Tag Archive for: Beth Senko

4 Myths Debunked about Working in Technology

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Mac computer and IPadPopular perception has the tech world consisting primarily of male hoodie-wearing programmers who spend their days in brightly colored, open-plan offices in the top brand name firms. While there are certainly places where this is true, there are just as many opportunities that offer a more traditional work environment and products that you might not associate with tech at first glance.

Myth #1: The best tech jobs are with Internet and social media companies.

Internet and social media companies are grabbing headlines for their outsized IPOs and merger prices. But does that really mean that the best tech jobs are in this space?

It’s important to consider what you want out of your career according to Andrea Gellert, senior vice president of marketing for OnDeck, a financial tech company that provides financing to small businesses.

Gellert comments,

“Where you end up really depends on what you want out of your career. Is the stage/size of a company more important to you than the sub-industry? Do you want an opportunity with equity and the potential for long-term payoffs, or one with more job security and less risk? A startup environment – which often includes long hours and the need to wear many hats – is very different than large corporations that have clearly defined roles.”

Myth #2: Working in technology means working in a technology company.

Technology plays a huge role not only in business, but also in medicine, the arts and many other fields. Unfortunately, in the arts and similar fields, it is often difficult to find stable work with a reasonable paycheck. These fields are embracing technology and there are a growing number of opportunities to work in these fields by focusing on their technology needs. “I love the arts but I don’t have the financial means to support myself on the typical museum salary,” notes a client service director for a company that provides software solutions to museums and galleries worldwide. “In my current role I work closely with curators and museum leadership around the globe. Technology offered me an opportunity to turn an avocation into a career.”

Not only is technology creating a wide range of opportunities to work in fields that one doesn’t normally associate with technology, as the tech industry grows and matures, it needs professionals with a wide range of skills and is reaching out to people from a broad range of backgrounds.

Myth #3: You have to have a tech degree and you have to know how to program.

“There is still a bias in biotech and life sciences that you need to have a background in those fields in order to work in those industries. That used to be the case in technology, but it is no longer the case,” says Erin Lubien, who after many years in technology, financial services and investor relations, now runs her own consulting firm.

OnDeck’s Gellert adds, “There are a variety of functions at top tech companies that don’t involve programming, for instance marketing, sales, analytics and HR. If you’re interested in how technology is transforming payments and finance, you can likely find a fit no matter your skill set.”

Myth #4: If you have the skills – the jobs will come to you.

During her tech career, Lubien found that many job seekers assumed that they could build a program or solution and employers would line up with offers, but that is not enough to get the job since companies are looking for people who can work as part of a team.

Lubien states,

“The companies that are winning in the market are filled with people who are enthusiastic, energetic and personable. In tech there are never enough people to get the work done, so companies are looking for employees who will pitch in and be part of a community.”

Liz Jackson, a web developer at Agency Fusion, an online advertising company, provided a list of reasons people gave her to not go into technology.

Jackson shares some of the biggest myths that she heard about the tech industry and summarized these types of comments into three statements to show the stereotypical nature of them. She says that they are all a variation of “Your coworkers will be so awkward – programmers are so weird” or, “You’re going to be bored to death – web development is worse than accounting” and lastly, “Well, you’ll be the only woman in your office.”

Jackson goes on to note, “I’ve met some of the most interesting, personable web developers and programmers since taking my first job as a developer. Just like any office, there are a wide variety of personalities and backgrounds.”

Do Your Homework, Ignore the Myths

The technology field is booming. And that’s good news for professional women. As the industry expands, there is a need for workers and companies are seeking to improve their diversity not only because it is good for public relations but because it is good business.

By Beth Senko

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Life Hacks: Apps to Make your Life Easier for the busy professional woman

smartphonesToday there are applications (apps) for nearly everything imaginable: apps for work; apps to inspire, organize and motivate, and apps to simply waste time.

Today is also a time where the demands on our time are greater than ever. So how do we make the apps work for us as professional women, to give us that extra time we all seem to need at work and at home? Can apps be the key to the work-life balance issue? Are there career opportunities for women to develop more apps based on their own needs?

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5 Myths about Working in Financial Services

Career AssetsThe past twenty-five years have been a time of great expansion and diversification for the financial services industry. And that’s good news for professional women. Few industries offer workers the opportunity for exposure to senior decision makers and a wide array of responsibility at such an early age.

