As part of disability awareness month, we are giving a platform to women to tell their stories. 
Successful, career oriented, and a visionary, Marie Heron has transformed her $100,000 funded agency into multiple delivery sites and more than 1.5 million dollars in funding. Over the years, she has been an adult educator, career counsellor and eventually an Executive Director. Heron’s career path, however, was far from barrier free.
At the age of 24, Heron worked as a sales representative for an International Personnel Agency. A self described over achiever, Heron strived to climb the career ladder to become a site manager. Her life, however, was about to take an unexpected turn, beginning with an emergency visit to St. Michael’s Hospital. After three days of testing, Heron was diagnosed as having the chronic illness Multiple Sclerosis.
Left with more questions than answers, Heron returned to work, where she quickly learned that life was not what it was before. ”After the initial diagnosis, I had three successive relapses, which required time off of work,” said Heron. “My employer had to let me go because I was taking so much time off work.”
Taking a Step Back to Move Forward
Not wanting to repeat this experience, Heron made the decision to take on shorter-term contracts while she adapted to life with a chronic illness. Although, it was a choice that resulted in significantly less money, it was a necessary step to gain a better understanding of her illness and what she would need to do to adapt. Over time, Heron realized that she could either sit and wallow in self pity or proceed forward with her dreams. And so, she moved forward, determined to construct her own career path. “Physically I was having periodic episodes of vertigo, vision loss and falls, intermixed with periods of remission,” said Heron. “I recognized that I was the only one responsible for my career, so I took control.” The answer for Heron was to start her own business, the Art of Reception, a training company for receptionists. The business started out small, with a few key staff members that she could trust to take the lead during periods of relapse.
After a few years, Heron recognized the company’s potential for growth, but to do so she would require additional capital. “I went to a local politician’s office, every week, for a year and half, with the hopes of obtaining federal funding,” said Heron. Her perseverance paid off. “I was the youngest and first woman to get that much federal funding,” said Heron. “But it was what my contact said when the funding was received that was both surprising and inspiring.” The politician shared that he had helped to knock down the doors, but what Heron did beyond the doors was up to her.
And that is exactly what she did, continuing to break down barriers and expand her company. With the growth of the company, Heron became less forthcoming about her illness to her staff. “When people heard that I had multiple sclerosis, immediately they started to research and develop biases that impacted our interactions,” said Heron. “And so, I made the decisions to not tell people about my illness, as it did not define who I was.”
Strange Side Effects of the Illness
Navigating a career with a chronic illness, equipped Heron with both a positive attitude and perseverance that helped to both inspire and motivate her clients. Because she had such high expectations for herself, she, found herself expecting her staff to follow her example. “Because I had done so much myself, “said Heron. “I found that I had developed extremely high expectations for my employees.” To help manage her expectations, Heron hired a human resources consultant to assist her with both management techniques and to develop policies and procedures for her company.
Over the years, Heron has learned a lot about growing her career and the importance of self-care, but this wasn’t always the case. In her twenties and thirties, Heron, would often find herself working overtime, including weekends, to get in documents days before the deadline. Today, she’s learned to take things a bit slower, still ensuring that the deadline is met, but also taking the time to rest and rejuvenate.
“I recently read an article by Jack Osborne, who shared that there is a silver lining with being diagnosed“, said Heron. “He said, that if you can maintain your positivity, you can steer your progression. It resonated with me because I’ve always tried to be positive.” Although, multiple sclerosis does not define Heron, there is no question that it has helped evolve her to the person that she is today.
About Marie-Heron
Marie Heron, Executive Director at On-Track Career & Employment Services, was diagnosed with M.S. at 24. She has created a new podcast, “Truth Be Told” so that young people living with M.S. can find a safe resource for hope, inspiration, and advocacy.
Voice of Experience: Vidya Lakshmi, Managing Director, Head of Human Capital Management, Goldman Sachs, Bengaluru
People, Voices of ExperienceBy Cathie Ericson
“A senior leader once asked me asked me about which seat I would choose when I enter a conference room and I promptly responded that I’d like to be seated in a quiet corner. The advice I received was to take a central position in the conference room to ensure that I was heard.” Vidya Lakshmi says she encourages women to be deliberate about their career by building technical expertise and firmly being rooted in one’s passion.
An Illustrious Career Spanning Functions and Locations
Born in India, Vidya spent a large part of her childhood in Kenya. She moved back to India and enrolled in college to complete her bachelor’s degree in economics. She then earned her Chartered Accountancy degree (CPA equivalent), and began her journey in the corporate world.
In her first job as an auditor with PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Vidya gained exposure to clients across different industries, had the opportunity to travel and strengthened her technical skillset as an auditor.
