Tag Archive for: Latina Leaders

Melinda Cora: Principal, Head of Product Implementation and Project Management at PGIM Quantitative Solutions

,

Melinda Cora“I’m a firm believer in the power of personal brand. When you see a particular logo – like Apple, Starbucks or Nike – you immediately have feelings associated with that entity,” says Melinda Cora. “When someone sees my name appear on their phone or in an email, my desire has always been that the brand I’ve developed makes them want to answer my call or read my message and engage with me. My hope is that they have positive feelings and thoughts, based on my work and experiences with them.”

Carving Her Own Trajectory

Growing up in Bushwick, Brooklyn, a low-income and predominantly Hispanic and Black community, Melinda recognized the lack of resources around her (vacations often meant opening a fire hydrant on hot summer days) and how it contrasted with the untapped wealth of talent. She was motivated to carve a different trajectory for herself and recounts that one of her earliest supporters in this regard was her fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Aievoli, who noticed Melinda’s potential and giftedness and inspired her to grow.

“She invested her time in preparing me to test for a specialized middle school. My acceptance into the school put me on a path to graduate high school at the top of my class at 16 years old,” Melinda recalls.

With hard-working Puerto Rican parents who hadn’t had the opportunity to pursue higher education, school guidance counselors who lacked the frame to point her towards scholarships, and a family mentality of avoiding debt and needing to make ends meet, she attained her associates degree in just 1.5 years before taking on a full-time role as a legal secretary at 18 years old in the M&A department of Shearman & Sterling LLC. It was in that role that Melinda began the practice of learning through observing and quickly became an asset to her team.

“I knew there was something wrong with the equation, and I wanted to be a part of making it right. We had pounds of hard labor workers in my community but a lack of role models who could demonstrate that it was possible to enter a variety of industries, and that lit a fire in me,” says Melinda. “I wanted to be able to go back years later and say, ‘I’ve had a successful career. I’ve been able to break out of this mold. And guess what? You can, too.’”

She was soon promoted to a marketing coordinator role at Shearman, before one of the lawyers she’d worked with called on her for an opportunity at Equavant. When that same lawyer again moved to Lehman Brothers, she called on Melinda again. After seven years at Lehman, where she was an operations analyst and later, a member of an alternative investment management team, Melinda was sponsored by another former colleague for a project management role at PGIM Quantitative Solutions (then known as QMA), a leading quantitative investment manager owned by PGIM, the investment management business of Prudential Financial, Inc.

“Multiple times in my career, former managers and colleagues picked up the phone and offered me some type of pivotal change,” says Melinda. “They believed in me and recognized my drive and many strengths. With each opportunity, I assessed whether it was the right, progressive next step in my career, and once I gave my ‘yes,’ I also gave those roles my all.”

Melinda knew she’d acquired the experience and network, but recognized that if it weren’t for sponsors, her lack of a bachelor’s degree may have filtered her resume out of the interviewing process: “I realized that I needed to go back to school, even though I was in my 30s,” reflects Melinda. “So, I became a full-time working wife and mother of three children—who was also earning her bachelor’s degree. I graduated Summa Cum Laude and have also taken several MBA courses to date.”

Striving For Excellence

“I appreciate that perfection is a myth. However, striving for excellence has been a driving factor for me. If it has my name attached to it, I want to do it with excellence,” says Melinda, speaking to honing her personal brand.

Nearly 15 years ago, Melinda joined QMA as a junior-level project manager and is now head of product implementation and project management at PGIM Quantitative Solutions: “It’s a dynamic role managing my team and a testament to the evolution of the body of work we coordinate within PGIM Quant,” says Melinda. “I have the privilege of working with some of the brightest individuals and leaders in our industry who I get to learn from and partner with daily. No two days are the same, and each new opportunity allows my team and me to be a part of developing new solutions.”

Melinda also serves as a role model and mentor. It’s her passion to build the power of dreaming big among youth and young adults. With HISPA (Hispanics Inspiring Students to Perform and Achieve), she speaks to middle school students in predominantly Hispanic New Jersey communities, inspiring them to believe there is space for them in the asset management industry.

Melinda is a co-founder of PGIM Quant’s Hispanic and Latino business resource group (BRG), Unidos, and a leading member of the Inclusion Council, which oversees each of PGIM Quant’s BRGs to drive meaningful results through a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion. She serves on the Latinx executive leadership team for PGIM overall. Melinda also volunteers through Junior Achievement of New Jersey, through her local church’s Girls Ministry program, and leads a young adults life group out of her home.

The Courage To Speak

Latinos are underrepresented across the finance industry at less than 10%, though they account for approximately 18% of the US population. That percentage drops significantly when accounting for senior-level Latinos in this space. Despite her Latino colleagues coming from different countries, the messages from their families and peers are often similar—like be grateful to have a job, keep your head down, and do not make big waves. Melinda says, at times, Latinos are often not outspoken enough in the workplace as a result of this common conditioning.

“I’ve often struggled with that internal tension. My perspectives and ideas are unique and valuable within the work environment, but everything in my culture tells me I shouldn’t speak up,” she reflects. “So, I’ve had the interesting dynamic of saying I am going to speak up and it’s going to be hard.”

To do this, Melinda calls on her own touchstone of living from courage: “Courage is sometimes ill-defined as ‘not being afraid’ or ‘the absence of fear.’ That’s not what it is. Courage is moving forward or speaking up, even if you are afraid,” she says. “I had to develop the courage to say I do have an idea and it is worth sharing.”

Valuing Diversity of Thought

Melinda, at times, struggles with the notion of imposter syndrome, but quickly reminds herself that her lack of privilege growing up does not equate to a voice that counts less. She recognizes the importance of embracing the background that shaped her and the need to value every upbringing – even the upbringings of those who grew up in privilege.

“It’s rethinking and relearning certain things as an adult to continuously challenge yourself. We’re all learning from each other. No one has arrived at any sort of final destination and we should regularly seek opportunities to further develop,” Melinda notes.

Her early experiences shaped the way that she cultivates different perspectives as an adult: “As a child, I felt like people often didn’t care about what students in my schools thought. It was a ‘what the teacher says goes’ mentality. Even then I knew, if we’re not allowing opportunities to challenge each other, then we’re doing ourselves a disservice and missing out on diversity of thought.”

Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

As a tip, Melinda discourages people pleasing: “What’s more important is developing into a trustworthy and sought-after business partner. Whether raising a difficult issue with her children’s schools or inside the four walls of PGIM, Melinda has learned that uncomfortable conversations must be braved.

“I’ve had many experiences where I felt uncomfortable raising a topic but I did it anyway, because there was merit in it,” she says. “If we’re going to have diversity of thought, then as leaders and as professionals, we have to evaluate the things that make us uncomfortable and really decipher, what is this individual trying to say? What is the goal here? Because if you believe intentions are good, you might want to tune your ear and try to better understand what is being said, versus dismissing or disqualifying it.”

Cultivating a Growth Mindset and Culture

As she’s become more senior, new challenges and greater stakes can heighten the fear of making mistakes: “I often say each product effort or project is like its own recipe,” she says. “You may have a group of people with different work styles or a different timeline. You may have different factors that lead to initiatives being diverse even when they’re similar on paper.”

Melinda embraces the idea of being a continuous learner: “We’re not going to get it right 100% of the time. So, two main factors drive my thought process. When I get something right, I celebrate the opportunity to teach. What went right? How did I get there? What was new? What defined the win?” She continues, “And then when I get something wrong, I celebrate the opportunity to learn. What didn’t go right? What can I learn from this? How can I get better? It’s important to look at mistakes as something that will help me grow and, in turn, others as well.”

Melinda looks for opportunities to convey that growth approach and reinforce it with her team members, too. She focuses on caring about people as individuals first and then supporting their career growth with the learning and opportunities to get where they want to go, in their own way and style.

