Voice of Experience: Melanie Tinto, Chief Human Resources Officer, WEX

By Cathie Ericson

Early in her career, a mentor asked WEX’ Melanie Tinto what she would do differently if she was a vice president, and she named a couple of things on her mind.

It was very eye opening when her mentor responded, “Why not operate like you’re already in the role that you want to be in? Why wait? Let people see you for the value you bring, and they’ll be thinking ‘I thought she already had that larger title.’” That is the type of advice that has helped Tinto rise within numerous companies to her current position today.

Finding Her Calling in HR

Tinto says she never thought of work as “work,” but rather something that brought her fulfilment, thus making her busy career a pleasure.

She had grown up in Maine but when she graduated, the market was not particularly robust, so she moved to Connecticut and worked for a finance company that put her in a leadership development program. She ended up with a rotation in HR and although she had planned to land in underwriting, she realized that HR was the right path for her, particularly in the recruiting and career development areas.

When the company was being acquired, she decided to make a move to Cigna that combined her loves of financing and HR. She was soon promoted to managing half the staff and went through some different departments, including product strategy, when she found herself at the tipping point where it was time to decide if she was going to stay in HR or go back to the business side. She ended up working in HR for a variety of companies of all sizes, mainly moving with bosses she admired. Over the years, she has been proud that she’s been able to play a role in developing talent and watching them blossom, with former team members who are now CHROs.

Tinto is happy now to be back with a smaller company where she appreciates the culture and tighter chemistry. And of course, she is delighted to be back to Maine.

In her new position at WEX, she’ll be focusing her attention on a variety of needs, but one of them is helping to ensure the diversity of staff. In addition she is focused on thinking ahead to how employees will want to work in the future and how the company can help retain them by offering a variety of work paths, such as short- and long-term assignments to keep them interested.

Also, now that she is in a different chapter of her career, she’s looking forward to expanding her work on advisory boards to deepen her roots by becoming more engaged in the community beyond her day-to-day work.

Benefitting from Mentors and Passing It On

Another lesson that stuck with Tinto from a mentor came from the military, “Completed Staff Work.” What that means is never put a problem in the lap of someone else; instead at least offer options and recommendations. “Find that extra step that differentiates you and helps your leader do his or her job better,” she advises. So for example, if you knew your boss was going to forward your email directly to the CEO, would you check it one more time for format or spelling? Then assume that might happen and do it.

She says that she feels so grateful for her career path that she is eager to bring others along. To that end, she says it’s important to remember to give credit to team members, which can help strengthen relationships.

Building those relationships has always been important to her. At a former employer she helped lead the women’s employee resource group and saw how impactful the outlet was as a way to remember not to just put your head down and work.

“Many of the women I met there are still my board of advisors,” she says, adding that she has known many of them since the ‘90s, which offers a vast network she can always ask for help or advice.

“Sometimes you need someone to hold a mirror up to you, and you have to be open to that feedback, which makes you better even when you don’t want it,” she says.

A Full Life With Family

Balance is important to Tinto, and she says she wishes she’d learned earlier in her career to carve out time for herself. “You have to take that hour, or leave work to take a vacation because often taking a break is a better way to be more effective.”

Now she enjoys spending time with her husband of 25 years and 13-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter. “I’m lucky because I’ve always felt very supported in terms of my career – even with all the craziness, we are a team that supports one another.”

Together they love to participate in a wide variety of activities, from camping to concerts to trips. One of their goals is to see every state in the country and they only have eight left. “I wouldn’t trade the memories we’ve made for anything,” she says.

The family is also busy with kids’ sports and traveling teams, particularly horses and lacrosse. And now that she is back in Maine, she is delighted to be able to spend Sunday dinners with the extended family.

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Mover & Shaker: Svetla Marinova, Vice President of Innovation, APG

Svetla MarinovaBy Cathie Ericson

“I always assumed that one needed to have studied a particular major in college in order to work in that industry, especially finance, but I have come to find that some of my most successful colleagues and classmates found their way into their respective industries by ‘falling into it’ in different ways,” says APG’s Svetla Marinova.

“I believe they are so good at what they do because their minds approach problems differently from the minds of their peers who have all been trained in the same traditional way, and they are valued for that very reason.”

Marinova’s creative career path certainly bears that out.

Seizing Opportunities Throughout Her Career

Marinova always thought she’d pursue academia and focused on preparing herself for a PhD in Economics, with a focus on Environmental Economics — even spending an extra year in college focusing on math, and then earning a Master’s degree in Climate & Society at Columbia straight after college. But when she eventually started her PhD, she realized a research career did not fit her energetic and outgoing personality.

“I wanted to be in a dynamic environment where my actions could effect change right away,” she says, deciding to join a consulting firm as a way to figure out what industry she might be drawn to. She joined what was at the time a startup called AlphaSights, now a 400+ employee firm, as the first female employee in their NYC team of 10.

After a year she fell into fintech, becoming the first employee of S&P Global’s Innovation Lab, where she developed an affinity for the field and the Lean Startup methodology as it applies to software development, particularly driven by an interest in deriving insights from data through data visualization.