Vidya joined Goldman Sachs in 2004 and with no background in banking, her foray into the world of investment banking was one of the risks she took early on in her career that paid healthy dividends. Looking back on this decision, she encourages women to step out of their comfort zone, learn to say an emphatic ‘yes’ to opportunities and be vocal about their ambitions.
She spent her first five years at Goldman Sachs in banking, initially in India and then relocated to New York in 2007. Working in investment banking in the middle of the financial crisis in New York was a key learning moment in her career. “The New York stint taught me resilience, the need to make tough decisions and pushed me to strive for excellence in everything I do,” says Vidya.
Since then, Vidya has relocated back to India and has held multiple roles, including serving as the Chief of Staff to the CEO of Goldman Sachs Bengaluru, building the analytic and quantitative capabilities in the Securities Division and running a myriad of functions within Human Capital Management.
In 2016, Vidya assumed her current role as head of Human Capital Management in Bengaluru. Currently, she is excited about engaging and hiring top engineering talent from engineering campuses across India to address cutting-edge areas such as machine learning, process automation and workflow digitization. Another key aspect of her role is responding to the needs of a millennial talent pool, as 85 percent of the Bengaluru office is composed of millennials.
Helping Overcome Cultural Norms and Other Challenges for Women
Vidya observes that Indian women typically step back from their careers in order to balance family life, and are likely to quit jobs mid-career due to the “double burden syndrome,” a culture in which both men and women feel family and household duties are primarily a woman’s responsibility. Due to these social norms, she says organizations play a critical role in fostering an environment that supports and retains women in the workforce.
“My husband is a CPA, and given the strong career trajectories we both have had, the traditional roles expected to be played by husband and wife have become blurred. We have supported each other through the highs and lows of our careers. For example, my children recently spent two years in Zurich with my husband while he was on assignment, while I stayed in Bengaluru to continue working at Goldman Sachs.” She believes that one of the biggest decisions a woman makes in her life is the partner she chooses to spend her life with.
In her career, Vidya has learned that women need to be wary of understating their own abilities and that one way to bolster their career is through sponsorship. “Unlike mentors, sponsors go beyond career advice and are invested in one’s career,” she notes. “Finding sponsors for women within an organization and investing in those relationships can help create a strong pipeline.”
Vidya is involved in a number of initiatives, including Women Emerging in Finance, which aims to dispel myths young Indian women may have about the financial services industry, particularly regarding work/life balance, that may keep them from pursuing a finance career. Every year, they aspire to speak with at least 1,000 young women across engineering and management campuses, to provide them with more information to make an informed decision and encourage them to join the financial services industry – and ideally — Goldman Sachs.
Vidya understands the challenges women face in the workplace throughout various life stages. She has experienced the benefits of leveraging the infrastructure the firm provides to continue to pursue her career. An example that stands out is Goldman Sachs’ on-site Children’s center, which she is proud to oversee in her current role.
“Life throws us many curveballs. I have learned to stay the course, build resilience and in moments of doubt, to reflect on my own journey,” Vidya recommends.
A Full Life Outside of Work
Vidya loves learning new languages and is currently learning German on the weekends. “It was a passion I left behind when I got busy in the corporate world, and I am thrilled that I have intentionally carved out time to do something I enjoy,” she says.
She also loves spending time with her two boys, Harsh and Aditya, and enjoys traveling with them. In the last two years Vidya and her family have traveled extensively across Europe.
Mover and Shaker: Katherine Ferguson, Vice President, Marketing, WEX
Movers and Shakers, PeopleBy Cathie Ericson
When considering the path of your career, one factor that WEX’s Katherine Ferguson always suggests younger women focus on is sponsorship. She says it’s vital not only to have someone who is supportive of your path, but is willing to take risks to advocate for you and pull you up. “Find that person and build a relationship, and it will serve you well throughout your career,” she says.
For her part, she says she has been fortunate to have had experience working with amazing leaders who have served as models as she attempts to emulate the qualities she admires, including a calm presence, authenticity and supportive leadership.
“I have learned how important relationships are, and how you have to take the time to nurture them, whether they are colleagues, peers, team members or those in senior roles,” she says. “Often when you enter your career, you are focused on getting the work done, but you have to remember to take the time to network and develop relationships that will be instrumental in your path for years to come.”
Searching For and Finding Her Passion
After completing degrees in art history and accounting, Ferguson began a career in accounting, including a stint at the Smithsonian that tied her two interests together. She soon decided that she wanted to move out of accounting and realized marketing appealed to her, with the balance of creativity, data and analytics.