“Whatever number of years and whatever season we spend together, my goal is to be that servant leader to individuals on my team,” she says. One way Melinda empowers her team, especially in the hybrid environment, is to let them decide on her attendance in meetings. This instills confidence in their abilities, while she remains available to provide guidance and be there if and when needed.

Melinda says she has gained the most from organic mentor relationships – precisely, from exposure. As a self-motivated learner, it’s not conversations, but truly watching people in action that inspires her.

“From the start of my career, the way I’ve learned from leaders is by sitting at a table with them, listening to how they interact with others, seeing how they get decisions made, and watching how they influence business,” she says. “How I learn best is by observing. What drives me is looking around the office and asking who do I want to be more like to continue growing as a professional and progressing in my career?”

From Childhood to Today

Mrs. Aievoli still figures prominently in her life and has proven to be Melinda’s lifelong mentor.

“To this day, she keeps me pushing myself. She always says, ‘okay Melinda, and what’s next?’ She keeps me focused on that idea of growth and development,” says Melinda, who still shares her milestone accomplishments with her. “She’s been invested in me from childhood and that’s resonated with me for years.”

Melinda is most proud that her three children – now 20- and 16-year-old daughters, Jayden and Madison, and 13-year-old son, Zachary – can see in her an example of the role model she wished for as a child.

“I had a non-traditional career and educational path, and while it hasn’t been easy, I never settled or gave up, and that’s something I hope encourages them throughout their lives,” she says. “I want them to believe in their own aspirations and carve their own paths so that they, too, can be role models to future generations.”

By Aimee Hansen

/by

Cassandra Cuellar: Partner, Venture Capital, M&A and Capital Markets, Shearman & Sterling LLP

,

Cassandra CuellarAs a partner in the buzzing Emerging Growth practice, Cassandra Cuellar works with entrepreneurial clients who are launching companies and investors who are looking to back a promising venture.

Taking Ownership To Grow

“What gets me out of bed in the morning is the opportunity to work with people that are pouring their personal energy, time and wealth into the companies they’re growing,” says Cuellar. “It’s very rewarding to be a part of their journey as they start those companies, grow them and hopefully realize a successful exit. It’s life-changing for them.”

Cuellar must understand the concerns and interests of both founders and investors in her practice. She emphasizes that a collaboration mentality and solution-orientation is required to effectively advocate for her clients: “Our job is not to identify 20 roadblocks and then say we can’t go further. Our job is to identify the roadblocks, figure out if this is truly something that will be detrimental to our client, and then bring our clients in on that, figuring out the solution together.”

Cuellar enjoys the fast pace of work these days: “You get so many more people that have new ideas and diversity of thought starting companies and taking a chance on themselves. It’s great to see that and be able to be part of that.”

She is also comfortable leaning in and taking a chance on herself. “I have a willingness to take ownership over things without necessarily having to be so dependent on a hierarchical structure,” she says. “Startups run lean, so that’s the way my group approaches the practice and it’s how I’ve developed as an attorney.”

From early in her career, she had to get comfortable communicating with CEOs, CFOs, and key decision makers, but she relates learning through taking ownership to even earlier in life.

“I grew up in a small town as the oldest of four kids, and my parents had their hands full. I had to take ownership of my own professional career – getting into college, getting scholarships and making sure I was set up to move away and do my own thing,” says Cuellar. “Having that ability to do that from a young age translated well into being successful at this practice. I’m not afraid to take ownership over issues and clients and get stuff done.”

The Confidence To Trust Yourself and Others

“Latinx students going into law school don’t necessarily have readily-accessible role models that have gone into BigLaw, so often Latinx students make a choice to opt out of BigLaw, despite being more than qualified,” cautions Cuellar. “But I have found that because Latinx students often have to figure things out on their own without role models, that makes us uniquely qualified for this profession. You are used to navigating unknown waters, so it makes it easier to approach novel legal issues, transactions, and clients. The one thing I’ve learned – through negotiating the law school process, getting a job in a big law firm and now building my career – is that whatever you can throw at me, I’m going to figure it out,” she notes. “I don’t get scared off by challenge. I can rise to it because I have done it before.”

While launching herself into responsibility came naturally, her stretch zone has been releasing control. As a senior associate, she was accustomed to knowing every detail in every transaction and trusted herself to deliver on the high expectations she set. As she’s moved up, she’s had to learn to let go and trust in her team. Cuellar echoes other Latinas we’ve spoken to in expressing that being the one Latina within her practice, or one of few, feeds the drive to validate through performance. It makes letting go harder because more has felt at stake.

“Being a Latina, there’s not that many of us doing what I do, so I do feel a certain responsibility to be able to prove myself here and make sure that anything I work on is done at 100%,” she reflects. “That part of my identity and proving myself is impacted by this other part of me that needs to grow and trust other people to do things, even though I don’t have 100% control.”

Along with that self-awareness, she’s found that empathy is important.

“Letting go of some of that control has been hard, but I’m working on it,” she admits. “I’ve realized that everyone is an individual, and they’re not all like me, and I have to manage to each person versus to what my personal expectations, approaches, or processes would be.”

Encouraging Each Other’s Potential

Inspired by leaders she’s worked with, Cuellar models her practice upon listening and showing understanding to clients and those she is working with. She would love to see more Latinas follow a law path, and attributes her own decision to meeting a Latina lawyer in the Texas legislature, who encouraged her on the path.

At Shearman, Cuellar has felt supported in opening her possibilities by other women mentors: “I’ve always found someone willing to sit down and talk to me about things in a very honest fashion, who would guidepost, for example, that I needed to be thinking about business development, even as a second year, if I ultimately want to make Partner.”

In formal mentoring of law school students, especially Latinas and Latinos, she implores students not to limit themselves based on context or precedents, but instead to take a good look at whether a big law firm could be a match: “You work a lot, but you learn a lot, and have a lot of professional opportunities. I think it’s important that more Latinos and Latinas feel comfortable taking that risk, even if it might not be something your family understands at the time. You’re setting yourself up for your future professionally. You can at least try, and you could even be successful.”

Finding Out What Works For You

Cuellar admits it has taken her years to get comfortable in networking, but she tells students to take networking seriously as a skill to develop, the earlier the better.

But she’s also found her own approach to creating connections. “What I’ve discovered, whether it’s within the firm or with a volunteer opportunity, is my best networking is done when I’m working with someone. I take that approach of trying to get to know people by doing a good job with work they send my way, making sure that they feel valued and working from there (with common interests etc) – versus attending every networking event, because I find it hard to make deep connections in that context.”

Cuellar considers it part of the trial and error of getting to know yourself. Try out different things to see what works for you, and develop your own network style.

Her close-knit family and three year old son Max come first in her life. They enjoy cooking, celebrating birthdays and planning holidays. She enjoys connecting with close friends through the early experiences of motherhood. In this particular moment, it appears her son Max is rebelling against preschool yoga.

By Aimee Hansen

/by

Indhira Arrington: Global Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer, Ares Management

,

Indhira Arrington“My career trajectory is a combination of two factors. The first is that I am standing on the shoulders of people and organizations who have sponsored me and have opened doors for me to join rooms, organizations and functions that I otherwise would not have been able to,” says Indhira Arrington. “The second is that while I was fortunate to have those opportunities present themselves, I was also prepared and motivated to seize those opportunities.”

Stepping Up to Opportunities, All the Way to the C-Suite

Instilled with a strong work ethic by her family and driven to prove herself as an immigrant in a new country, Arrington was determined to perform at her best and demonstrate her value from early on.

“Being an immigrant really is at the core of my experience,” she says, “Even though I’ve now lived in the U.S. longer than I lived in the Dominican Republic, I distinctly remember that feeling of being an ‘outsider.’”

