resume to the employer/ industry/ function you are targeting), is particularly important because it enables your resume to be found when recruiters search and noticed when recruiters screen.
Recruiters search for resumes on job boards, social networks such as LinkedIn, articles and white papers (especially at senior levels), and their own database. When a search kicks off recruiters filter through the resumes from these sources by keywords and criteria. If you don’t have those keywords or criteria in your resume, you may not get picked.
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Being in the Right Room: Networking Professionally for Professional Women
Featured, Networking, Pipeline, What's On“It’s not what you know, or who you know but who knows you,” advised Gwen Rhys to the business women and men in attendance at the Chartered Management Institute’s City Branch meeting in London last week. “Today’s flatter, leaner structures mean it’s not about the number of people you command but the sphere of your influence.” In other words: networking.
Rhys was speaking on board HQS Wellington, moored alongside Temple on the Thames in London, England. Around 100 people had come to the breakfast event, including the Lady Mayoress Lin Luder, and representatives from financial and consulting firms across the city.
Rhys, founder of Women in the City, explained that leaders have a knack of knowing who to tap for information and when. In today’s economy, successful networking is important, not least because research shows that women with strong networks earn more.
Employees with effective networks can settle into new situations more easily because they have a global support framework. This makes them easier to recruit, and it doesn’t take them as long before they are contributing to the organisation in a highly productive way.
Rhys also explained how networking ensures you are on ‘the inside track’ and it will help you come to sound conclusions because you have open and useful communication channels. For example, she cited the situation many women find themselves in when reaching senior positions: falling off the Glass Cliff, a term coined by Dr Michelle Ryan at Exeter University. The Glass Cliff, an updated version of the glass ceiling concept, refers to the fact that women and members of other minority groups are more likely to get leadership positions in which it is hard to succeed. Women do well to achieve these positions but fall at the last hurdle, and Rhys believes this is because men have already turned these opportunities down, knowing them to be “the job from hell.” Women, who are less likely to have the insider information to make the same conclusions, say yes to the precarious management role and end up failing, with all the knock-on implications for their own confidence and the likelihood of their organisation to promote other women.
Networking is also about being able to connect cross- and inter-departmentally, and trans-nationally. Having a strong network allows you to benchmark your performance against other people and raise your profile at the same time. In difficult times, breaking down organisational silos can be the right way to get things done, and networking can help with that. Mentors and coaches can be sourced through networking, and you can find the right type of mentor for you. Research shows that when women have female mentors the greatest benefit they report is the increase emotional support. When women have male mentors, they report that the greatest benefit is access to his network and knowledge. Having a wide network will mean you can choose different mentors for different reasons.
In short, if you don’t network, you’re not likely to ever make it to the top.
However, networking is not just handing out your business cards to everyone you meet. While there is a social element, the overall objective is to seek out and become acquainted with new people for your professional goals.
“It’s less about working the room and more about being in the right room,” said Rhys. It’s the quality of the relationship which means you can leverage the opportunity, she explained. A business card in your purse does not equal a relationship – but if you can sustain relationships with those people who are the best fit for your professional goals you will no doubt reap the rewards later.
The language of networking can put people off: after all, who wants to be ‘networked’ by someone else? Rhys herself tries to steer clear of the word, preferring to talk about “building and leveraging relationships.”
The purpose of the breakfast event was to gather to listen to Rhys and the open Q&A session afterwards in which the attendees debated flexible working and the pay gap amongst other things, but also to network with the other people present. From the sound of the conversations, some of the attendees – from completely different organisations and industry sectors – greeted each other as if they already had established professional relationships. Notes were swapped and phone numbers of other people passed on, which just proves that a fat contacts book is only half the story when it comes to getting the most out of networking.
Housework Holding Women Back from the Corner Office?
Work-LifeWho’s really keeping women out of the executive suite — the man in the boardroom or the man in the bedroom?
Women hold only 15 percent of all board seats and more than half (68 percent) of public corporations still have no women among their top compensated executives. Women are still earning, on average, only .78 cents for every dollar a man earns.
The men running companies certainly have some accountability. In addition to blatant discrimination such as pay inequity, there are also many micro inequities and hidden barriers in the workplace that affect women and challenge their opportunities for advancement. Advocates for working women say companies should adopt women-friendly policies such as mentoring programs, flexible schedules, better childcare and telecommuting programs. But all the flexibility in the word isn’t going to help if the men at home don’t adopt new policies as well.
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Voice of Experience: Shellye Archambeau, CEO of MetricStream
Voices of ExperienceShellye Archambeau, chief executive officer of MetricStream, a market leader in quality governance, risk, and compliance process and management solutions for diverse multi-national corporations, always knew she wanted to run a company.
More than 20 years experience in the technology industry, Archambeau is one of the few African American women leading the way in government compliance software, but it’s no mistake she’s where she is today.
“I’m a big believer in planning,” says Archambeau, 46, pointing out that many people believe that by working hard they will achieve their goals, but “unfortunately it just doesn’t always work that way. For some people it happens, but if you just look at the odds the odds are actually against you.”