Ferguson joined American Express out of graduate school and spent 14 years there serving different customer and geographic segments. She then decided she wanted to take her experience to a company that was smaller, but growing fast, where she would have an impactful role transforming the brand and customer experiences.
WEX was a perfect fit, particularly due to its culture. Having grown up with a father who was an executive, she had some sense of what the corporate world would be like, but over her career she has grown to appreciate the fact that each company has a different culture that impacts your career and working environment. That has helped inform her path along the way, as she assesses the culture of various roles and then strives to build a great culture among her team.
Right now, she is enjoying challenging her team as they elevate marketing into a best-in-class organization, including launching new products, new partnerships and new customer journeys.
One of her secrets to success is to hire people who are smarter than you, set them up for success, then get out of their way, she says.
A Focus on Mentoring Women
Currently, Ferguson is working with two senior executives on a recently launched women’s network. “I’ve been so impressed by WEX in general and the importance it places on supporting women, from our female CEO, cascading down to numerous senior female executives and beyond. This emphasis really speaks to our community and culture,” she says.
The network is designed to help build a community of women throughout the organization who will support each other and collaborate through common challenges. “It’s a concept that’s near and dear to my heart,” Ferguson says.
Aside from the many hats she wears at work, Ferguson makes time to find balance in her life — from spending time with her family to nurturing friendships and giving back to the community.
A recent newcomer to the Portland area, she has jumped right in, joining the boards of the Portland Museum of Art and United Way. She is also very proud of the time she spent mentoring a refugee student from Somalia at Portland High School last year. Although the woman spoke four languages, English was not one of them until she arrived in the United States, so Ferguson helped her with her school work and the college application process, celebrating the fact that she is now a student at the University of Southern Maine.
You Should Reconsider What You Think About Creative People in Leadership
Career Advice, Guest ContributionThough “creativity” is almost always included on lists of mandatory qualities of good leaders, creative people or “creatives” are rarely seen as the leader type.
Instead, creatives are revered for their originality, their resourcefulness, and their spirit. But to be successful, creatives need to be perceived as more proactive, risk-taking, problem-solving, and communicative which are the perceived traits assigned to leaders.
Why Creative Types Aren’t Often Leaders
In a study from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, researchers asked workers and students rate their peers’ potential for creativity and leadership. Neither group rated the most creative people among the most likely to become leaders.
Yet, the most popular stories of leadership focus on those with ingenuity. We love to hear tales of CEOs and politicians who solve problems not with determined effort or underhanded maneuvering but rather with imagination and resourcefulness. There are few people more inspirational than those with innovative ideas who change the course of an entire industry. Why do we collect stories of creative leaders while ruing the idea of being led by them?
The researchers of the Wharton study, psychologists Jennifer Mueller, Jack Goncalo, and Dishan Kamdar, have discovered that leaders are often expected to uphold structure and order within an organization, while creative types tend to think laterally, outside typical paths and boundaries. Additionally, creatives are often depicted as isolated or at least introverted, but leaders necessarily must be comfortable with near-constant interactions. Further research refutes these suppositions. Most notably, a Wharton study by Adam Grant discovered that introverted leaders outperform extroverted ones, disproving the conception that a leader must be gregarious to be productive.
In another study led by Jennifer Mueller, participants consciously argued for the power of creative ideas, asserting that they want more creativity in leadership, but subconsciously, those same participants rejected more creative concepts when exposed to uncertain situations. It seems that we are primed to deny creative leadership, even despite evidence of its potential.
How Creatives Use Leadership Skills
Creative people and leaders share some traits and behaviors in common:
Given that creatives innately boast the most important qualities of leaders, it seems obvious that creatives would be good in leadership positions. The stereotype of creatives types is not the same stereotype of traditional leader types. This is just a stereotype but one that remains in place for now. One way to prepare oneself for business positions, regardless of one’s past work experience or identity as a creative person, is to continue to be creative while learning traditional business skills. By doing an MBA online, or in-person creatives can hone their leadership skills and gain new knowledge that is useful in guiding teams of workers. Even more importantly, advanced credentials almost guarantee management positions, ensuring creative types access to entry-level leadership roles. Just as the theory goes more women in leadership positions increases the likelihood of female-friendly workplaces, more creatives in leadership positions could help to build businesses that are friendly to creative thinking.
Disclaimer: The opinions and views of Guest contributors are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com
5 steps to take ownership of your career
Career Advice, Guest ContributionI spend a lot of time speaking to early career professionals who are looking for advice or wanting to further their development. And one of the pieces of advice I find myself giving all the time is “Don’t ask permission”. But taking ownership of your own career path is easier said than done. Here are five steps you can take today to start making progress.