With her parents speaking little English and no precedent for success in corporate America, Arrington’s “second family” at INROADS set her up with the mindset and skills that enabled her to perform at a high level (academically, as a 4.0 student) and step up to opportunities.

With both the prodding of her INROADS mentor and with the sponsorship of The Consortium, she received her MBA at NYU Stern School of Business before taking on sales and trading roles at Citi and Morgan Stanley: “I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and I was fortunate to have people who saw my potential as much bigger than I did. They pointed me in different directions.”

While building her career on the trading floor, Arrington says that DEI was her steady second job. As a “double only” Latina in the room, she was often called on for diversity conferences and networking needs. She wanted to show up and open doors for others, too.

Then came a crossroads of choice.

“Sales and trading was where I could have maximized my earning potential, but I faced the difficulty of having the intensity that job required and being the type of mother I wanted to be,” reflects Arrington. “I was very good at my job, but it didn’t fit with how I wanted the rest of my life to play out.”

Coinciding with the economic downturn and start of her family, Arrington shifted into diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) as her primary career focus in 2009 – first at Bank of America and then Wells Fargo, before taking her present role at Ares Management Corporation as Global Head of DEI in 2021.

“There are thousands of people that are good at their job and that want to ascend the corporate ladder, but doing it alone likely won’t get you there,” she says. “You also need to have strong executive presence and act like a leader, and then hopefully that combination gains you the sponsors who have the power to open those doors, propel you and pull you up.”

Becoming an Impact Player

As a constant learner, Arrington has focused on becoming the subject matter expert of her craft. Once she realized she could be vulnerable, ask for help and not figure everything out by herself, it was a game-changer in advancing her learning curve: “I always say to my team that when I don’t understand something, even today, explain it to me like a five-year old.”

A key principle she abides to and encourages in her team is to be in service of others: Don’t aim to be basic. Aim to be exceptional.

“Anybody can do what they are told and put the spreadsheet together. But if you’re in the service of others, you’re going to ask the next question about what they are trying to do and the end goal,” she says. “You take the work to the next level, and in doing so, you build good will and advocates who will remember you.”

Whether it’s volunteering to bring in great talent, working with ERGs, or taking the initiative to fix a broken process, Arrington suggests to ask, “Outside of your day job responsibilities, what are you doing to contribute to the greater good of the organization and to make yourself an impact player? Anybody can get work done. People want to promote impact players.”

Leveling Up To Advance Your Career

Arrington emphasizes that leveling up requires the maturity of being open and direct about what you need and want and what your expectations are, and not just expecting your boss (or anyone) to be a mind-reader.

Owning what you want also means learning to “manage your manager” – putting your objectives and goals out, and then soliciting the clear guidance on where you need to focus on developing your skillsets and capabilities to be able to reach your goals. Find out what might be getting in your way and what superpowers you need to double-down on to excel.

“Be unapologetic and say this is what I’m thinking, but also leave space in the room for your managers to say ‘maybe you’re thinking too small’ or ‘maybe you’re thinking too big.’”

Thirdly, Arrington has learned from experience that “the unwritten rules are real.” Knowing the difference between titles, influencers and key decision-makers, as well as knowing the personalities you are interacting with, is essential when it comes to succeeding in advancing your ideas as you rise to bigger roles where more is at stake and few ideas get funded.

“Pre-selling your idea to the right individuals and setting yourself up to succeed is so critical, but women often don’t focus enough on that,” she observes. “We focus on the best idea and presentation and assume everyone is going to like it. The pre-game and understanding how things really get done in your organization is key.”

Arrington encourages women to have a portfolio of sponsors and advocates you spend time with and who know the value you deliver, and be more strategic in building your network. She observes that men tend to build diverse networks that create a matrix intentionally directed towards where they want to go, whereas women tend to build their networks around proximity and likeness. Leverage your network as an opportunity to put your intentions out there to those in the places you want to go.

Impacting Change as a Latina

“As Latinas, we’re bred to be loud and we’re bred to sit in our truth,” laughs Arrington, reflecting on her cultural capital.

As a Latina woman she’s brought her personal experiences to the table: “There’s nothing like breaking down barriers by being vulnerable and telling your personal story of microaggressions and how you have been made to feel less, unwelcome or like you don’t belong in situations. It changes the way that reality lands when a person realizes that somebody that they know isn’t having the same experiences that they are.”

For two decades, Arrington has sat on the board of directors for the Committee for Hispanic Children and Families, supporting Latinos in New York around school, work and childcare. She is currently the Vice Chair for the Council of Urban Professionals (CUP), focusing on supporting women and people of color to leadership roles in corporate organizations. Her experience of feeling like an outsider has inspired her towards actions that bring about change.

While successful in overcoming obstacles, Arrington admits it has been challenging at times to be the only Latina in a room: “That’s where vulnerability came in. Without somebody that would have a naturally predisposed affinity towards me, I had to figure out how to break down barriers to be let in and be embraced even though I was different,” says Arrington. “It’s much easier when you feel that level of comfort and connectedness.”

Why Managing Is Really Coaching

Arrington jokes that she cannot have a boss who doesn’t want to be her friend, but she also means it: “If you don’t know me and you don’t understand what drives me and what ails me, then how could you truly be in charge of growing me and taking me to the next level?”

She continues, “I think it’s really important as managers that we take the approach of being coaches and changing the relationship from ‘I’m here to manage and make sure you do what you’re supposed to do’ to ‘I’m here to coach you and make sure that you exceed that.’”

In a coaching relationship, honest feedback can be received as care and guidance with your best interests at heart.

“Most managers feel like I can’t get too close because then I can’t be objective, and I think it’s the opposite,” says Arrington. “If you’re not close enough, you’re going to miss what’s happening and you’re going to miss opportunities to support people in a way that makes them want to come to work and be part of the community.”

Having often felt she had to prove herself along her journey, she would have a simple message to her younger self: “Stop being so scared. Try to enjoy it more along the way. You are worthy. You are good enough. You’re more than good enough.”

These days, Arrington practices giving herself grace on a daily basis. With her twelve and nine year-old sons playing flag football on the weekends, Arrington confesses to be that sports mom cheering on the sidelines with a cowbell. She enjoys yoga and learning through documentaries, and is an avid reader when she can sneak a few chapters in.

By Aimee Hansen

/by

Latina Inclusion: Do Not Check Your Identity at The Door!

, ,

Latina Inclusion FeatureThe gap in Latina leadership in Corporate America is still an inclusion issue. But as more Latinas decide to go where they are valued, it’s Corporate America that is losing out the most – and more so in the future.

Hispanic and Latina women comprise only 1.6% of senior executives in the U.S.’s largest companies, less than other major demographic groups. USA TODAY reviewed 92 companies in the S&P 100 and found 18 had no Latinas in senior executive positions: including Apple, CostCo and Netflix. While few had a proportion equal to representation in the U.S. Workforce, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble and Visa came closest.

It’s not just senior management: Latinas are underrepresented as only 4.4% of managers and 3.2% of professionals. And, according to the Latino Corporate Directors Association, Latinas hold only 1% of board seats in Fortune 500 companies, fewer than other gender or ethnic groups. But Latinas comprise 16% of the female labor force – the largest group behind white women, and by 2029, are projected to be 9.3% of the total US labor force.

Hispanic women earned 16.4% of bachelor’s degrees and 12.3% of master’s degrees in 2020, and Latinas represent 56% of Latinx students, though Latinx enrollment has taken some hit since the pandemic. Over two million Latina-owned small businesses exist – the fastest growing segment of the business community – with over 87% growth in business numbers since 2007. Latinas are creating business six times faster than any other group.

Barriers to Inclusion

Comprising 19% of the population and growing, Hispanic buying power continues to accelerate and demand that organizations understand this market.