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Learning from Others: The Toigo Foundation’s Annual Groundbreakers Summit

In December, the Toigo Foundation, a partner of theglasshammer.com held its fourth annual Groundbreakers Summit for female leaders. This year’s theme was action-based and explored the key resources, tools and relationships needed to help women advance in their careers.

Founded in 1989, the Toigo Foundation established an educational fellowship program (The Financial Services Fellowship) focused on careers in financial services for minorities. Now in its 25th year, the Toigo Foundation has provided MBA fellowships and internships for women and minority professionals, and has since added lifelong mentoring, career development programs, and networking. The group now counts over 1,000 alums in key leadership roles across finance, government and academia.

The day’s presentations were equal parts analysis, inspiration and brainstorming. The morning plenary session called Journey to the Top: What’s in Your Toolkit? This session explored the challenge of rising to the top from both internal and external perspectives. Adena Friedman, President of Global Corporate and Information Technology at NASDAQ, encouraged the attendees to consider the possibility that they can succeed “if they think and act like a woman.” She acknowledged that women face all sorts of external hurdles to success and gender parity – structural, cultural, systemic, but that in her opinion, the keys to success are one’s internal perceptions. Freidman advised,

“Just as someone can’t make you a leader without your consent, they also can’t make you inferior without your consent.”

Friedman then advocated actions over words, “Saying yes to a challenge makes you a risk taker. You don’t have to say, ‘I am a risk taker.’”

Erika Hayes James was named the John H. Harland Dean of Goizueta Business School at Emory University in May 2014 and opened by saying that she was “unprepared for the attention” she received as the first minority female to lead a major business school. Dr. James’s presentation discussed the challenges to one’s confidence of being “different from the majority” and went on to comment on the effects of being in the power minority,

“As a woman in business we are always in the spotlight, under scrutiny, simply because we are different from the majority, and this often causes women to cast doubt upon ourselves.”

According to Dr. James, women generally rely on three coping mechanisms to deal with their confidence issues, which she stated as ‘overachievement, assimilation or hiding in support roles’.

Unfortunately each of these coping mechanisms is limiting at best. A philosophy of overachievement often sets a person up for failure; cultural assimilation doesn’t let a person use their own unique strengths and insights and hiding in support roles is often just that – hiding.

Head of Global Research for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Candace Browning, recounted her personal story of success despite not fitting the finance mold but stated that “I was okay as an outsider.”

Born in the Virgin Islands and a History and Russian Language major she entered a joint program at Columbia to study business and International Affairs, Browning “fell in love with case method” and eventually graduated with an emphasis in marketing. She joined PanAm and eventually leveraged her knowledge of the airline industry into equity research. Looking back she commented, “There wasn’t a lot of planning but I was willing to take risks.” Along the way she was constantly learning and asking questions, she advises women to “tell the story to get the promotion.”

Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter, closed the morning plenary sessions with her thoughts on balancing competition and care. Dr. Slaughter is President and CEO of the New America Foundation and author of “Why Women Still Can’t Have it All”. Dr. Slaughter stated in her polarizing interview in the Atlantic in 2012 that women can ‘have it all’ and explained that women can even ‘have it all at the same time’ but takes the stance that there are structural and societal barriers that need to change to allow women to fully enjoy success at work and home.

Dr. Slaughter contended at the event that women are doing themselves a disservice by holding onto self-defeating beliefs such as, “It’s possible if you are just committed enough” and “It’s possible if you marry the right person.” She advocates for women to look instead at finding solutions to obstacles such as default rules about when and where and how work has to be done.

The final two sessions of the day were inspirational and examined how women’s decisions can change the world – and how much need there is for change. Nevada State Assemblywoman, Lucy Flores, recounted her personal tale of growing up poor, early run-ins with the justice system, becoming a politician and, most powerfully, her failed campaign to be Lieutenant Governor of Nevada. “Always go with your gut” is a cornerstone of Flores’s philosophy. Her strength was tested when she testified regarding a sexual education bill in Nevada. The bill promoted abstinence and Flores, relying on her gut, revealed that she had an abortion as a teen and that at the time it was her best option. “The backlash was horrible,” she recalled, “and I thought that following my gut was the worst mistake I could have made. However, eventually more and more people came forward to support me and I am happy to say that my disclosure helped move the needle nationally in the discussion of teen sexuality.” Flores also encouraged women to choose work that “makes them happy, even if it is hard. If fear is holding you back you are missing opportunities. Failure is difficult, but it is harder to live with regret.”