1. Write Your Future Resume
What do you see yourself doing in the future? Write it down. I find it useful to write it in the format of a resume or a bio. Something that walks back through your experience from the fictional and aspirational future (written in present tense), backing all the way to the current job and role that you are in today. Write the final job first and then think about what experiences you might need to get that job and make that your second-to-the-last role. Repeat that until you have walked back through a progression of roles or companies that take you where you want to go. Don’t forget to add in education, training, non-profit involvement, or anything else that will be a part of your future, idealized career. There is something powerful about writing it down.
2. Invent Your Path
One of the things you will notice about your resume activity is that you might struggle naming some of the roles that you might want to have. Sometimes getting experience and being seen as ready for promotion isn’t a matter of title (marketing specialist leads to marketing manager leads to marketing director), but rather of actual job contents. And of course in the future, the contents of the job are going to be different. 30 years ago, who have thought we’d pay to take rides with strangers or spend a significant part of our marketing budget on pay-per-click advertising? So, you have an opportunity to invent a job or two along the way. Take advantage of the blank sheet of paper to design a job or role that would give you that experience. And remember, some of that experience might come from volunteer work or even entrepreneurial efforts. Don’t limit yourself. You are writing fiction, so make it worthy of a New York Times best seller award.
3. Research and Network
Look at that fictional resume you wrote for your future self. What questions arose when writing it? Did you wonder what people had done before they became a Chief Marketing Officer? Did you invent a position, but now you wonder if that role exists in some companies today? Are you curious how much education a financial analyst needs to work on a big merger and acquisition agreement? These things are knowable and worth researching. Look up people on LinkedIn in the roles to which you aspire and look at their career progression. Contact people in your network who might know the answers or have ideas of where to look. They could be people that work at your company (check out the leadership page on your company website, if you don’t know people outside your own team or group), or people in the community at large. When asked for their expertise, most people will be generous.
4. Tell Someone
Just like there is power in writing something down, it is amplified in the sharing. This is why sites like BucketList.org exist. They figure you are more likely to do things, even crazy things like climbing mountains or learning Mandarin, if you share your dreams with others. Find people who will be supportive and share some of your ideas with them. If you don’t have people in your immediate circle of friends and family who are likely to empathize, find a group, like HeartSpark, or a professional coach to help you listen and refine your ideas. Or join a networking group, like BizWomen or your local rotary to find a group of like-minded folks to help you grow.
5. Believe
At the heart of all of this is believing in your potential and what you have to offer a potential employer or entrepreneurial opportunity. I’m a big believer in positive affirmations and visualization. By affirming yourself and visualizing where you will go, you breathe belief into yourself. This starts the wheels of destiny in motion. Believe that your career is something you get to build.
So let your imagination run wild and see where it takes you. Be deliberate and bold. Don’t settle for the next rung on your chain of jobs or tasks. Take ownership of your professional story. It can be refined by experiences and reshaped when you want it to be. It may have imperfections, but at the end it will be yours.
Jennifer Davis is CMO and VP of Product Strategy at Planar, a Leyard Company
Op-Ed: How Seed Crowdfunding is Unleashing Female Entrepreneurial Potential
Career Advice, Career Tip of the Week!Guest contributed by Aoife Flood
I recently had the privilege of being part of an exciting PwC research project undertaken in collaboration with The Crowdfunding Centre culminating in the release of our Women Unbound: Unleashing female entrepreneurial potential report.
The report explores the experience of women in achieving finance raising success through seed crowdfunding compared with more traditional finance raising routes and brings to the fore a lot of powerful and scary insights and opportunities. For example, while challenges like the gender leadership gap and the gender pay gap receive widespread media attention, the barriers that female-led businesses and entrepreneurs face in accessing finance have been much less visibly reported. For me personally being part of this research process was certainly somewhat of a rude awakening.
The fact is most decision makers in the venture capital industry are male, and research shows that male entrepreneurs are 86% more likely to be venture capital funded than their female counterparts, and 59% more likely to secure angel investment. Meanwhile, a $300 billion financing gap exists globally for formal, women-owned small businesses, and 70% of women-owned small and medium sized enterprises have inadequate or no access to financial services.
One thing is clear, female entrepreneurs receive less than male entrepreneurs through traditional funding channels and this funding gap is a missed opportunity. Investing in or supporting women-led business has the potential to deliver some of the highest-returns – for investors and societies. Take for example the UK, if they could match US levels of female entrepreneurship they could potentially add £23 billion gross value add to their economy.