While Latina women should have good reason to feel more emboldened than ever to bring their full identities to work through culturally relevant Latina leadership, they continue to be under-supported to do so and underpaid by corporate America.

When it comes to the paycheck, Latinas earn 55 cents for every dollar earned by non-Latino white men: even in the exact same job. Latinas earn 28% less than white women. The pay gap is also widest for Latinas with college degrees.

While Latinas ask for promotions and raises at similar rates to white men, the “broken rung” is exposed when you consider that Latinas are only 71% as likely as men in general to be promoted. Only 19% of Latinas feel supported by white co-workers. Only 5% of Latinos overall in big companies say they have a sponsor, whereas Latinos who do have sponsors are 42% more likely to be satisfied with career progression. Latinas who have reached executive levels often report the importance of that sponsorship in reaching where they are.

Latinas have reported being cast as caretakers, or the media image of ‘jefa of the household,’ rather than corporate leaders. Latinas are arguably more culturally wired for community building, a deeply held value which they often practice at home and that would serve organizations, but the value of individualism still dominates vertical mobility.

Latina women also report, according to Esther Aguilera, CEO of the Latino Corporate Directors Association, having to overcome biases around accents and myths and misperceptions around capabilities – which leads to a cycle, as we’ve heard echoed at The Glass Hammer this month, of Latina execs still feeling the internal drive of needing to prove themselves.

Indeed, 63% of Hispanic leaders indicated they have to work harder because of their ethnicity. And two in three Hispanic professionals felt educating coworkers around DEI falls upon them, spending substantial time whether it relates to their job or expertise.

Compared to non-Hispanic peers, Hispanic professionals are 53% less likely to feel included at work and 53% less likely to say they’re comfortable fully expressing their identities at work. Latina women have reported having to “check their identity at the door” or adjust their persona (code-switch) to fit into white masculine stereotypes of leadership.

The Post-Pandemic Impact

So it may come as no surprise that UCLA found that Latinas are leaving the workforce at higher rates than any other major demographic. Between March 2020 and March 2021, the workforce lost 336,000 Latinas, a drop of 2.74% in the workforce. Perhaps the promise of the American dream became too far stretched in reality for some, taking too much emotional, mental and physical toll without enough reward. One qualitative study found that senior level Latina talent were exiting Corporate America because of poor culture fit and a lack of evidence that Latinas were being structurally promoted.

“The Latina Pathway to Excellence in a Post-Pandemic World” report shared how the pandemic had changed the employment outlook of many Latinas. They both felt more invisible and yet found a “new virtual world confidence” in which they’ve learned to promote their profile more authentically at a professional level.

Mid-career Latinas expressed challenges such as: difficulty in maintaining their true selves in the workplace, a lack of champions they could identify with and trust, a lack of management check-ins, and lack of access to upper management. They emphasized the value of knowing your unique gifts and individual brand and leveraging the value that intersectionality brings to the table.

Executive-level leaders discussed promoting your distinct qualities, developing more skills and taking risks to seize opportunities amidst reduced visibility. They emphasized the importance of overcoming imposter syndrome as well as cultural Latin gender norms, being ‘ready to represent’ at the upper echelons amidst disproportionate scrutiny, and seeking mentorship and sponsorship (many had been sponsored by Latino men). They also encouraged trusting in the “Latina 6th sense” of intuition and decision making. Some C-Suite Latinas had leveraged the virtual meeting place to create new connections and visibility with senior leaders.

As written in Be Latina, “The growth of the virtual world allowed, in certain ways, for ‘authenticity in the business world.’”

It’s about Latina Inclusion

So what about organizations that want to get serious about promoting Latina talent? The answer is valuing the culture add and fostering cultural inclusion. At base level, greater inclusion for Hispanic and Latina women requires at least three things:

  1. Address unconscious bias in talent management decisions – Too many talent decisions are riddled in bias at each level (hiring, promotion, pay) and inhibiting organizations from leveraging and promoting Latina talent. From entry level recruitment to promotion to senior posts to pay packages, it’s possible to identify and shake up the way approaches have kept Latina talent from top positions.
  2. Make sponsorship happen – Ideally through formal sponsorship programs, managers and senior leaders should be challenged to reach beyond their own affinity bias and the gap in sponsorship for Latina women must close to transcend the block to corporate leadership.
  3. Encourage authenticity – Build a culture that celebrates each individual’s perspective, and the intersectionality that often informs that perspective, rather than pressures Latina women to forgo their wholeness to belong in the corporate workplace.
Please Don’t Check Your Identity!

Ask Hispanic and Latina executives, and showing up authentically can be the biggest challenge, but ultimately, there’s no path to stronger performance and personal fulfillment than being able to be who you are.

Latina women are bicultural, bilingual and possess many aspects of cultural wealth that can be leveraged as a leader. In part because of what it’s taken to get this far, Latinas often have developed strong skillsets of resilience, creativity, optimism, social ease, charisma, passion, relationship-building, multi-tasking and adaptability.

It’s recommended that Latinas who wish to thrive look for strong cultural fits that will value your whole selves, be persistent and also know when to adapt and take risks to overcome barriers. It’s important to accept imperfection in selves and others and be grounded in your ethnic background while navigating two cultures. Surround yourselves with mentors and those who can support your advancement.

One hunch about Latina leadership: it’s happening and those who embrace cultural diversity and inclusion will know the advantage of leveraging it.

By Aimee Hansen

/by

Vanessa Nazario: Corporate Director, Chief Diversity Officer, Memorial Healthcare System

,

Vanessa Nazario“I love to take the time to get to know individuals: to listen and to avoid assumptions,” says Vanessa Nazario. “I think that creates a space where people can be authentic, which leads to new conversations and new opportunities.”

From housing to financial services to health, for 29 years, Nazario has been following the single thread of “creating access to spaces for those who have been historically left behind, underrepresented, marginalized, or alienated” – often including or focusing on the Hispanic community.

Following Inclusion Through a Career Pivot

Nazario’s journey began in her hometown of Trenton, New Jersey, supporting low to moderate income families to become first-time homebuyers. Nazario knew nothing about mortgages but was passionate about creating access to homes. Next, she found herself ensuring that low to moderate income families in urban communities had access to financial services and benefits while at PNC, where she worked her way up through positions for twenty years.

While ‘inclusion’ was not yet a hot topic in the office, her work was inclusion for customers and communities. Nominated to participate in the first Latino BRG at PNC, she knew little about employee networks, but she seized the opportunity to lean into her authentic self: “That experience opened my eyes to the power in using my Latina voice to be seen and heard in certain spaces where we were not represented before that. It became a gateway to inviting other Latina/o voices into the conversation and opening pathways for others.”

She eventually became Chapter President of the Latino BRG and began to be sought out as a thought leader. She attributes her C-suite position to valuing and showing up for this experience: “That’s why I’m a chief diversity officer now. Because I said ‘yes’ to being part of a newly formed diversity initiative at PNC.”

Then came the moment where Nazario decided that she wanted to make inclusion her full-time career. Not only did she go from programs and products management to DEI, but she simultaneously made a leap between industries. Leveraging her network, she landed a DEI director position within healthcare, later joined Memorial Healthcare System in 2021, becoming CDO in July.

“It was a big learning curve to go from financial lingo to healthcare lingo. It took time, but ultimately there’s a common thread across the different industries: it’s about creating equal spaces, access and equity for all – and it’s just how you approach it that differs. And once that clicked for me, I was like, I got this.”

Inclusion Through the Talent Pipeline


“Does your staff represent the community it serves? When you look at your community demographics, do you see that in the building?” asks Nazario. “How well is that mirrored not only in the services side of your organization, but across different departments and, especially, in leadership?”

She observes, “Sitting in South Florida, we’re blessed with an abundance of diversity, but that still doesn’t mean it happens organically. Your organization has to be committed to creating a diverse workforce.”