While at S&P Global, she created a summer internship competition called Mission Possible, where interns form teams and act like startups, developing a product over two months. The competition culminates with a pitch before senior management who act like VCs; for four summers she oversaw the program with 50+ interns each summer. She also created more than a dozen proofs-of-concept with her S&P team, and initiated numerous initiatives meant to stir the organization into more creative thinking.

While there, Marinova also designed and product-managed a smart search tool at a time when natural language processing was in its infancy as applied to financial services. Within six months, her team had a cutting-edge product that they had built iteratively with zero prior experience in natural language processing and with limited resources.
“It was incredibly rewarding, and I learned that I’m capable of picking up any project and making it successful if I do the proper research and am given freedom and support to execute,” she notes. “I also taught myself to pick up the phone and ask for advice when I don’t know how to do something, which saves a lot of time and worries. Of course, being surrounded by top-notch engineers with the same can-do attitude was essential to our success.”

And, she learned that while her ideas were sometimes outside-the-box, and that not everyone was going to get them or love them immediately, there are opportunities and challenges in the fintech space that merit exactly that type of bold and unconventional thinking.

In an effort to learn more about data architecture, she spent two years working on strategic data sourcing initiatives at Deutsche Bank, where she co-led an employee resource group called Career360, a knowledge-exchange program between junior and senior employees. The program has grown significantly and exists in many countries around the world now.

During that time she began the Executive MBA program at the Wharton School of Business, a two-year program with the same curriculum as a full-time MBA, but with the caveat that all students also work full-time during the program. She graduated in May 2018, proud of her success at completing the intense program.

In addition to learning about finance, marketing, general management and entrepreneurship, she says she gained confidence and traveled the world with classmates on global knowledge trips to Japan, Argentina and Spain, to name a few, along the way meeting incredible people from a variety of industries and geographies.

She joined APG, the largest Dutch pension fund, in September 2017 as vice president and manager of innovation, where for now at least, she is again a one-woman show building out an innovation program for the New York office using the lessons learned from her Innovation colleagues in The Netherlands . This entails scouting out the fintech ecosystem for startups who could be potential strategic partners; coaching experiments or internal R&D projects aimed at delivering products and services for the pensioner of the future or aimed at improving the investment process; and creating and sustaining a culture of innovation via various internal initiatives from a speaker series to ideation sessions.

“I’m excited to be building cutting-edge tools for a company that believes in and supports innovation,” Marinova says. “I feel encouraged to explore ideas in the areas of fintech that truly interest me, such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and sustainable investing.”

At the moment, she finds she’s most enthusiastic about their experiment with alternative data, which she researched thoroughly prior to designing by talking to industry peers, alternative data vendors, platform providers, internal investment experts and compliance professionals. “It’s a truly collaborative effort between our New York and Amsterdam offices, and I cannot wait to find out what we will learn from this experiment about how to tackle the growing volumes and types of data that are becoming available.”

A Full Life Inside and Outside of Work

Marinova participates in the APG U.S. Women’s Forum, which is an initiative that seeks to enhance careers by providing opportunities both within and outside APG to share information, strengthen skills and develop rewarding professional relationships. In addition, they seek to serve the broader community, especially in ways that have a positive impact on women and girls. For example in February, they raised money for the Young Women’s Leadership School, whose students visited the office for job shadowing, mock interviews and case coaching.

Starting with her first role model, her father, Marinova mentions that all of her mentors and managers thus far have been male, and she looks forward to the day when she will end up reporting to a woman she can look up to. “Unfortunately women are massively underrepresented in the fintech space, especially in senior roles,” she says, adding that she catches herself counting the number of females on panels or even in the audience at major fintech conferences. “I think it is slowly growing, but still remains within double or even single digits. I hope to change that.”

Outside of work, Marinova engages in a wide variety of hobbies, including travel, music, dabbling in arts, and reading – from books that help her retain her professional edge to fiction. She has served as a volunteer coach with FIRST Robotics and NFTE, where she taught entrepreneurship to high school students, and looks forward to re-engaging in her mentoring and volunteer activities after completing her MBA.

And all of her efforts are guided by an underlying principle: “Don’t cut corners when it comes to your personal effort — make things happen using the highest standards that you can think of,” she says. For her that manifests itself as thinking of every project as an opportunity to showcase existing skills and learn new ones. She’ll seek advice from online journals or others in her network, but isn’t afraid to make up her own way of doing something if she finds that nobody is doing it quite right. “When nobody has figured out the solution yet, that’s a great opportunity — this is how new products and processes are born out of a blank canvas,” she says.

Equally important to her is always maintaining integrity, and always being kind to everyone you meet along the way, eager to help others and to hear them out. “As Ray Dalio says, it’s essential to surround yourself with smart people who are not afraid to disagree with you — this brings us all closer to the truth.” “Being open to entertaining opposing views is how you create trust with people, and they will always remember if you’re someone who is willing to fight for the right thing,” she says. Not to mention, of course, that besides being a recipe for career success, it is also one for living a happy life and sleeping well at night.

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Better Your Business with Better Storytelling

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Elise Valmorbida Guest contributed by Elise Valmorbida

The business world is full of people telling other people that they must tell stories.