What the data in this Women unbound report shows clearly is that when women choose to access crowdfunding they are more than capable – and very often more capable than men. Thanks to crowdfunding, female entrepreneurs can now access the market directly – and this makes a huge difference because when they do, female crowdfunders are 32% more successful than their male counterparts.
The report analysed data from over 450,000 seed crowdfunding campaigns, from nine of the largest crowdfunding platforms globally over a two year period.
What the analysis told us is that men clearly crowdfund more than women, 72% of crowdfunders globally were male compared with 28% who were women. Yet, globally, women are more successful at crowdfunding than men: 22% of campaigns led by a women reached their target, compared to 17% of those led by men. And this is not a collective anomaly, women-led campaigns performed better (in terms of securing their funding goals) than campaigns led by men when we segregated the data for every sector and every territory.
Even in what are considered more masculine sectors, for example technology where just one in every ten crowdfunders is female, 13% of women were successful in achieving their funding goal compared to just 10% of men.
So despite their clear underrepresentation, women are more successful at crowdfunding than men. But why is this?
The main factor seems to be because crowdfunding attracts, enables and empowers far more female decision makers as project backers. In essence, just like the dominance of male representation in traditional financing channels can create barriers for women, the more gender-level playing field of the crowd provides one explanation for why women are more likely to succeed at crowdfunding than men.
Female crowdfunders also tend to use more emotional and inclusive language in their videos and pitch descriptions than men. This language is more appealing both to female and to male backers and positively correlated to funding success. While the use of business language, the style typically favoured by male crowdfunders, has been shown to be negatively correlated with money raised irrespective of what product or service is being pitched.
Yet, while women are outperforming men in achieving their funding targets across the board, the fact remains that significantly more men are crowdfunding than women, and as result, men raise substantially more finance via this channel. Men are also more ambitious in establishing higher funding goals than their female counterparts and we see them dominate in the highest funded campaigns by sector.
In fact, while there were 63 campaigns that raised over $1 million, only seven of these were led by women (11%), with the most funded campaign created by a woman placing number 18 on the list. However, progress is being made, 2014 data illustrates that only 7% of campaigns raising over $1million were led by women, and the most funded campaign created by a woman placed 37 on the list. On another positive note, on average female-led campaigns receive 5% more per individual pledge globally than male-led campaigns.
Despite this, significant opportunity still remains for women to become more active and represented in crowdfunding and to be more ambitious when establishing their finance raising goals.
I truly hope that the success of female crowdfunders highlighted in this report inspires and motivates more budding and established female entrepreneurs to explore crowdfunding.
Overall, the findings of our Women unbound report pose a strong challenge to existing entrepreneurial and business norms by seriously questioning whether there are deep-rooted biases that are preventing greater access to funding by female entrepreneurs. It is extremely positive to see that the growth and global reach of seed crowdfunding presents several major opportunities, each with the potential for major social and economic impact. Including the understanding and acceptance that seed crowdfunding is now a well-established environment through which women can thrive.
Learn more about these opportunities by reading our Women unbound report or visit our data explorer to check out the geographical and sector crowdfunding trends for yourself
Contributed by Aoife Flood. Based in Dublin, Ireland, Aoife is Senior Manager of the Global Diversity and Inclusion Programme Office at PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited. A version of this op-ed was originally published in PwC’s Gender Agenda Blog.
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Intrepid Woman: Marie Heron, Executive Director at On-Track Career and Employment Services
Intrepid Women Series, PeopleAs part of disability awareness month, we are giving a platform to women to tell their stories.
Successful, career oriented, and a visionary, Marie Heron has transformed her $100,000 funded agency into multiple delivery sites and more than 1.5 million dollars in funding. Over the years, she has been an adult educator, career counsellor and eventually an Executive Director. Heron’s career path, however, was far from barrier free.
At the age of 24, Heron worked as a sales representative for an International Personnel Agency. A self described over achiever, Heron strived to climb the career ladder to become a site manager. Her life, however, was about to take an unexpected turn, beginning with an emergency visit to St. Michael’s Hospital. After three days of testing, Heron was diagnosed as having the chronic illness Multiple Sclerosis.
Left with more questions than answers, Heron returned to work, where she quickly learned that life was not what it was before. ”After the initial diagnosis, I had three successive relapses, which required time off of work,” said Heron. “My employer had to let me go because I was taking so much time off work.”