Much of Nazario’s strategic focus is on development and succession planning to elevate talent throughout the organization: “Rich in diversity, our work is making sure that diverse talent feels included and has a sense of belonging. When you have people from every walk of life, you’re going to have conflict. I spend a lot of time educating about the value of different cultures and different perspectives, as well as meeting people where they’re at.”

Nazario witnesses how having a staff that feels seen, heard, valued, included and therefore engaged positively impacts upon the patient experience: “In the healthcare sector, you have to be so attentive about making sure you are creating that sense of belonging and culture of inclusion. It’s so important that people feel they can bring their whole selves to work.”

Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

Nazario’s inquisitive mind, always questioning how things can be done better, has served her. Her passion and compassion for people is at the heart of how she approaches her work. Her drive and attentiveness is partly born from her own experiences as a Puerto Rican woman who has not always found it easy to come into new spaces.

“Being both a Hispanic woman and from a low-income community, I’ve combatted perceptions many times throughout my career,” says Nazario, but she feels she fell into traps around stereotypes more so early on: “I would show up to meetings and wonder, are they receiving me, or are they putting me into some box because I am a Puerto Rican woman from a diverse neighborhood?”

So Nazario has consistently exceeded performance expectations and countered the perceptions she felt others might box her into – demonstrating that being from a certain background does not mean you cannot also achieve.

Nazario has often not been able to see someone like her in positions she could aspire to. She values the mentors that encouraged her to envision herself there. “What are the chances of a Hispanic woman from an urban community like Trenton, New Jersey and from a culture not typically seen in these corporate spaces? I often think about stereotype threat, and maybe it would hold me back,” she reflects. “So, you need those mentors to say you’re doing all the right things and to nudge you in approaching opportunities.”

In a 360 review, Nazario once described herself as being a quieter voice, only to have her mentor immediately reflect that she was a powerful voice in the organization that was informative, impactful and influential in decisions: “Other’s perception of you is probably totally different than what you think.”

Beyond Proving Your Value, Claiming It

Nazario recognizes an inner push that exists within her, and not only her, to be very well versed in her craft and to continue to challenge and prove herself.

“I do have that hunger to continue to be successful and validate to myself that I can do it, that I can open doors. I might say ‘yes’ to a project when someone else might say ‘no,’” she says. “And as a Hispanic woman, I’m always thinking, maybe if I get another degree, one more certificate, that will open up more doors for me…I’ll be that much better, that much more qualified.”

While her drive has clearly served her, it is also growth when you no longer have to prove your worth and belonging in the face of imposter syndrome: “We just have to keep lifting each other up. Once you claim your value, it opens a lot of opportunities.”

She emphasizes to other Latinas coming in to own their voice at the table, and not hold themselves back, and she implores leaders to invite that opportunity in the room for diverse voices to express themselves.

Nazario loves reading as a way of constant learning. She has four dogs and feels fortunate to live near beaches, where she can mediate and listen to the waves every Saturday in a personal reset.

By Aimee Hansen

/by

Claudia Vazquez: Founder, elevink

,

Claudia Vazquez“What I saw as a disadvantage at the beginning, I turned it around to make my secret weapon, because I realized this is what makes me unique and able to see things from a different perspective,” says Claudia Vazquez. “I turned my disadvantage into my differentiator.”

As part of celebrating Hispanic Heritage, we open our Latina Leader series with inspired sharing from Claudia Vazquez: her vision for Hispanic inclusion and lifting others up with her!

A Vision For Service

If you only read her official business roles across the years, you’ll know at best half of what Vazquez has truly been up to in the workplace.

Originally from Mexico, Vazquez came to the U.S. in her twenties, teaching English as a second language and volunteering as a citizenship instructor. When she began her career 22 years ago in disability claims at Unum, she immediately saw how she could leverage her bicultural/ bilingual assets to better serve the company and the Hispanic community.

Rather than going with the status quo process of using a third party translator, she began to field all calls from Spanish-speaking clients around disability claims. She then led the implementation of the Hispanic Initiative to create end-to-end bilingual services, eliminating cost and time inefficiencies of outsourcing. Within seven years, she went from claims specialist to heading up the Short Term Disability and Administrative operations in her field office in California.

“I didn’t approach with a diversity mindset. I approached with a service perspective,” reflects Vazquez. “I realized we could improve the service, have more loyal and satisfied customers, and use it as a selling point with clients. It also gave Spanish-speaking employees an opportunity to go above and beyond, support their community and receive recognition for speaking another language.”

When she moved to her next role at Cigna, she replicated this thinking and was asked to find more people with an intrapreneurial mindset like hers. She began to support the recruiting team in Hispanic outreach, emphasizing the importance of representation: “Nobody grows up thinking I want to work at an insurance company,” she argued. “So if we don’t personally represent what we’re trying to attract them to do, this is not a natural fit.”

Moving to the East Cost for a role in Prudential’s head offices, Vazquez enrolled into the Hispanic BRG on her second day. Within six months, she was co-leading the BRG and soon increased membership from 400 to 1000 – while creating best practices, relationship with hiring teams, and outreach to external partners.

“As my passion for supporting the Hispanic community at work evolved, I realized we have to start grassroots and then let things organically develop, so that a ripple effect is created,” says Vazquez. She began to focus on seeding the momentum that allowed partnerships to prove their value as they grew. With this approach, the Red Shoe movement proved so successful that it caught leadership attention and she traveled to Mexico and Brazil to highlight and expand the partnership.

An Advocate for Hispanic Inclusion

As a Hispanic Initiative officer, Vazquez saw the impact of bringing in change-agent partners. She began to shift to building those external relationships such as with We Are All Human and became a Hispanic Star Ambassador. As such, Vazquez has attended the United Nations as part of the delegation to roll out the Hispanic Star unifying symbol and platform to advance Hispanics in the US.

Despite a strong track record of following her mission towards inclusion, only in March did Vazquez formally move from senior business roles to take on a VP of Diversity and Inclusion role. In the role, she developed a strategic roadmap for inclusion on hiring, retaining, developing and celebrating Hispanic talent, laying out both fundamentals and execution strategies.

“I have a passion towards supporting the Hispanic community, but I also see it as a business imperative in the US. Anyone that’s not attuning to Hispanics is going to lose market share,” says Vazquez, pointing out Hispanics make up one of every five people and growing.

Vazquez also iterates that attracting early loyalty among the Hispanic community is critical, because word of mouth and following the family or neighbor recommendations are huge influences on decision-making.

Lifting Others Up With Her

As a Hispanic BRG leader, Vazquez also leveraged the opportunity to mentor and sponsor others in the workplace. She brought more visibility to group members by creating project management opportunities – with clear job descriptions and weekly time investment required – and then by updating their managers about the impacts they were delivering.

“This gave their managers an opportunity to see their employees from a completely different angle of perspective that they had not necessarily experienced directly with them,” says Vazquez. “I wanted to make sure people saw they had everything it took. They just sometimes needed to be able to sell or position themselves differently.”

Vazquez emphasizes staying connected to your own essence and North Star. “I’ve promised myself that regardless of how fast or how far I’m going, I’m still going to be me and not forget where I came from. And I’m not going to forget that there are many individuals still looking to find their path.”

This is what drives Vazquez in her personal mission that co-exists with the day job. It’s why she shares her story to inspire students through HISPA. It’s why she’s available if someone reaches to her on Linked In. It’s why she founded elevink to mentor younger generations on mindfulness, creating a personal brand, and challenging them to envision their future so they begin to steer their choices and energies in that direction.