“So, therefore you have to do things that increase your odds and for me that was planning,” Archambeau continues.
With her focus on running a company and her interest in technology in the early 1980s, Archambeau set off after the commencement of her tenure at the University of Pennsylvania, Wharton School of Business to run IBM.
“At 22 years old you are naive enough to be so big and bold,” says Archambeau laughing. “So, that’s what I did.”
Like many of the technology behemoth’s CEOs that she studied, she started her 15 year career on IBM’s sales floor, but she immediately differentiated herself from her collogues broadening her experience by utilizing her marketing degree. Keeping her focus she identified and achieved goals, such as obtaining a profit and loss position and eventually an overseas assignment, in spite of obstacles by making the “right decisions” to stay on her timeline.
“It wasn’t anything that was written down or part of a development plan,” says Archambeau about her path to becoming an IBM executive and ultimately the first African American woman sent on an international assignment to Tokyo, Japan to run a $1.6 billion dollar business for the computing giant.
Achambeau’s path to success was having a vision and filling in the details with careful research, planning, prioritizing, and evaluation, but she didn’t get there alone.
A variety of mentors helped her achieve success in her career goals as well as having a strong “personal cheerleader” in her corner—her stay-at-home husband of 25 years, Scottie, who she met while they both worked at IBM.
“I’m a big believer in mentors,” says Archambeau, but not just as a career resource or opportunity mine. She discovered mid-career that mentors help people “do their current job very well” and that an outside perspective is important.
“It didn’t occur to me to actually build advisors or mentors outside of the company,” says Archambeau when a colleague asked her about professional guidance separate from the company. Since then she’s developed an out-of-company team of advisors.
“Whatever job you have somebody has done it before,” says Archambeau about leveraging other people’s experience to assist you with doing a better job in the current position you hold. ”You won’t get the next one until you do the one that you’ve got exceptionally well.”
Planning and mentors have been key elements in her success, but the foundation has been her “phenomenal partnership” with her husband, she says.
“I owe a great deal of my success directly to him,” says Archambeau of Scottie about not only managing their busy family life with two, now college-age kids, and many moves around the world, but also in believing in her.
“Everybody, especially every woman, needs a personal cheerleader,” says Archambeau, stating that cheerleaders don’t need to be a “stay-at-home husband,” but people who counterbalance the negative messages by telling you no matter what happens, “‘Hey you are good. You are capable. You can do this.’”
“There are a lot of messages out there telling you just the opposite,” Archambeau tells The Glass Hammer. That support strengthens the plan both at home and career.
“You have to think through, “How are you going to do it and what has to be true to make it work?” she says about how she makes it all work saying that it’s a “constant self-check” asking yourself what is important and why it’s important as “elements of your life” and priorities shift.
The plan and examining the “elements” especially came into play when she decided it was time to transition from being an executive of a large company to becoming a CEO of a smaller company.
The market wasn’t a friendly environment in 2002 for a technology executive without experience at the very top tier to make the transition to CEO—it was flooded with more experienced CEOs vying for the very few open positions. Rather than going ahead with the original plan, Archambeau took advantage of the time to research the experiences of other executives who had left large companies to run smaller companies.
Finding that a great percentage of CEO’s failed at their first few attempts, she decided to increase her odds of success by accepting executive officer level positions at a few small companies in order to gain an understanding of the dynamics of running the business, she says. Her plan paid off. Three companies later, Archambeau turned around formerly challenged MetricStream to being the leader in compliance management technology as its CEO.
Archambeau starts her days off with an early workout at the gym, before heading off to lead MetricStream into its future and ending the day at a board meeting for Arbitron, Inc., Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Executives, IT Senior Management Forum or Silicon Valley Leadership Group.
Just as much as she enjoys her professional life, Archambeau loves socializing with her family and friends. She runs a gourmet dinner club as well as going out to the theater, enjoying music, and dancing with her husband and friends, she says.
In Case You Missed It: Business News Round-up
NewsIn case you were too busy to have kept up with all the news, contributor Martin Mitchell has gathered some important market events from last week to help you start this week well informed:
Mergers and Acquisitions
Investment Bankers Lend a Helping Hand on the Gulf Coast
Featured, Women and PhilanthropyTeam Fun putting up siding at a Habitat for Humanity build
by Pamela Weinsaft (New York City)
In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast of the United States, destroying countless homes and neighborhoods and displacing hundreds of thousands of people throughout Louisiana and Mississippi. The images were all over the news. There was an outpouring of money and support. And some, including Caroline Finley and a group of her colleagues from the internal audit department at Credit Suisse in New York, headed down to personally help with the clearing and rebuilding efforts.
“My manager decided to get a group together to go down to help with the Katrina relief effort. In January 2006, about half of our internal audit department – approximately 30 employees – flew down to New Orleans and then went by bus to Biloxi, Mississippi.” A portion of the group slept in a local church, while Caroline and some others slept in tents behind the church. “That was actually my first time in a tent. I actually surprised myself that I could sleep in a tent for 3 nights,” she joked. They did mostly demolition work during that trip, tearing down structures and piling up debris.
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