They’re right in a way, because we like a bit of drama. We resist or resent dull information. Our attention is more and more a scarce asset. None of us has time or energy to spare. And a brand is nothing if not a story.

But the word ‘story’ gets tossed around like litter in the wind. The great story mavens—from Hollywood screen-writers to wilderness faith-healers—are quoted wantonly in business environments everywhere. Urged to tell stories, well-intentioned organisations too often grow narrative moss: pseudo-stories, shaggy old news pages, voiceless forums, scattered chatter across any kind of social media, unread newsletters, explicit claims of brand “passion” that seduce too few…

Whatever tale you need to tell—elevator pitch, brand history, personal profile, case study, script scenario, project proposal—you can use these tips from the world of literary storytelling to boost your brand success.

Deep-vein authenticity.

Why are you telling a story—this story? What’s at its heart? Think philosophically about the essence. Think, really think, until you unearth its unique truth. If you find a paradox or contradiction, chances are that’s the narrative crux. If embellishment is needed, it will emanate from the heart.

Fresh, not stale.

Samuel Beckett wrote his best plays first in French. He must have been fairly good at French, but it was a foreign language. So why did he do it? He wanted to stop the fluent from flowing. It was a defence against cliché. He compelled himself to think quite carefully about every word, rather than lapsing into lazy ideas or phrases. Try to “think fresh” when you make your verbal and visual choices.

Plot.

Just for now, I’d like you to pretend your brand is a cat.

The cat sat on the mat, and then it sat somewhere else, and then it had a nap, and then…

Yawn.

Instead of “and then”, it’s better plotting to think “so”, “but” or “meanwhile”.

The cat sat on the mat, so the dog had to sit somewhere else.

The cat sat on the mat, but the mat reeked of dog.

The cat sat on the mat. Meanwhile, the dog lurked behind the door.

Concrete nouns.

Welsh-noir author and creative writing teacher Malcolm Pryce writes: “Concrete nouns are judgement free. They don’t tell you what to think, they give you the information and allow you to form your own opinion. Rather than tell me the food was disgusting, which is an instruction to be disgusted, imagine you told me instead, the cook ran out of stock, so she took the bandage off her foot and put it in the stew. Presumably this image arouses disgust naturally within you. This is really what we mean by show not tell.”

Emotion.

Try the cook’s stew above.

Poetry.

Think of a representational still-life painting, where a fly appears to have landed on an apple because the apple looks so real; it’s almost a photograph. Now, think of a more abstract painting—say, a group of apples by Cézanne—and you’re invited to notice the brush-strokes, the gestures of the artist, the qualities of the paint and grain of the canvas. That’s how I think of poetic prose. Beyond the job of information, there’s pleasure to be had in the movements and textures of language itself.

Dialogue.

Voiced utterances are like opening a window and letting in fresh air. “I love spoken words!” the reader says. Think quotation, endorsement, testimonial, user review…

Less is more.

“I would have written you a shorter letter, but I didn’t have the time”—so wrote the 17th-century philosopher Blaise Pascal. When you edit, your story will probably get shorter. That’s good. Each remaining word (or image) will work harder for you. Bonus: your audience will feel respected because you haven’t wasted their time.

Other people’s shoes.

When I write fiction, I imagine the world from each character’s point of view. They have their own beliefs and reasons for doing things—they are not me. Imagine the situation of your reader as they read your story. Don’t tell them what you think they should feel.

Tell your story to one person.

A business doesn’t read your story, a person does.

Action, reaction.

Be clear about your story’s purpose. Are you inviting people to feel, or understand, or spend, or take some kind of action? Don’t overload the narrative with too many wishes—they’ll cancel each other out.

The end is the beginning…

When we finish reading the last words of a good story, we feel a pleasurable little grief. Perhaps we want to read the whole thing again. Perhaps we want to share it with others. Our world has shifted subtly on its axis. We think about things differently now.

About the author

Elise Valmorbida is a communications consultant, multi-published author and teacher of creative writing. Her latest novel The Madonna of the Mountains (Spiegel & Grau, USA) is a New York Post “must-read” and The Times (UK) Book of the Month. Bestselling author Sara Gruen describes it as “powerful and entrancing, a riveting adventure for the soul.”

Disclaimer: The opinions and views of guest contributors are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com

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Voice of Experience: Jocelyn B. Redman, Counsel, Shearman & Sterling

Jocelyn B. RedmanBy Cathie Ericson

All different types of people can succeed at law firms, says Jocelyn Redman.

“Even if at first you don’t see people who look just like you or come from the same background, remember that you can succeed with different goals by leveraging your strengths and forging the career that works best for you.”

As A Shearman & Sterling “Lifer” She Finds the Career She Always Sought

Redman’s goal had always been to become a lawyer, but she felt that working in an office environment in another field would afford her a useful perspective on her career. She spent her first four years out of college working on energy and environmental policy analysis, and then went to law school. While earning her law degree at American University’s Washington College of Law, she joined the firm as a summer associate and has been there ever since, and was promoted to Counsel effective as of March 1.

Redman started at Sherman & Sterling in the finance group in New York City, joined the real estate practice after two years and relocated to the Washington, D.C. office in 2014. She works with her colleagues in New York and London, handling issues such as acquisitions and dispositions, joint ventures and leasing; she particularly enjoys matters involving Washington D.C. real estate given how hot real estate development is currently in that city.