Taking a Step Back to Move Forward
Not wanting to repeat this experience, Heron made the decision to take on shorter-term contracts while she adapted to life with a chronic illness. Although, it was a choice that resulted in significantly less money, it was a necessary step to gain a better understanding of her illness and what she would need to do to adapt. Over time, Heron realized that she could either sit and wallow in self pity or proceed forward with her dreams. And so, she moved forward, determined to construct her own career path. “Physically I was having periodic episodes of vertigo, vision loss and falls, intermixed with periods of remission,” said Heron. “I recognized that I was the only one responsible for my career, so I took control.” The answer for Heron was to start her own business, the Art of Reception, a training company for receptionists. The business started out small, with a few key staff members that she could trust to take the lead during periods of relapse.
After a few years, Heron recognized the company’s potential for growth, but to do so she would require additional capital. “I went to a local politician’s office, every week, for a year and half, with the hopes of obtaining federal funding,” said Heron. Her perseverance paid off. “I was the youngest and first woman to get that much federal funding,” said Heron. “But it was what my contact said when the funding was received that was both surprising and inspiring.” The politician shared that he had helped to knock down the doors, but what Heron did beyond the doors was up to her.
And that is exactly what she did, continuing to break down barriers and expand her company. With the growth of the company, Heron became less forthcoming about her illness to her staff. “When people heard that I had multiple sclerosis, immediately they started to research and develop biases that impacted our interactions,” said Heron. “And so, I made the decisions to not tell people about my illness, as it did not define who I was.”
Strange Side Effects of the Illness
Navigating a career with a chronic illness, equipped Heron with both a positive attitude and perseverance that helped to both inspire and motivate her clients. Because she had such high expectations for herself, she, found herself expecting her staff to follow her example. “Because I had done so much myself, “said Heron. “I found that I had developed extremely high expectations for my employees.” To help manage her expectations, Heron hired a human resources consultant to assist her with both management techniques and to develop policies and procedures for her company.
Over the years, Heron has learned a lot about growing her career and the importance of self-care, but this wasn’t always the case. In her twenties and thirties, Heron, would often find herself working overtime, including weekends, to get in documents days before the deadline. Today, she’s learned to take things a bit slower, still ensuring that the deadline is met, but also taking the time to rest and rejuvenate.
“I recently read an article by Jack Osborne, who shared that there is a silver lining with being diagnosed“, said Heron. “He said, that if you can maintain your positivity, you can steer your progression. It resonated with me because I’ve always tried to be positive.” Although, multiple sclerosis does not define Heron, there is no question that it has helped evolve her to the person that she is today.
About Marie-Heron
Marie Heron, Executive Director at On-Track Career & Employment Services, was diagnosed with M.S. at 24. She has created a new podcast, “Truth Be Told” so that young people living with M.S. can find a safe resource for hope, inspiration, and advocacy.
Personal Branding Strategy: Why Strong Careers Begin Here
Career Advice, Guest ContributionGuest contributed by LIz Harr, Partner, Hinge
Image via Shutterstock
You know them. Executives who secure all the media mentions, deliver keynotes at top conferences and attract the best clients. Interestingly, most of these experts aren’t much different from the rest of us. In fact, many of them admit that they aren’t the smartest or most knowledgeable people in their fields. They weren’t born writers. They weren’t born orators.
Instead, they climbed to success by developing personal branding strategy with a very specific set of tools, trying and discarding a host of techniques along the way. My firm has produced some powerful research around what helped these individuals reach their respective levels of success and I’d like to share with you what really works – and what doesn’t – so you don’t have to endure the experimentation others have had to.
What Is a Personal Branding Strategy?
At the heart of their success is a strategy. A personal branding strategy. This is essentially a plan to take your reputation and career from relative obscurity to high visibility. It describes where you stand today and what level of visibility you want to achieve in the future. It lays out the tactics, tools and skills you will need to attain your goal, including the daily content calendar you will follow.
The Five Levels of Visibility
In our research on how personal brands can catapult a professional to higher levels of visibility – and career success – we identified five progressively more visible levels of expertise:
Level 1: Resident Experts. These experts are well respected within their firms and by their clients, but they have little visibility outside of those audiences. Most Visible Experts start their journey here.
Level 2: Local Heroes. These individuals are beginning to become known outside of their firms. They are more active in their local business communities, often speaking at business functions and blogging. They may even bring a little new business to their firm.
Level 3: Rising Stars. These experts have developed a regional reputation. They are fairly well known among peers in their area, and they speak and write frequently on their area of expertise. Rising Stars tend to bring in higher-quality business and higher fees.
Level 4: Industry Rock Stars. These names are well known across the nation for their niche areas of expertise. They attract premium clients and fees. As a result, they become significant assets to their firms.
Level 5: Global Superstars. The world’s elite experts, Global Superstars have broken out of their niches and household names. They command the highest fees, and firms around the world want to be associated with them.
Your first job is to figure out which of these levels describes you today. Then you need to decide what level of expertise you would like to achieve.
