D&I Archives | The Glasshammer

“I just thought to reach out and find the true picture of the world,” is how Sheri Crosby Wheeler describes leaving her Texas hometown, Brownwood, where she grew up economically disadvantaged and without African-American professional role models, for university and then law school.

Speaking of her background, she says, “I feel like it has given me the grit, the resilience, the fight, the get-up-and-go that I have to this day. I won’t see myself as ever being down and out, and I won’t stay in a ‘woe is me’ place, not for very long.”

The determination to seek possibilities beyond her circumstances has been vital to Crosby Wheeler’s career trajectory from law to diversity and inclusion (D&I).

When Mentors Are Absent

Throughout law school and her legal career, mentors were missing, and she didn’t know how to reach out.

“I wish at that time I knew that if you’re gonna go down a path, you should talk to people who have been down that path already so they can steer you clear of the potholes and the explosions,” she says, for example missing out on a judicial courtship. “I was just very much ‘I know how to do it’, because before that, I had done it all on my own.”

In the absence of mentors, “I crashed and burned, stumbled and failed,” Wheeler says, “I didn’t do well at my first law firm. And for someone who was used to doing well up to that point, it was kind of earth-shattering.”

Getting back up, however, taught her to take risks and eventually to leap paths.

Vicarious Mentorship

In lieu of mentors, Crosby Wheeler has “professionally stalked” role models she admires. This once led her to eventually join the law firm of a lawyer she followed for nearly a decade. Today, her “professional crush” is Vernā Meyers, VP, Inclusion Strategy at Netflix, who like her, holds a law background.

“I’m watching them from afar. What did they do? I’m gonna try that,” she says. “I tell people that the mentor you think you want to have may not be accessible to you one-on-one. They may not necessarily have the time in their day and career to mentor you, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be your secret mentor.”

Daring to Reinvent Herself

“Now initially, I will say I was fighting it,” recalls Crosby Wheeler about her desire to leave litigation. “I was like, no. I have chosen law. I’m gonna push, I’m gonna strive.”

But there came a moment as a contract lawyer when the work no longer felt aligned, and she realized “something has got to give.”

“In my mind, I always knew,” reflects Crosby Wheeler. “I didn’t know when, I didn’t know how, and I didn’t know where I would be going.” That willingness to stop pushing uphill and embrace the uncertainty of career change is a defining moment she is proud of.

After resolving to change paths, an opportunity appeared and became the shift that led to subsequent bigger moves, including three entirely new opportunities that landed on her D&I responsibility at Mr. Cooper, before moving to Fossil Group in 2021.

Sponsorship and Networking Are Essential

While lacking early on, sponsorship was ultimately key for Crosby Wheeler in reaching where she is now, particularly those people who looked at her, saw the potential and extended her the chance to expand into entirely new areas.

“If someone hadn’t put their skin in the game, I wouldn’t even be in this role,” says Crosby Wheeler.

Crosby Wheeler is now passionate about mentoring others. “To remember when I’m going forward, to continue to reach back to young attorneys, to other professionals,” she says. “To the extent that I can, I do. I know how important that is because some of that was missing in my journey.”

She also swears by a consistent network of friends and colleagues who can pick up the phone to support each other.

“I tell young professionals to right now start building that network. And don’t look at the network as what they can do for you,” she says. “Look at the network as what you can do for them. What can you give them? How can you help them? That is how you build a stronger network.”

“Real Good D&I, Not Feel Good D&I”™

“Now I am seeing that direct impact – the ability to positively impact people, businesses and communities,” Crosby Wheeler says of her D&I experience. “What underlies diversity work, and some legal work, is fairness and justice – and that’s a theme that has been a common thread throughout my life. That is what really speaks to me in this work.”

 With racial justice issues at the national forefront, Crosby Wheeler sees this as a moment for companies to advance equity like never before.   “More people are focused on it, caring about it, and understanding the importance,” she observes. “More people are willing to have the conversation. That’s what we’ve needed all along.”

“It can feel uncomfortable, but there is growth in discomfort,“ she says. “I don’t know about you, but I like to grow. I like to change. I like to get better. It’s just like people going to the gym. Your muscles are sore because you worked them. There was some discomfort there. Same thing. You’ve gotta work your D&I muscles for you to grow, for you to get better.”

Crosby Wheeler is observing a shift to “Real Good D&I, Not Feel Good D&I”™.

“‘Feel Good D&I’ can also be considered performative,” she says. “‘Oh yea, we just had this potluck and we put up a statement, woo!’ Well, that’s not changing things for people. That’s not changing systems, policies, procedures, laws, so ultimately it’s not changing things.”

An example of “Real Good D&I” is a company being transparent about where they are on the journey, and creating sustained organization-wide accountability to shift it.