Owning Her Voice

“Sometimes we question ourselves and protect ourselves because we’ve been through so much. In my case, I’ve been working since I was 14 in Mexico to help my mom, I paid for my education, I left my family to come to the US with English as my second language, I began working with an associates degree and studied full-time while working, so there are sacrifices,” says Vazquez. “But if I had the confidence in my 20s I have now, I don’t know how much larger the impact could be.”

She continues, “We need to trust our gut. We know exactly where we see ourselves, but sometimes we’re afraid to share that vision,” she says. “We just need to move confidently in the pursuit of our dreams. From every setback, we can learn.”

Often the only Hispanic at the table, Vazquez never gives up the vision. Instead, she allows time to pass and looks for new opportunities and angles to pursue: “After many years of navigating Fortune 500 companies, I have learned how I need to approach certain things, and I also understand that change is difficult. Companies will be ready at a certain time, and when they are, things will happen.”

Reflecting on her own journey: “After 25 years of revalidating, I have nothing to lose and a lot to gain. I’ve become more of an unapologetic Latina who stays optimistic about our future possibilities, but it took me 22 years of going through this journey to realize that it’s my life, it’s my vision, it’s my calling.”

Vazquez has learned to take herself a little less seriously. She recently returned from a self-care trip to California with her mother and sister, leaving her husband and three children back at home. She recommends taking the time to celebrate your achievements.

As for her vision: “I’m still getting closer to where I ultimately see myself: as a CEO of a nonprofit organization that caters to Hispanics. That’s what I’m aiming and preparing myself for in the long run. My goal is to leave a mark in the evolution of Hispanics in the US.”

By Aimee Hansen

/by

14 Key Career Insights From Latina Leaders in Business

, ,

Latina Leaders in BusinessAfter sharing top tips on self-promotion from Latina leaders in business as part of our Hispanic Heritage month coverage, The Glass Hammer continues our two-part feature with more key insights from Latina leaders we’ve interviewed across the past years:

1. Value Those Who Show Up For You

If you want people to take personal interest in developing you, value the gift of energy and time they give, advised Cassandra Cuellar, Attorney at Shearman & Sterling.

“People are more than willing to have conversations with you when you show you appreciate their time,” said Cuellar. “Female partners whom I don’t even work with have reached out, which was so impressive that these busy women would welcome me and offer their support.”

Update: Cassandra Cuellar remains an Attorney in Shearman & Sterling’s Emerging Growth practice group, with the firm now for over 3.5 years.

2. Embrace the Learning Phase

You’re not expected to be an expert when you begin, emphasized Lina Woods, as Director, Global Digital Go-To-Market Leader at PwC.

“There were times of stress when I should have realized it was okay to learn along with everyone else,” realized Woods, ”and I see now that I could have harnessed that perceived vulnerability and realized you should just dive in and do your best.”

Update: With PwC for over five years, Lina Woods was appointed to Managing Director and Commercial Product Strategy Leader in June of this year.

3. Balance Intuition with Receptivity

Growing as a leader means both trusting yourself and being receptive to feedback, observed Priscila Palazzo, as Legal Director at WEX Latin America.

“While law might appear to be my main job, I also excel at understanding people and their behavior,” said Palazzo. “It’s important to be open to new ideas and thoughts, but especially to feedback. If you seek it out and reflect on it, it can help show you areas where you can grow and improve. As women, we tend to follow our hearts and intuition, but we need to balance that with feedback.”

Update: With WEX Brazil for over seven years, Priscila Palazzo is General Counsel.

4. Look Up And Around

You benefit hugely by looking up from your work and connecting, noted Anita Romero, General Counsel, Global Consumer at Citibank.

“When you’re first starting out, you’re so focused on doing excellent work that you don’t realize the many benefits of seeking advice from peers in your network,” said Romero. “People learn over time, but had I known that up front it would have really helped.”

5. Be Resilient With Your Vision

It’s easy to lose faith at obstacles, but Cristina Estrada, Head of Derivatives for the Latin America Financing Group, Investment Banking Division at Goldman Sachs, encouraged to keep the course.

“Pursuing what you are passionate about and chasing your dreams are key to having a successful career,” said Estrada. “Being patient is important though: there are ups and downs in everybody’s journey. Persistence and seeing beyond occasional difficulties pay off.”

Update: With Goldman Sachs for nearly 17 years, Cristina Estrada remains in her position.

6. View Detours As Opportunities

What appears as a career deviation may become your next adventure, guided Isela Bahena, Managing Director, Private Infrastructure Group at Nuveen Real Assets.

“It might seem scary, but looking back I see a lot of growth when I took those chances. There will be challenges, but sometimes the bridge is going to look different when you actually cross it,” said Bahena, known by junior colleagues for being calm amidst changes. “I tell them that’s because in the long run I always see them as opportunities.”

Update: With Nuveen Real Estates for over 3.5 years, Isela Bahena remains in her position.

7. Be The Change

Be the change the you wish to see, championed Elizabeth Nieto, as Global Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at MetLife.

“Women who have power can continue to push the envelope on women’s interests. We can complain about where we are or focus on what we’re achieving. Things may not be perfect in the corporate world, but we’ve accomplished a lot and we have to build from here,” encouraged Nieto. “Our daughters are watching us and making decisions about their lives based on how we make decisions about our own lives.”

Update: After nearly seven years at MetLife and a two year stint at Amazon, Elizabeth Nieto became Global Head of Equity and Impact at Spotify in March.

8. Create the Belonging

Women need to become aware of the barriers they impose upon themselves and invite each other in too, emphasized Yesi Morillo-Gual, as Founder and President of Proud To Be Latina.

“I started Proud To Be Latina because of some of the challenges I faced in my own career. These included things like not knowing how to navigate the landscape, not knowing about the unwritten rules, not having a lot of support, and also not really believing that I belonged because the majority of my colleagues did not look like me,” said Morillo-Gual. “There is a sense that we don’t belong, or that we have to leave who we are behind in order to advance our careers. We tend to question ourselves and our abilities.”

“I often hear women say that corporate America was not designed for them, and in response I tell them that corporate America may not have been designed for me, but I was designed for corporate America,” she added.

Update: Yesi Morillo joined Cushman & Wakefield as Director, Global Head of ERGs & External Partnerships in April.

9. Ask For Support

Getting past the notion of being the totally independent woman is hard but it’s also growth, shared Rosa Bravo, Business Development Director at Accenture, who started her career as an aerospace engineer.

“One of the things I wish I had known earlier is that it’s okay to ask for help. There are so many choices you have to make along the way, and you just can’t do it alone,” reflected Bravo. “I’ve been culturally conditioned to be a strong woman, to want to be able to do everything on my own. It took a few years to feel comfortable to raise my hand and ask for help when I needed it, but it made things much easier when I did.”

Update: Senior Technology Executive Rosa Bravo has been with Accenture for over 27 years.

10. Don’t Delegate Your Career Path

It’s important to design your own career rather than delegating that to your boss, asserted Valeria Strappa, as Head of Efficiency and Cost Management for Citi Latin America.

“What I think is important is to first be the designer of your own destiny and second, to learn that you might not necessarily get what you think you deserve, you will get what you are able to ask for and to sell for your results,” said Strappa. “A lot of times women think people will recognize their work. And they do, but that doesn’t mean you get what you were expecting for it. You have to be able to solve a big problem for a big leader and of course be able to stand up and show your results.”

Update: After a decade with Citi, Valeria Strappa has been with JPMorgan Chase & Co for nearly five years, and was appointed Managing Director – Head of M&A Integrations and Client Relationship Management in January 2020.

11. Embrace Change As a Catalyst

Change can be disruptive, but Elizabeth Diep, back when she was Senior Manager in PwC’s Asset Management Practice, challenged women to leverage it to advance their careers.