The Benefits of a Strong Personal Brand
As you’ll see in a moment when I go over specific tools for building a strong personal brand, it’s not for the faint of heart. But there are some very tangible benefits that these experts have realized. For starters, their earnings are higher. The chart below shows the relative billing rates for each Visible Expert level.
Figure 1. Relative Hourly Rates Buyers Will Pay, By Visible Expert Level
Our research showed that buyers are willing to pay over 13 times more for a Global Superstar than an average professional. But even Level 1 experts hold a significant advantage over their undistinguished brethren.
The reason? Buyers are willing to pay a premium for the confidence that a Visible Expert will solve their problem more quickly and with greater precision. Higher billing rates aren’t the only benefit. Here are a few others:
The 7 Critical Tools for Personal Branding
One of the most important things we learned from our research was which marketing tools have the greatest impact on an individual’s personal brand. Here are the top tools from our study, rated on a 1 (least impactful) to 10 (most impactful) scale:
Figure 2. Total Impact of Tools
I recommend you prioritize around these seven as you build your personal brand:
This list, of course, just scratches the surface. There are dozens of tools that you can use to engage your audience. Webinars can be used as a different take on public speaking for example.
One last tip. Our research showed a clear correlation between specialized expertise and length of time it takes to groom yourself as a visible expert. Specialization eliminates the clutter like nothing else, and allows you to forge ahead without the noise that generalized knowledge brings to the table.
Disclaimer: The opinions and views of guest contributors are not necessarily those of theglasshammer.com
Why One Type of Advice Doesn’t Fit All
Career Advice, Career Tip of the Week!When I am writing this column I go through a range of emotions due to the fact that any article giving advice is just an opinion. It is easy to be opinionated, to live in the dogma of the binary of this way or that way, but it’s often not that useful for the person on the receiving end.
The best that I can do is base the advice on a combination of expertise, research and intuition. However, I do not know you personally, I do not know what your specific situation is that you need advice around. I also do not know the environment you are operating in, nor the developmental frames or mental models that you have accumulated through your own interpretation of your experiences during your life until this day. I do not know your reactions to bad bosses, stress, wins, systemic gender issues . My point is, this is the internal diversity that matters to you in your career advancement, the cognitive and emotional differences and capacities that every human has, not the just the social identity version of diversity that is touted in companies which way too often feels like Noah collecting animals for his Ark.
We are all a product of our ability to self-reflect on our conscious thoughts and actions. The unconscious beliefs we all hold are harder to access as they are unknown to us but often hold in place competing agendas that stop us from achieving our goals via behaviors that are not aligned with goal attainment. I have mentioned Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey’s book Immunity to Change a couple of times in this column. They don’t know who I am, this is one of the few books I wax lyrical about, but I can honestly tell you their work is a must read for anyone who is wondering how to really get to why some of those goals and resolutions around career, fitness, family are still outstanding. I just wrote a paper integrating their work with the Columbia Coaching Program Process, as it is my firm belief that unless you access the murky unconscious of how you construct your big assumptions, and say them out loud to yourself to check for validity, your self-efficacy around goal setting for you as an executive can’t be totally effective- even if you are the most motivated person on the planet.
So, this week instead of telling you to do this strategy or that strategy, I am going to ask you to think, pre-holidays, about what you want to achieve in the next 12 months and then to look long and hard at what you are currently doing to reach those goals. Not the should or ought to do but what you are doing or not doing. Then ask yourself whats really going on? What is your competing agenda hidden in all of this?
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Hispanic Heritage Month
NewsThis month we have celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month in the US. We have profiled senior Latina women and discussed how corporate America needs to shake up how boardrooms are filled.
Take a look at the following articles published during previous Hispanic Heritage celebrations.
Latina Leadership: Will Companies Ever Catch On?
If you scan Fortune’s 50 Most Powerful Women in 2016, you will be hard-pressed to find a Latina executive, amidst an overall drop in female CEOs to 4% in the Fortune 500 in 2016.
According to a 2016 report from the American Association of University Women (AAUW), Hispanic women make up 6% of the workforce but only 1.3% of senior-level executive roles in the private sector.
Hispanic Heritage: Latina Women are Ready to Lead. Are Companies Ready?
As we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month 2015, Latina executives remain scarce in the corporate landscape. But ambition to lead, and ability to bring leadership advantages, are not scarce.
Walmart’s EVP and COO Debra Ruiz ranks 28 in Fortune’s current 50 Most Powerful Women in Business 2014 list. Latina Style celebrated ten executives in February, with Calline Sanchez, VP of IBM Enterprise, taking Corporate Executive of the Year 2014. Ana Dutra made history when she was appointed the first Latina president and CEO of the Executives’ Club of Chicago.