“Having accountability that recognizes that it’s everyone’s issue, that it permeates the entire organization. That it’s not ‘that department over there, they’re doing this’.” she says. “No. Everybody is doing this, because this runs throughout the whole company. That’s what it takes – everybody working on it.”

Because “Real Good D&I” is sustained effort and change, it’s hard to gauge by quick metrics.

“It’s not like regular business operations where you’re looking at numbers, where it’s dry and objective,” Crosby Wheeler presses. “This is people, emotions, and feelings involved as well. So you’re trying to change hearts as well as minds. That’s not simple and that’s not easy and that’s not quick.”

Sourcing Growth From Adversity

Crosby Wheeler boldly chooses the experience of being fired from a legal job early on in her career as a key moment in her character development.

“It let me know that I can come back from a mistake, from what I thought was the worst thing ever.” she says. “I remember saying at the time ‘now I’m gonna find out what I’m really made of,’ and I did. I hope that I can exude that for other people to take in, and know they will also be okay too.”

And she does.

By Aimee Hansen

By Cathie Ericson

At this point in her career, Morgan Stanley’s Susan Reid says that she understands now more than ever how important it is to build relationships – and that she wishes she had had a more concrete understanding as a new professional.

“Like many younger people I focused quite a bit on building technical skills and getting the work done, but if I had an opportunity to start over, I would focus on cultivating relationships earlier and sustaining those relationships over time,” she says.

It’s just one of the lessons she eagerly shares with younger women she mentors, as she lends encouragement to their climb in the important financial services industry, emphasizing its role as a significant contributor to global economies.

Various Roles in HR Led to Her Passion of D&I

Reid’s early career was in education; in fact she was thrilled to join her alma mater, NYU, as a full-time employee immediately after graduating to help build an office designed to help students of color successfully complete their college education. Looking back, she can pinpoint that experience as the start of her interest in diversity and inclusion. Stints as an HR professional in recruiting and D&I in various industries followed, and she joined Morgan Stanley in 2008 as an HR Coverage Officer for the Investment Management Business.

Reid joined Morgan Stanley during the financial crisis and says that her ability to help the firm through those challenging times is the professional achievement she’s most proud of today. “As an HR professional, you are called upon most during challenging times, and I am proud that I was able to contribute to helping our leaders and our employees successfully navigate that time period.”

Today, Reid remains excited about her role leading diversity and inclusion efforts. “It is not a cliché to say that our talent is our most valuable asset because they are,” she says. “The work that we do in D&I to help the firm hire, retain and advance a diverse group of individuals who can help the firm succeed while enjoying successful careers is extremely meaningful.”

Right now, Reid finds the shifts in demographics that workplaces are experiencing to be of particular interest, based on the implications they have for clients and colleagues of the future. Employees of the future will have different expectations about work and workplaces, and to grow the firm they constantly have to think ahead about who their clients will be and how to best engage with them. “We are in very dynamic times, and we all have the challenge of keeping pace and getting ahead,” Reid says.

Helping Women Carve Out Success

Reid is a believer in financial services as an important industry for women. “We offer challenging roles and contribute to economic growth, while also providing individuals with the wherewithal to give back to various communities,” she says.

But, she notes, it is also an industry that requires an intense commitment of time, energy and attention, and the many additional demands that women often deal with can create particular challenges. However, she hopes that as society continues to shift towards greater equity in family dynamics, women will find it easier to have a sustained career in the industry, while continuing to meet their outside obligations.

On that note, Reid mentions her pride in Morgan Stanley’s Return to Work Program, which was launched several years ago to support talented professionals who take career breaks but want to return to work. The program offers women and men the opportunity to spend 12 weeks in the equivalent of an internship and to convert to full-time hires if it makes sense for both parties at the end of that experience. “We have had great success hiring participants into various parts of the firm,” she notes.

Reid underscores that it is incredibly important for young women to join the industry and advance to leadership roles. “We simply cannot be on the sidelines of this important field,” she urges.

And she reminds her peers that those currently within the industry have a responsibility to help support and advance younger women – to reach out to women of color, LGTBQ women and other women in the “minority” and to intentionally drive their success.

Reid has a number of passions outside of work, including her family, reading and running – a pursuit she admits she has been doing far less of recently but wants to return to. She serves on the board of a private tuition-free school in her adopted hometown, Harlem, N.Y. (she is originally from Jamaica), where she and fellow Morgan Stanley colleagues spend time mentoring the seventh and eighth grade girls.

“This experience has reminded me of the challenges that girls, and in particular, girls of color and girls from poor communities, face navigating the world and how important it is to get involved and to stay involved with our local communities and with young people,” Reid says. “We have a responsibility to help shape the future, and this experience shows that we can all start right in our own backyards.”

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Sheri Crosby Wheeler: Vice President, Diversity and Inclusion, Fossil Group