“Be open minded. There is such a changing landscape in this profession. We are seeing growth in Latin America, while in Europe, there are challenges now but absolutely something different is going to come out of it. It’s about being open to opportunities and not hesitating to take on new roles,” advised as Senior Manager, Asset Management Practice at PwC. “Every experience, whether good or bad, is going to help you grow. Don’t resist change. Change will help you become a seasoned professional a lot faster and a lot better.”

Update: Elizabeth Diep made Partner in 2013, and has been with PwC for over 21 years.

12. Leverage The Cultural Asset of Connectivity

Nellie Borrero, Managing Director, Senior Strategic Adviser of Global Inclusion and Diversity at Accenture, expressed that Hispanic women have an advantage in relationship building.

“We understand the advantage of relationships – it’s so embedded in our culture. That savviness and understanding of the importance of relationship building and maintaining relationships comes naturally to the Hispanic community,” asserted Borrero, who emphasized to network strategically: “And I would like to see young women do more of this: be able to reach out to the women at the top, and absorb that coaching and experience they can share. Become a sponge and absorb as much as you can. If they’re up there, they’ve found a way to make it work.”

Update: With Accenture for nearly 28 years, Nellie Borerro remains in her position.

13. Empower Yourself To Ask for What You Want

Twenty five years into her career, Marilyn Foglia, Managing Director and Head of Latin America at UBS Global Asset Management, realized it didn’t pay to be timid.

“I wasn’t always so persistent about getting my ideas on the table – but now I am!” Foglia declared. “If you’re too polite and wait for an opening to speak you may never get a voice. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want. We women tend to think that if we work hard, we will be rewarded. But we have to ask for it.”

She encouraged women not to think of themselves as having less opportunities: “If you do that, you become afraid to voice your own opinion. Be sure to express your beliefs broadly. People will eventually hear you – that’s how you get recognized and move up the ladder.”

Update: With UBS for over 28 years, Marilyn Foglia remains in her position.

14. Find a Culture You Can Thrive In

Put the right environment at the top of your criteria when it comes to career-related decisions, advised Noelle Ramirez, Project Manager, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at PGIM.

“Culture first. Seek out advice from people that are already there. What has their experience been? Do they feel comfortable? Do they feel like they can bring who they are to the table? If the answer is yes, that’s a good place to start. It takes away a lot of productivity and energy to not be who you are,” said Ramirez. “Go somewhere where you can be yourself. I’m very passionate in my delivery and it’s part of my culture. Making sure I’m in an environment where that doesn’t have to be shut off is important. Look for environments that are ready to receive you, because that’s where you’ll be your most productive, innovative, creative and strategic.”

Update: Interviewed earlier this year, Noelle Ramirez remains in this position, with PGIM for nearly 2.5 years.

We hope you enjoyed this two-part retrospective!

By: Aimee Hansen

/by

Monica Marquez: Co-Founder, Beyond Barriers

,

Monica Marquez“It’s transfer of knowledge, it’s paying it forward, it’s saying ‘here are the unwritten rules that you need to know that not everybody is going to tell you’,” says Monica Marquez. “Why don’t you learn from my mistakes, and then maybe you can get here in half the amount of time that I did?”

As an Equity & Inclusion expert, Monica has previously worked in the cultures of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Ernst & Young and Google, with a focus on pioneering efforts to support women to advance through the most tricky parts of the career path.

Advancing the “Frozen Middle”

“I’ve had a natural affinity towards pursuing a career that focuses on diversity, equity and inclusion,” says Marquez. “The whole theme of creating opportunities and a sense of belonging, and helping people to accelerate their success, has always been core to what I loved to do and help organizations do at scale.”

Beyond Barriers takes a campus to C-suite approach: “What happens throughout a woman’s career trajectory that causes so much attrition from the entry level to the top? For more than a decade, over 50% women have been graduating from US universities and colleges, outpacing their male peers. How is it then, that only 8% of women hold C-suite roles in Fortune 500 companies?”

Marquez’s passion has been to understand the systemic barriers at play and how to navigate them to accelerate success: “Companies do a really good job of recruiting women in the early stages, but they don’t do a good job of supporting them and helping them grow and stay, often losing them as they are rising up.”

Despite so much front-end investment in talent, Marquez feels organizations often fail to support women through the “frozen middle” when the challenge of integration of work with new motherhood becomes a huge adjustment for many, and when attrition peaks.

She notes that many women are passionate about coming back until they return to experience being sidelined—so they are both pulled by their new responsibilities and pushed out by the organization. After the second child, the percentile of women opting out or taking a break goes way up.

Marquez has found that often a dance of projected assumptions goes on between both sides of the coin. Women often don’t feel their managers/organizations will be supportive of their boundaries or needs. Organizations often assume what women will want for themselves, or be available for.

“It’s partly the assumptions, stigmas, stereotypes, unconscious biases that managers and leaders have at play, rather than just open communication,” she says. “The conversation needs either the woman being confident and having clarity of what she wants and being able to ask for what she wants, or the leader asking the woman that question and giving her the opportunity to answer for herself.”

Marquez has seen that when the tough conversations actually happen, things like flex schedules and promotion plans can be arranged. It’s after all more efficient to support a woman to stay and keep progressing than to bring in somebody entirely new from scratch.

“Don’t be afraid to say this is this is what I want and don’t be ashamed of your ambition. You shouldn’t be told you either choose your ambition or you choose the family. It doesn’t have to be that way,” advises Marquez, who also points out: “Companies do invest a lot in development with women, but they sometimes have to be strategic and target the high performers. If you were to get to these women a lot earlier, you would have more mid-career women make it through to the top.”

Pioneering the Returnship® Program

Perhaps Marquez’s proudest accomplishment is the Returnship® Program she began back at Goldman Sachs over a decade ago, to help companies retain experienced women and to help women gently reintegrate back into work after maternity leave.

“Back then, there was a significant stigma if you left the workforce and tried to come back in. The gap was a huge mark on your resume, and usually employers would overlook you,” she notes. “There’s a hidden talent pool of women that companies are losing out on because you have this traditional bias against the resume gap. And we started thinking: how do companies hire in the first place?”

Marquez and her team adapted the internship experience and introduced the Returnship® program in financial services at Goldman Sachs. Across a 10-12 week stint, women came back into an office, usually taking on one focused, substantial project in a team who held an open position. Women were able to reacclimatize through a first dip back into work mode and teams received experienced help on standing projects. If the practical trial showed a mutual fit, full-time placement would result and regardless, both parties benefitted.

“In our first few pilots, we had a placement rate in the 90th percentile, and the majority of the 10% who didn’t get placed were women who chose to stay out, after realizing that they weren’t ready for full-time work,” says Marquez. “It’s the fulfillment of helping people gain opportunity when the doors are all closing that’s been my guiding passion.”

Being Latina in Corporate America

Marquez notes that Latina women face stereotypes based upon gender and culture: such as the loud Latina, the overly emotional Latina or the family-first domestic Latina mother.

She’s experienced herself that being a “first generation corporate” can be very isolating, allowing space for imposter syndrome and self-doubt, often because Latina women are the “only” Latina around in the context and because they often do have different influences and voices at home, sometimes intergenerational, due to the cultural loyalty to family.

Some cultural influences can be resourceful to help Latina women thrive and others can be limiting.

While women of color were less prevalent in the Returnship® program, the team found ironically (vs. stereotypes) that Latina women were less likely to have opted out of the workplace for home responsibilities than their white peers, precisely because they had a strong Latino family structure and childcare support within their extended family.

“The cultural norm of the tight-knit Latino family unit, where they maintain a sense of a village to raise a family, helped some women stay employed opposed to having to opt out,” notes Marquez.

On the other hand: “We come from various Latino cultures where work ethic is a really big deal: put your head down, work really hard,” says Marquez. “However, you learn quickly that in the corporate world, you’re going to get overlooked if you just keep your head down and work hard. You have to learn self-promotion and have the flexibility to go against the grain of what you’ve always been taught.”