Hispanic Heritage Update: Where are the Latina Leaders in Corporate America?
Where are the Latina Leaders in financial services, in technology and in the Fortune 500 at large in the United States?
At first glance, it is easy to think they are almost entirely absent from the top echelons of business since only 35 women sit in the most senior executive management positions in the whole of the Fortune 1000. The 2012 Fortune 50 Most Powerful Women list includes only Gisele Ruiz, COO of Wal-Mart US.
Intrepid Woman: Dr. Marilyn Fraser, CEO, Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health (AAIUH)
Intrepid Women Series, PeopleBy Cathie Ericson
Dr. Marilyn Fraser has always had a passion for patient education and talking to people about health, considering it one of her favorite aspects of medicine. That’s why when she was facing a crossroads regarding career direction after completing medical school, she was delighted to hear of the opportunity at the Arthur Ashe Institute for Urban Health (AAIUH), located at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn. The more she went into the community to talk about health, the more she realized it was a career path where she would stay.
The Institute was founded by Arthur Ashe, an activist, tennis champion and humanitarian interested in addressing health inequities, including the underrepresentation of people of color in the health profession, and implementing innovative community outreach programs. The Institute has a stated long-term goal of reducing morbidity and mortality by improving health knowledge, facilitating behavior change and expanding access to care among the most vulnerable populations in urban areas.
A central component of the mission is to create partnerships and research the needs of communities, then develop best practices or make policy recommendations to address the issues, she adds. The Brooklyn Health Disparities Center, a key collaboration of the Institute with SUNY Downstate and the Office of the Brooklyn Borough President, is a great example of such a partnership.
Tackling Challenges to Advance the Mission
From growing up in the West Indies to her time living in Brooklyn, Fraser knows firsthand that there are communities that are underserved, with limited access to care. In addition, education is sorely needed as some people are not aware of resources that are available. “We try to link them to those resources because sometimes they can’t afford the care they need or lack access to care,” she points out.
In addition, groups like AAIUH play a key role in dispelling myths about health and disease. “We want people to be aware of what’s going on in their bodies and not be afraid,” she says, adding that they are realizing that even simple conversations can provide clues to social issues that might be coming into play and hampering the ability of the community to access healthcare.
“One of our biggest challenges is funding and how to conduct effective programs, including research as budgets are often cut with no warning,” she says.
Recently, the AAIUH, under Dr. Fraser’s leadership, was awarded a grant to lead a consortium to develop a strategic plan for community-based organizations (CBOs) to share their knowledge. The program, part of Delivery Systems Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) program received a $2.5 million dollar grant to work with community-based organizations to lead a consortium to build the capacity of CBOs to address the DSRIP deliverables focused on improving health outcomes .
They are currently a little more than halfway through the one-year grant, which they hope will promote sustainability and also create systems to address healthcare inequalities. “The award recognized the Institute’s leadership, and I personally found that being acknowledged by peers and selected to carry out this important mission is one of the greatest honors anyone could have,” Fraser says.
Relationships Are the Key
Fraser has helped keep her passion alive by building relationships within communities. But she adds, “It’s important to realize that we must stay mindful of the fact that the people who live these experiences are the experts, and you can’t come in with preconceived notions. In medical school they taught us to listen to our patients because it can be all too easy to rely on our own ideas and discount what is actually being said.”
She acknowledges that nothing is done overnight and that it takes time to foster relationships, especially while also handling administrative needs. “You have to find a balance between the many relationships and create and maintain a culture that speaks to people with varying needs, priorities and agendas,” she says. While she knew that politics would play a big role, she has come to realize just how important it is – and how much time is needed to devote to political issues, compared to her former deputy role.
As the years go by, Fraser says she finds that the general public isn’t as aware of Ashe and his mission, which is why they work to keep his legacy in the forefront. “If we are cognizant of making sure that we maintain the essence of who he was and why he created the Institute, I am confident we will do the work in the same vein that it was intended and sustain it, which is the important factor,” she says. She particularly appreciates how her role is made easier because of the support she is offered from her entire team, including the board.
Dr. Fraser carries her love of cultures over into a passion for travel, always wanting to experience new places and people. One of the Institute’s programs has been replicated in Trinidad & Tobago, in collaboration with the University of the West Indies. In addition, she notes that a big part of everything she does is spurred on by her faith, and she finds that her family, including her nieces and nephews, keep her grounded. Friends play a key role too. “In addition to prayer, cooking is my stress reliever and I love to invite groups over to join me,” she says.