The final presentation was given by Terri McCullough, Director, No Ceilings Project at the Clinton Foundation. The project looks at ways to better integrate women into all aspects of political, social and economic life across the globe and the costs of leaving women out of the equation. McCullough encouraged attendees to “think more broadly about where opportunity and support may lie for women’s progress.”

After McCullough’s presentation, attendees broke into small discussion groups to brainstorm and present possible solutions to the gender parity situation. At the conclusion, Jeanne Sullivan, a technology venture capitalist with StarVest partners, addressed the crowd saying that she was particularly optimistic about the outlook for women in business and financial services. “Men who are marrying now have come up through the ranks and have seen how things work against women. They want their daughters to succeed and they will do what they can to change the culture to help them succeed.”

By Beth Senko

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Movers and Shakers: Esther Yang, Vice President and Senior Trader-Derivatives at Voya Investment Management, formerly ING U.S. Investment Management

 

diverse women in the boardroomIn a recent round-table of derivative portfolio managers of the largest insurance companies, Esther Yang found herself being the only female among this male dominated profession. How did she get to where she is now?

Esther Yang did not have a conventional route to success in financial services. In fact, she didn’t begin college or her career with intentions of entering the field at all. However, Yang used her instincts and willingness to try new things to guide her into the position she currently holds.

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Movers and Shakers – Peg DiOrio, Vice President and Quantitative Analyst for the Portfolio Engineering Group at Voya Investment Management, formerly ING U.S. Investment Management

people at workWhen Voya’s Peg DiOrio describes the keys to her success overseeing quant for an entire group of investment managers, she uses a sailing analogy. “When you are part of a sailing crew, you have a job and you rely on others to do theirs. To be successful in business, you have to both respect and rely on your colleagues.”

Career Beginnings
Peg DiOrio taught high school math when she graduated college. As the newest teacher in school, she was assigned to some of the most challenging students. “One of my first classes was filled with high school seniors who were taking ninth grade math for the third and fourth time. They weren’t the most enthusiastic students, but it allowed me to try a lot of different ways to reach them. It taught me the importance of understanding my audience.”

In order to advance in the teaching profession, Peg had to get a masters degree. She enrolled in a then-new joint program between New York University’s Stern School of Business and the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences. DiOrio recalls, “Courant had long relied on training Department of Defense types in its masters programs.” When that source began to dry up, Courant looked for new opportunities for mathematical sciences and found it in the finance world. “I think the program is now called financial engineering,” DiOrio commented, but back then financial quant work was just getting recognized as a discipline.

There wasn’t a huge amount of academic work devoted to the finance and mathematics at the time, so she and her cohorts studied mathematical models from a range of other disciplines – physical sciences, social sciences, etc. “We studied models that described fish populations, neural networks and flu outbreaks.” She believes that applying math to a range of situations has been really useful in creating financial models that work in the real world.

“Finance is Just Math”
Peg’s study group at Courant included a student who was working at Sanford C. Bernstein. Her cohort’s commitment to developing models that accurately described the real world and his willingness to push for the best possible solution were inspiring. One day he told her, “You are smart. You should come work at Bernstein.”

Peg was intrigued, but a bit concerned that she lacked an understanding of finance. Her studies were in pure math and applied math. To that point her cohort said, “Finance is just math. You’ll figure it out.”

Learning Finance through Experience and Collaboration
Peg was assigned to work with a group of financial advisors who managed money for Bernstein’s high net worth clients. Part of her role was to run statistical reports for clients. “Some of our clients were unusual trusts – such as nuclear decommissioning trusts. It was a challenge because the goal was to have enough money to decommission the plant but not extra because additional funds would have to be returned to utility customers. It was also interesting because it was a time when decommissioning trusts were finally allowed to be invested in stocks. “We spent a lot of time looking at the right level of volatility.”

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