“I’m always working with clients to suggest avenues that can guard against the tendency toward a boom-and-bust cycle,” she says, adding that the D.C. market is particularly appealing for investments – the continuous needs of the government can protect against the typical harsh fall that the real estate industry as a whole can have when markets turn. “We are always looking to tap alternative resources and be aware of trade-offs and how to protect our clients’ investments.”

Using Diversity As A Tool For Success

Over the years, Redman has found that participation in Shearman & Sterling’s WISER (Women’s Initiative for Success, Excellence and Retention) group has been useful as a way to get to know women partners and counsel from other specialty groups. She’s also found the “Lean In” circles to be applicable, particularly one module about body language that helped participants become more aware of the unintended messages they might inadvertently be sending through their presentation and carriage.

She believes that being a woman in the legal field can be a benefit, since clients are looking for diversity and differing perspectives in their legal teams. In fact, she finds that one of the biggest barriers for women in the legal field – especially at law firms – can be perception, rather than reality.

“I find that women worry that a legal career might take all your time, and that the only type of person who can succeed are those who put everything else aside,” she says. “And that in itself can cause women to self-select out, or decide they should take on a smaller role, when in reality those steps are not necessary and can just result in women lawyers taking jobs where they are being paid less and have less opportunity to grow in their careers.”

She cautions women not to assume you have to give your entire life to your career or play into the notion that success requires constant sacrifice. Unfortunately, she sees lawyers who perpetuate the stereotype by contributing to the myth that you can never have your weekends free or take vacations. “I am still learning to balance,” she says, “but there are ways to have hobbies and a family and be successful at your job.”

With a young daughter herself, Redman is learning to focus on other priorities outside of work while still providing excellent legal services to her clients on behalf of her firm. “Some of this ability to balance comes from maturing in your job,” she points out. In fact, traveling is another priority and over the years she has taken three trips to Africa with her mom.

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The 10th Annual Top Women on the Buyside event coverage: What will the future bring for the Asset Management Industry?

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By Melissa Anderson

Artificial intelligence, big data and technology generally will impact the asset management industry in a big way, according to industry leaders speaking as part of The Glasshammer’s tenth annual Top Women on the Buy-Side breakfast.

After introductory remarks by Nicki Gilmour, CEO of theglasshammer.com, Jennifer Hanes, Head of Investment Management and Operations at technology company FIS opened the discussion in the moderator seat with a question around the outlook for near and further timelines for the industry. In a wide ranging discussion, the panelists discussed how they expect the industry will be with themes of innovative products, continued active management and human advisory, and the rise of big data and machine learning.

The panelists included Kristi Mitchem, CEO of Wells Fargo Asset Management; Lori Heinel, Deputy Global CIO of State Street Global Advisors; Kathryn Koch, Global Head of Client Portfolio Management and Business Strategy at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Fundamental Equity; and Donna Parisi, Partner, Global Head of Finance at Shearman & Sterling LLP.

According to Kristi Mitchem, CEO at Wells Fargo Asset Management, over the last ten to 15 years, firms have honed their technology usage to be more efficient, for example integrating project management systems and trading systems. Now, she said, technology is moving from the back office to the front office.

“The big change we’ve seen in the last three to five years is a migration from thinking about technology as an operational construct to thinking about technology as a business construct and an alpha driver,” Mitchem said. In addition to applying big data to alpha generating processes, more companies will also apply it to risk management processes to improve the trajectory of returns, she said. Asset managers will also continue to think about how they are using technology in terms of distribution.

“How do we get much better and richer data about the clients we go after? How do we actually create very customized value propositions as part of the sales process by using technology to understand and target more efficiently and effectively?” Mitchem asked.

Indeed, according to panel moderator Jennifer Hanes, Head of Investment Management and Operations at technology company FIS, this shift is bringing positive outcomes already.

Her company recently completed its second annual readiness survey of 1,500 senior executives in the buy-side, sell-side and insurance industry.

“We are hearing a lot of enthusiasm and optimism from organizations … in terms of how they are thinking about technology and using it to drive business outcomes,” Hanes said. “Those businesses that are leaders actually because they leverage technology are seeing better performance in their results.”

Heinel said that her company is thinking carefully about how to retain value as technology migrates from the back office to the front office. Technology has, for so long, been seen as an efficiency driver, , she explained.

“In some respects, when you think about robo-advisory and you think about some of the other online asset management applications, that’s degrading, in some cases, the value that the interface between human and machine can actually add,” Heinel said. “We believe the combination between technology and human is ultimately what’s going to win, and so we’re being very protective of where we are adding value over and above some sort of automatable routine.”

Koch agreed, pointing out that while big data will surely be an important part of the asset management industry moving forward, the field is still in its infancy. She comments,

“ We have created more data in last two years than in all of history of mankind – but only 3 percent is actually been annualized,” she continued, “however because the rate of decay around big data as a potential alpha source is so fast, companies have to be willing to “get behind the capex to get on the bleeding edge.”

