Wanda Wallace, Ph.D. is President and CEO of Leadership Forum, Inc. The firm specializes in working with organizations to enhance corporate capability in leadership including strategic thought, customer insight, people and inclusive cultures.
Dr. Wallace has worked with many firms in the financial arena, including Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Ernst and Young, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Prior to founding Leadership Forum, Inc, Dr. Wallace was Executive Vice President of Duke Corporate Education, Inc, which she helped found after her tenure as Associate Dean of Executive Education and professor of marketing at The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.
What prompted you to use your psychology background in the financial arena?
I believe the best strategies succeed or fail based on engaging hearts and minds in the opportunities and the requirements for success. To do so, one must understand people – how they think, how they react, how they make sense of their world, what communication style is best, and so forth. To me, this is the essence of what I bring from my psychology background.
Five years ago, the financial world was interested in high quality coaching, strategic planning and teamwork development. They still are, but in the last year there has been an increasing focus on improving the ability to manage people in a business where numbers count for everything. As an industry, I see financial professionals placing an increased emphasis on retaining the great talent they worked so hard to recruit. Improving retention requires improving management practices. Even in diversity efforts, which are critical for financial services firms, better management practices increase the chances of developing and retaining diverse talent.
What I enjoy most is the ability to go into an organization, identify and clarify the issues and present solutions, using training and development activities and/or coaching.
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Unraveling of the SocGen Fraud
NewsThe news about a massive securities fraud by a rogue trader at France’s second largest bank, Société Générale, just keeps getting worse. The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that the bank didn’t lose the $4.9 billion euros that it first reported, but will actually report losses of over $6 billion euros after unwinding the unhedged bets by the rogue trader, Jérôme Kerviel. In what may be one of the great understatements of the year, CEO Daniel Bouton stated that the internal audit system of the bank’s risk management is insufficient to prevent this type of fraud.
President Sarkozy of France, who has been in the papers more than Britney Spears lately on affairs both private and public, has made it clear that he wants heads to roll. But who should ultimately be accountable for the biggest scandal to hit the financial markets since the downfall of Barings bank in 1995? There seems to be three upfront players in this blame game and all three seem to have played a little fast and loose with the numbers.
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Where the Jobs Are For Women in Finance in 2008
Next LevelContributed by Gary M. Stern
Opportunities in money and wealth management
Asked where the major opportunities are in 2008, Kim Bishop, a New York-based senior client partner at Korn/Ferry International, a global executive search firm, said that she’s seeing steady growth in wealth and money management firms. Firms are hiring in finance “across the board and that includes business development, client service, financial planners and advisors,” she said.
But a leading female executive recruiter of a boutique firm in New York who requested anonymity said, “The subprime crisis is affecting other areas. If financial buyers can’t finance acquisitions, the market will be slower.” She sees opportunities cropping up in the next six months but envisions a tight, challenging marketplace.
Dealmakers: please apply
Venture capital (VC) and private equity (PE) firms continue to offer opportunity, Bishop suggested. VC and PE firms seek women who have experience in “deal-making including initiating and executing deals” are in demand. Though several articles noted that private equity firms operate like men’s’ clubs, Bishop emphasized that these firms “are looking for the best talent in the world and will select whoever is best qualified,” gender not a factor.
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21st Century Leadership For Women
NewsLearn how to enhance your leadership skills.
Why Women Mean Business
Breaking the Glass CeilingOn January 30, 2008, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) hosted a launch party for the new book Why Women Mean Business: Understanding the Emergence of our Next Economic Revolution by Avivah Wittenberg-Cox and Alison Maitland. The event took place at PwC’s offices at Embankment Place in London, where over 100 guests were invited to attend at talk by the authors. The event was sponsored by PwC’s Gender Advisory Council, which advises the Global CEO on gender issues, particularly retention and development of women and support of leadership initiatives.
Those concerned with diversity and gender issues in the business arena greeted this book with great fanfare, the book takes a new approach to these issues. Beyond “preaching to the converted,” this book seeks to bring the teachings of diversity and inclusion training to a wider audience in an understandable and accessible way.