Koch comments,

“We can’t be luddites and we have to embrace technology, but there really is going to be a very important intersection with humans. I like technology, but I’m still very ‘long’ on human beings. In particular, she continued, “humans can “connect seemingly disparate points in the investment processes to make predictions about the future not dependent on past data”

Meanwhile, Parisi offered a few “cautionary tales” with respect to big data – companies making use of it need to be sensitive to privacy issues as well as other legal risks such as insider trading. For example, she highlighted a recent court case involving a Capital One analyst who scraped together internal credit card data and, based on his analysis, bought and sold stock in retail companies ahead of their earnings reports.

The Securities and Exchange Commission charged the analyst with insider trading and the courts agreed, saying that the data met the level of materiality that would give rise to an insider trading claim because it was so highly correlated and predictive.

“You need to think about even though it may be only a small slice of data, if it is highly correlated or highly predictive, if it’s not widely disseminated, you better think carefully about whether or not you have material, non-public information,” Parisi said.

Finally, the panelists were asked to sum up their expectations of the asset management industry of the future. Panelists touched on clients’ desire for innovation as well as the growing importance of environmental, social and governance-focused (ESG) investing.

Mitchem ended with her vision of the asset manager as a “total coach.”

“How could financial services companies, through data arrangements with other people, really become the coach for your life?” she asked. “You want to think about, not just your 401k business, but you want to think about your HSA business. You want to figure out [whether you could] be that integral provider that coaches people across the spectrum on everything from healthcare to wealth management.”

Theglasshammer wants to thank the panelists, moderator, sponsors and attendees for making this a great event.

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Voice of Experience: Jennifer Barbetta | Partner, Goldman Sachs

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Jennifer BarbettaBy Cathie Ericson

“Be on the short list,” recommends Jennifer Barbetta, a partner in Goldman Sachs’ Investment Management Division.

From her own experience, she knows that unique and challenging projects don’t simply “fall in front of you,” and that when senior managers are kicking off a new business, they’ll look to add people to their team who offer both a specific skill set as well as those with whom they have built a relationship.

As such, she advises junior analysts and associates to be “willing to work hard at everything put in front of you,” because individuals who jump in to solve problems and also work on building honest, trusting relationships are rewarded. “When people think of someone they want to work with, you want it to be you,” she recommends.

Creating a Multi-Faceted Career

And being someone with that mindset contributed to how Barbetta has managed to enjoy such a fruitful and varied career at Goldman Sachs. She joined the firm directly after graduating college, assuming she would work at the firm for several years prior to pursuing an MBA or law degree. Fast forward 23 years, and she’s still enjoying her work at Goldman Sachs, having worked in a variety of different roles across businesses.

Today, Barbetta is helping to lead the Global Portfolio Solutions Group in Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM), which provides custom asset allocation advice, risk management and portfolio construction to both institutional and retail clients. The business has steadily expanded its service offerings over the past few years, resulting in GSAM becoming one of the top providers globally.

The custom solutions-oriented offering is one with a lot of potential, Barbetta says, noting that the work GSAM is doing was referenced in Goldman Sachs’ annual letter to shareholders as an effort with significant growth potential. That’s partially because trends in the industry are aligned with the business’ growth, as pension plans or healthcare organizations look for greater expertise in generating investment returns, because they may not have the breadth of internal capability to support all asset classes, portfolio construction and asset liability analysis. In other cases, they may be looking to outsource this functionality to save costs. “What we offer is so customized yet we have the expertise, investment platforms and risk management tools to scale this work effectively.”

“There is clearly a trend in this space, and at Goldman Sachs, we feel we have the skills sets, scale and resources to deliver for our clients,” Barbetta notes. “We have a diverse and experienced team, and we have significantly added to our capabilities over the past several years.”

Proud to be Part of A Firm That Embraces Diversity

Barbetta notes that as women progress in their careers, firms experience difficulty promoting and retaining senior women as they begin to start families. “It becomes more of a balancing act, and I know there’s more we can all do to enhance flexibility,” she says.

She also finds it uniquely beneficial to be out at work, primarily because you can take energy that you might have spent covering up a part of who you are and redirect it to a more useful need. She is proud to be associated with Goldman Sachs, and notes that the firm focuses on building an inclusive culture, with the tone being set at the top.

“If someone feels confident that senior management gets it, it makes it that much more comfortable to be out at work,” she notes. For Barbetta, a defining moment came when Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein spoke out in support of marriage equality in 2011, highlighting to both employees and the public that he supports diversity.

Involved with the LGBT network since it was founded in 2001, Barbetta now serves as an advisor, and during Pride Month will be moderating a panel on embracing transgender talent. She also is active in Goldman Sachs’ women’s network, having championed strategic initiatives focused on high-performing women. She also has been involved with the Black network and led a mentoring cohort that worked with managing directors and vice presidents.

Barbetta has three children with her wife Victoria, and when not spending time with family, she is active in philanthropic organizations. For almost a decade, she’s been on the board of the Point Foundation, which offers scholarships and mentoring to LGBTQ students of merit. She is also on the board of Junior Achievement New York, where she recently helped host a Bowlathon that raised almost $300,000. In addition, she is a board member at her children’s school.

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Being LGBTA at Work – Out and Awesome

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By Nicki Gilmour, Executive Coach and Organizational Psychologist

“People are strange when you’re a stranger” or so croons Jim Morrison from The Doors. Being different from the historical majority group still has its challenges, and being LGBT in a world of heteronormativity, no matter how cool people are, can make you feel “other” or outside the core group.

So, how do you navigate the challenges of coming out again and again ( that’s right people, it isn’t a one shot deal!). Here are 3 tips to being out and awesome.

1. Know yourself.

Like everyone else, your preference is just that, its not your actual personality, although both are intrinsic and therefore everyone else should understand that words like choice and lifestyle are not accurate. If you are shy naturally, only work within your comfort zone of who you tell and when. Trust in this area, like other areas is built over time. Equally if you are an extrovert and want to wave a flag, do it! Much of this also depends on where you are at with your own journey, don’t feel rushed one way or the other to express yourself.

2. Know your audience.

Fact; the world is divided into people who have thought about their own mental models and those who just take on whatever stuff their father/granny told them and are still living with values that Sophia from the Golden Girls would be proud of when she says “picture this, Sicily 1923”. Kegan and Lahey- Harvard developmental psychologists write about this subjective lens to life approach in “Immunity to Change” (this book changed my life if you all haven’t noticed how much I reference it). You don’t have to tell people who are just too cognitively/emotionally limited to understand anything outside their own direct experience, or you can choose to. Up to you.

3. Authenticity pays off.

Studies show that hiding can damage your career as it takes massive effort to change pronouns etc. Just be you, as there are so many people who will love you for you. On that note, Allies come out and vocalize your support for anyone who needs it.

Sponsor your LGBT network as an ally, get involved !

We just do not have to tolerate dinosaurs anymore. The revolution will be televised!

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Voice of Experience: Francesca Harris, Business Development Manager, PwC UK

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Francesca Harris

By Cathie Ericson

“Know your worth, and keep striving for where you want to be compared to where you are,” says Francesca Harris.

She advises tapping the knowledge of the people and talent that is all around to develop yourself further. “Find someone you can reach out to who has already arrived where you hope to be and seek their advice and support to see how they got there,” she says.

Over the years she has realized the power of reaching out to people who are more senior than yourself and investing time in those relationships, rather than being intimidated by who they are.

“Be fearless and take risks,” she says. “You can never be wrong trying to do something right so run with it, and there will always be people there to support you.

A D&I Pioneer

Harris started her career in London in the online digital space, primarily in the music and entertainment industry. It was a similar skill set as business development, and after four years she accepted a job offer from PwC and moved to Birmingham where she currently focuses on the private business market and growing client portfolios. Each day is a fascinating mix of helping businesses conquer a challenge or entrepreneurs who are working toward getting to the next level.

But the professional achievement of which she is most proud is her recent honor as Barclays Diversity Champion DIVA 2018. “When I saw the short list, I was amazed at the heavy hitters and outstanding women who had been nominated so it was a complete surprise when I was named the winner,” she says.

Over the past few years, diversity and inclusion has been her “pet project” that she has worked to drive forward by building connections among friends and colleagues. Harris is also a very active PwC GLEE ambassador – PwC’s LGBT+ internal network, headed up by PwC partner Brian Ashmead-Siers established to drive equal representation.While there is still much to be done, she is proud of the progress that has been made and the work that PwC is doing in particular. One new initiative centers on the pay gap and the firm’s move toward a 50/50 short list for each positon, meaning which an equal gender split will be considered.

She also is active in external networks such as the Midlands Alliance Network that she and other corporate colleagues have built over the past three years, and LB Women, which is focused on lesbian and bisexual women.

While it can sometimes feel as though there’s a double glass ceiling, she is encouraged that people are routinely breaking through that barrier, and she knows that past generations probably had it a lot harder. “People’s behaviors around inclusivity are changing for the better, and now it’s important to continue to be visible so others can be educated on the challenges that they might not realize exist,” she says.

And of course as diversity and inclusion improve at a rapid rate, she looks forward to how far it can progress so the next generation won’t have to deal with the same issues.

Out and Proud

Harris finds that being out has helped her build better relationships because when you are closeted, there is a lot of your life that people don’t see and can’t understand. “You’re always frightened you will slip up and share things you don’t want to, so you tend to be more closed off,” she says. But when you’re just meeting someone and can feel free to share personal details, it adds a level of trust to that relationship right away.

She also appreciates that she can be a role model for others, even sometimes from afar. When you are open and visible about who you are, others who may be struggling can see that and say “She’s doing it and seems to be ok, and maybe I will too.”
“Even if you never interact with them, you can be a lighthouse that offers that level of comfort,” Harris notes. She says that she occasionally mentors people who are frightened they won’t be accepted as being out, so she urges them to realize they will always be able to find a support system. “The most important thing you can do is be yourself; in fact you can’t be successful without it,” she says.

And she finds it beneficial on the client side to show that the firm has diverse people and therefore is apt to offer better, more-rounded solutions.

“Once you take everyone’s strengths, the whole becomes better. Why would you have a team that all thinks the same,” she wonders.