The book goes several steps further than doling out the usual “case for diversity” plea. Instead, the book highlights WHY companies that embrace diversity and are sensitive to gender issues will become all-round employers of choice, as well as more effective marketers for this new century. It gives a lucid step-by-step guide for managers on how to create growth by valuing the input of both women and men in the workplace, explains why many current approaches to hiring more women haven’t worked well, and offers a new perspective.
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LegalTech® New York 2009
NewsKeynote Addresses by:
-Christopher J. Olsen, CRM, Systems Engineer, Principal, Lockhead Martin, Chief Records, CIA
-John W.Woods, Privacy and information Management Practice Litigation & Intellectual Property Practice, Hunton& Williams
Keynote Address:
2-4, 2009 9 am – 10 am
Exhibit Hours:
February 2-3, 2009 10 am – 5 pm
February 4, 2009 10 am – 3 pm
Conference Hours:
February 2 -3, 2009 10:30 am – 5pm
February 4, 2009 10:30 am – 3 pm
For more information, or to Register
Voice of Experience: Wanda Wallace, CEO of Leadership Forum, Inc.
Voices of ExperienceDr. Wallace has worked with many firms in the financial arena, including Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Ernst and Young, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Prior to founding Leadership Forum, Inc, Dr. Wallace was Executive Vice President of Duke Corporate Education, Inc, which she helped found after her tenure as Associate Dean of Executive Education and professor of marketing at The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University.
What prompted you to use your psychology background in the financial arena?
I believe the best strategies succeed or fail based on engaging hearts and minds in the opportunities and the requirements for success. To do so, one must understand people – how they think, how they react, how they make sense of their world, what communication style is best, and so forth. To me, this is the essence of what I bring from my psychology background.
Five years ago, the financial world was interested in high quality coaching, strategic planning and teamwork development. They still are, but in the last year there has been an increasing focus on improving the ability to manage people in a business where numbers count for everything. As an industry, I see financial professionals placing an increased emphasis on retaining the great talent they worked so hard to recruit. Improving retention requires improving management practices. Even in diversity efforts, which are critical for financial services firms, better management practices increase the chances of developing and retaining diverse talent.
What I enjoy most is the ability to go into an organization, identify and clarify the issues and present solutions, using training and development activities and/or coaching.
Read more
Geeks With Peeps: The Coming Reign of Technocracy
NewsJoin us for a lively discussion about the new landscape of C-suite leaders.
Women in Real Estate and Professional Women’s Philanthropy Breakfast
NewsAgainst All Odds: Successful Women in Real Estate is a panel discussion with leading women in the commercial real estate industry throughout New York City.
16th Annual Stern Women In Business (SWIB) Conference
NewsThe conference brings together current students, alumni, and business leaders to discuss the issues that female professionals face every day.
Catching Fish in Uganda and the Secret to Saving the World
PassionsContributed by Alana Elsner
The Glass Hammer has published several pieces in the past on how women in finance can get involved in charitable enterprises that put their skills to work helping women in need. In this article, a new contributor to The Glass Hammer highlights her experience with socially responsible investing.
I asked myself, how was I to start saving the world? My typical ten hour work day, plus occasional weekends, left me with little time to spare. Then one evening I caught a news report about Kiva.org, a website linking poor borrowers with U.S. lenders. In the era of billionaire philanthropy, my $25 realized its full potential as I became a Kiva lender. With a few swift clicks of my mouse, I teamed up with Sara from San Francisco, Bobbi from Atlanta, and 44 other lenders to raise funds for Gertrude, a 44 year old mother of nine. From the moment I went to the website, Gertrude’s picture and story fascinated me. As a fishmonger, Gertrude’s fish stock and profits help support her family. But now she is ready to become one of the few female entrepreneurs in Uganda. Gertrude plans to use my $25 to multiply her fish stocks. Once her profits increase, she hopes to open up a clothing business. I was surprised, but I also admired this woman, continents away, who had not one but two business plans. After seeing Gertrude and hearing her story, how could I not help?
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