Harris relaxes by painting, and an avid traveler, she will soon head to South America. But to her, family is most critical, and she is over the moon proud that she has just found out she is soon to be an aunt.

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Voice of Experience: Stephanie Smith, Executive Vice President and Marketing COO, Wells Fargo

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Stephanie SmithBy Cathie Ericson

Success in your career can be determined by your network, which is why women can’t overlook the importance of building and maintaining relationships — not just in your company or department, but across a broad swath of the industry.

“Like many women, at the start of my career, I was very heads down on my work as I sought to perform at a high level,” says Wells Fargo’s Stephanie Smith. “While I created relationships in my company, I learned over the course of my career how critical it is to have those relationships across an industry, whether you’re trying to build a team or benchmark best practices.”

Capturing the Opportunities Available in Marketing

Currently Smith is COO for Wells Fargo Marketing, and her goal is to create a world-class marketing organization within Wells Fargo. The domain is vast, as marketing is a centralized enterprise function that supports every business in the company, as well as digital marketing and other functions.

Before moving into this role, Smith had spent a decade in leadership roles in digital channels at Wells Fargo and Bank of America, where she oversaw the online banking and electronic payments functions as well as digital marketing and sales.
Before joining the corporate world, Smith had been a political appointee in the Clinton administration, where she was the General Deputy Assistant Secretary for Housing; prior to that she had worked with national and regional non-profits that focused on affordable housing and community development.

While her career has encompassed very different assignments, Smith says that the connective tissue among all her positions has been her passion for thinking about how capitalism can help working- and middle-class Americans achieve their goals.
While it’s hard to choose just one professional achievement across a career that spans so many domains, Smith says that she is most proud of the role she has had in building high-performing teams no matter where she was.

Today she sees a number of opportunities and challenges, as the function of marketing is changing rapidly due to the impact of technology, as is every part of the business world.

Smith finds herself most excited about the work Wells Fargo is doing to apply robotic process automation, artificial intelligence, agile methodology and process reengineering to make marketing functions more efficient and effective. These new capabilities that are coming to market fit well with her background, which has been focused on the intersection of determining how you best serve customers and their financial needs using technology, along with the impact of digital technology on every aspect of marketing, including creating customized experiences.

In the operational centers of marketing, she sees that digital technology and automation are streamlining work that used to be highly manual. “Even five years ago we had a smaller set of capabilities to work with; the acceleration brought on by the expansion of marketing technology has been so constant,” Smith notes.

Seeing Diversity Across the Organization

Over the years, Smith has seen that women are given fewer opportunities for stretch assignments — partially because they aren’t offered to them as much, but also because women don’t tend to ask for them as often as men. She attributes this to women’s propensity to feel like they have to be 100 percent ready for a role before taking it, whereas men feel like they need to about 50 percent ready.

“I often share the message with young women that they don’t have to know everything on day one,” Smith says. She adds that mastering a steep learning curve will contribute to your competency and your career, supplemented by asking for support when you need it.

She relays one of her favorite pieces of advice, shared by her boss in her first job out of graduate school where she was developing affordable housing: “You don’t have to have all the answers; you just have to know the questions to ask,” which she has found helpful in a variety of new roles and challenges.

In addition she urges women not to assume that their work will speak for itself and get duly recognized since the reality is that you have to do the great work, but promote it as well. She appreciates when women in senior roles promote the work of other women, a strategy that is even more important in support of women of color.

Smith has been “out” at work as a lesbian since she left college, but acknowledges that it’s been a distinct advantage to live and work for most of her career in the accepting Bay Area. “For many others in the corporate environment, they may not have the benefit of geographic location as I do.”

Being out allows her to bring her whole self to work and not worry about expending energy on hiding her sexual orientation or her family, which makes her a better leader and team member. She also enjoys being an advocate for others as she knows how important it is to see people who are like you in the senior ranks.

As the former executive advisor to the LGBTQ employee group at Wells Fargo for a number of years, she has been proud to help lead productive discussions surrounding how the company can best support team members.

As an example, Wells Fargo’s decision to sign on to the amicus brief in support of the 2015 Supreme Court case on freedom to marry (Obergefell v. Hodges) was important, as it underscored that Wells Fargo is a company that supports the rights of its LGBTQ team members and customers. She finds this open support, combined with equal benefits for team members in same-sex relationships, to be an asset in attracting and retaining employees, and goes to the heart of Wells Fargo’s values of diversity and inclusion.

A Values-Driven Personal Life

With 17- and 15 year-old daughters, Smith and her wife structure their non-work time around their kids in a values-based way. The first is voluntarism, and they work together as a family at several homeless programs on a monthly basis; the second is education and they volunteer at the girls’ schools, which allows them to support education while also being around their daughters. And finally, they value cultural experiences so they frequently travel internationally as a family. “We structure our time around these three dimensions, which both lets us reinforce what we value as a family and gives us meaningful time with our children.”

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Op-ed: If We Want LGBT+ Talent to Succeed, Leaders and Allies Need to Stand Up and Be Counted

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LGBT flag featured

By Jon Terry, Diversity and Inclusion Consulting Leader, PwC UK

Growing up in multicultural London, I saw how diversity can enrich our communities.

My childhood experiences helped to inspire my passion for strengthening diversity and inclusion in the workplace and focus on doing so within my internal and client-facing roles at PwC. From fresh perspectives to stronger engagement and motivation, the power of inclusion is something I see right across my work with colleagues and clients.

What’s also clear to me is that businesses prosper in an environment that enables all their talent to thrive. For LGBT+ talent, as with all employees, this means ensuring that they can realize their full potential without barriers and bias. It also means creating an environment where LGBT+ talent can feel safe to be their true selves and fully participate in the workplace. Just as I can talk openly about my wife and what I did at the weekend, my LGBT+ colleagues should be able to engage with their colleagues without feeling the need to be guarded or closeted.

Are businesses around the world creating an environment where LGBT+ talent can thrive? Are businesses realizing the full benefits? These are some of the key questions addressed in Out to Succeed: Realising the full potential of LGBT+ talent, a survey of corporate leaders and high performing LGBT+ talent, which was carried out earlier in the year by PwC in conjunction with Out Leadership, the global LGBT+ business network.

The case for inclusion

The business case for LGBT+ inclusion comes through loud and clear from the survey findings. Around two-thirds of the LGBT+ employees taking part believe that having a supportive focus on LGBT+ talent has given their organization a better understanding of customers’ wants and needs. Employers are even more emphatic, with nearly 90% believing that a supportive LGBT+ focus has enabled them to gain a better understanding of customer demands.

In a competitive labor market, inclusion is also a talent differentiator – more than 80% of employees believe that having an openly supportive focus on LGBT+ has provided their organization with wider access to the best talent. Almost all the employers we asked agree.

Being your true self

Yet, while progress on inclusion is being made – more than 80% of the LGBT+ employees in our survey feel comfortable being out at work – support for LGBT+ talent is still falling short in many organizations.

One of the most telling findings is the two-year gap between the median age when gay male participants came out to family and friends (age 21) and when they come out at work (age 23). Among women, the gap between coming out in their personal and professional lives is an even wider at five years with the average age of coming out at work then being 26. This reluctance to be their true selves at work should be a cause for concern for companies that think they’re doing enough to create a safe and supportive environment.

It’s also telling that even among the openly LGBT+ talent in our survey, a high proportion prefer to cover aspects of their lives and behave in a guarded way in the workplace. Two in five avoid mentioning their life outside work. One in three have kept quiet when they’ve heard negative comments about LGBT+ people. The fact that so many LGBT+ professionals remain guarded not only hinders organizations in recruitment and retention, but, more importantly, this hinders the careers of LGBT+ professionals.

Realizing potential

And this uncertainty extends to opportunities for advancement. Career progression is the number one priority for the LGBT+ developing leaders in our survey. The majority according to the survey, see LGBT+ specific training and development programs as important elements in making them want to work for an organization. Yet, less than 30% of the businesses we surveyed have programs specifically focused on the retention, development and progression of LGBT+ talent. Many of the LGBT+ employees who do have access to such programs aren’t even aware that they exist.

It is our belief that if LGBT+ employees don’t feel they can realize their full potential within their current organization, they will vote with their feet by looking for opportunities elsewhere. In turn, businesses will miss out – only 35% of the LGBT+ employees in our survey believe that their company leverages LGBT+ inclusion for business advantage.

True inclusion

So how can businesses give LGBT+ talent the confidence they can succeed within their organizations? Drawing on the survey findings, the Out to Succeed report sets out five key recommendations for promoting real equality and opening up the full business benefits of LGBT+ inclusion:

1. Set the right tone from the top and engage with CEOs
2. Create clear pathways for career progression
3. Stand up and advocate for LGBT+ equality
4. Build and empower LGBT+ ally networks
5. Create inclusive communications

What comes through most strongly for me is how important it is for leaders to be active advocates for LGBT+ equality and inclusion. When the LGBT+ talent in our survey were asked about their priorities for creating an inclusive organization, more than 90% pointed to a leader who is prepared to be a visible and vocal LGBT+ ally. This includes both LGBT+ and non-LGBT+ executives. Leaders set the tone from the top and ensure that inclusion for all minority groups, including LGBT+ employees, is an organization-wide priority. They can also help give LGBT+ employees the confidence that they can be themselves and succeed within the organization.

Sometimes, however, speaking out and being an active ally creates challenges. There are many countries where homophobia and discriminatory laws are still prevalent. Even in relatively liberal societies I know of colleagues who’ve received online abuse for supporting developments such as equal marriage. In turn, some leaders may be nervous about saying anything about LGBT+ issues in case they say the wrong thing. Yet this can be the worst thing to do, as LGBT+ employees may assume that the silence signifies a lack of real support. Leaders can’t hide or ignore these issues – they should stand up and be counted.

My own experiences as an LGBT+ ally and support for groups such as our GLEE network have been both eye-opening and life-affirming. It’s fun to take part in network events and if people hear me speaking or see me at these events, they’ll know I’m on their side and that they can come to me if they need my support or have an issue at work.

So, everyone has a part to play in creating genuinely inclusive organizations. And leaders should be at the forefront as allies and role models. If you as a leader stand shoulder to shoulder with your LGBT+ employees, they can deliver their full potential in support of your organization.

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