And so, Marquez has created employee resource groups to help with opportunity/cultural gaps such as coaching soft-skills and self-promotion among first generation college or corporate individuals.

Acculturate, not Assimilate

Having always been fascinated with cultural differences and their influences on decision-making, Marquez impresses upon Latina women that “there’s a fine line between assimilation and acculturation”.

“You have to be very careful when you go into an organization that is predominantly white male cisgender-led that you don’t assimilate too much, to where you’re contorting yourself into a pretzel in order to belong. You want to keep some authenticity,” says Marquez. “I usually tell people that you have to acculturate and embrace every organization you belong to. They each have their unique culture and define success in a different way. You have to look at every organization like its own country that you visit every day.”

She suggests getting underneath what characteristics are driving success in your organization and then emulating those characteristics by adopting strategies that are right for you within the organizational “cultural” context, without compromising your own truthfulness.

For example, colleagues may go to the local pub to network, but it’s narrow-minded to think you have to stay two hours after work as the requirement to be successful. The value is developing relationships, and you can figure out a way to develop more depth to informal connections through breakfast and lunch invitations during work hours.

“It’s figuring out where you can set your own boundaries. You acculturate opposed to assimilate, and you challenge them on the ways it happens,” she advises. “The important thing is the relationship building. It’s not the happy hour.”

“Don’t assimilate and lose who you are. Instead, acculturate and hold onto those core values of your culture, because that also enriches the organization,” she notes. “The representation of diverse cultures brings about an organic diversity of thought that is needed to create bigger and better solutions for organizations.”

Less Certainty, More In-The-Moment Agility

“Women have a tendency to be very certainty driven, and they end up not taking as many risks and opportunities. It’s like that quote ‘doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will’,” says Marquez. “Women need to be much more open to taking the opportunity and embracing just-in-time learning, so they don’t rob themselves before they try.”

Marquez feels women disadvantage themselves by feeling they will be safe only if they already know everything. Whereas men’s willingness to put their name in the hat, dive in and then figure it out means they advance more quickly.

She recommends women weigh the risk and reward, and if they can live with the downside, just go for it: “Women will second guess and short-change themselves, but we are remarkable and extremely resourceful. You have to look at these opportunities and tell yourself, ‘I only check two boxes out of ten, but I’m going to put my name in the hat because this is my North Star. This is where I want to go’d.”

Noting that the average shelf life for a new skillset is now eighteen months, Marquez feels women should tap more into their natural agility to change and juggle, and embrace more just-in-time learning.

For her, a key component of accelerating gender equity is simply facilitating the transfer of knowledge: “If I knew then what I know now, I would have gotten here so much quicker and probably in half the time that it took me to become a senior leader,” reflects Marquez, who is doing all she can to bring others up behind her.

To learn more about how Monica and her company (Beyond Barriers helps organizations retain and develop female leaders), visit www.iambeyondbarriers.com.

By: Aimee Hansen

/by

11 Tips From Latina Leaders on Self-Confidence and Self-Promotion

, ,

Latina leadersAs part of celebrating Hispanic Heritage, The Glass Hammer covers career insights and tips shared by Latina Leaders in business whom we’ve had the fortune to interview over the years.

In this retrospective two-part feature, we’ve mined the best experience-based guidance across our profile interviews with Latina leaders. As the theme of authenticity, self-confidence and self-promotion have been emphasized again and again, we focus entirely on facets of this critical message for part one of this feature.

1. Claim Your Self-Worth Early In The Game

Entering an industry or an organization where too few people look like you can be challenging, but there is never a more important moment to believe in yourself and claim your worth, emphasized Ivelisse Rodriguez Simon, Managing Partner at Avante Capital Partners.

“I wish I had known from the start of my career that I should have more confidence in myself,” said Rodriguez Simon. “Over time I’ve realized that you should never doubt your own capabilities. There may be obstacles, but you can do it. With a lot of luck, hard work and great mentors I’ve made it in this industry, which is hard for women, especially minority women.”

Update: Ivelisse Rodriguez Simon remains in this position, now with Avante Capital Partners for nearly 13 years.

2. Embrace All of Who You Are

Finding an authentic sense of self is essential for all women, but especially for young Latina women just starting out in their career, impressed Yvonne Garcia, as Senior Vice President and Global Head of Client Solutions, Investment Manager Services at State Street Corporation.

“It is critical to realize that the diversity of thought and cultural experiences that you bring are so valuable to organizations. Embrace who you are, make sure you find mentors and sponsors that will help you develop and grow as a leader,” advised Garcia. “Get involved in volunteer organizations like ALPFA where you will be able to grow and give back at the same time.”

Update: Yvonne Garcia was promoted to Chief of Staff to CEO at State Street in January 2019.

3. Stay Authentic To Your Truth

In tech for over two decades, Rocio Lopez, as IT Executive at Accenture, realized at a deeper level from Accenture’s Hispanic American Employee Resource Group (ERG) that she needed to be authentic about what she brought to the table as a talented Hispanic technologist.

Both passionate about advancing diversity and leading Latinx American talent attraction initiatives, Lopez said: “The one piece of advice I would give to anyone is to be authentic. For the longest time, I was trying to run in a different size shoe – actually a male size 8. It wasn’t until I met my ERG family that I realized I like my 7.5 size red high heels.”

Update: Now with Accenture for over 26 years, Rocio Lopez was promoted to Technology Strategy Lead NA Education Practice in January 2020.

4. Allow Your Unique Personality To Shine

By allowing her unique self to shine through, Laura Sanchez, Managing Director, Private Wealth Management at Goldman Sachs, found that she was better able to form more impactful bonds with clients and colleagues that helped to create a more fulfilling career.

“When you’re new – and I had also switched industries – you may be anxious about fitting in and looking like everyone else or acting like everyone else. But trying too hard to fit in can stifle who you are. To not be yourself for the majority of your day creates a lot of stress,” Sanchez reflected. “When I’ve been true to myself and let my own light shine through, that’s when I’ve been my best. That’s when I think the success started.”

Update: Laura Sanchez remains in this position, now with Goldman Sachs for over 27 years.

5. Become A Supportive Friend to Yourself

Believing that women had many advantages in the area of dispute resolution, including the ability to appreciation a situation from multiple perspectives, Ximena Herrera-Bernal, as Counsel in the International Arbitration Group at Shearman & Sterling, London, urged women to encourage the truth of their own voice in the room.

“It is imperative to believe in your abilities and to make your views appropriately known,” Herrera-Bernal said.“ When you’re doubting yourself, imagine that you are giving advice to a female friend who is experiencing the same issues. Then listen to your own advice.”

Update: After 16 years with Shearman & Sterling, Ximena Herrera has gone on to be a Founding Partner in Gaillard Banifatemi Shelbaya (GBS) Disputes.

6. Let Your Difference Empower Your Voice

The very thing that once inhibited you from using your voice is often what validates its importance, asserted Noelle Ramirez, Project Manager, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at PGIM.

“I bring to the table my lived and learned experience as a woman, a lesbian woman, a Hispanic woman,” said Ramirez.“ The things that kept me quiet in the room before are the things making me speak the loudest in the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion space.”

Update: Interviewed earlier this year, Noelle Ramirez remains in this position, with PGIM for nearly 2.5 years.

7. Be Forward About Owning Your Work

It was a decade into her career before Paula Arrojo, Managing Director and Private Wealth Advisor, Investment Management at Goldman Sachs, figured out that she had to match her hard work with her self-promotion.

“Women often expect that if you work really hard you’ll be noticed and rewarded. But they need to realize how important it is to let the right people know what they’re working on and what they want next – what team, what clients,” Arrojo said. “If you want to go for it, you have to position yourself to have that credibility. Had I known to be more strategic in this area earlier, I would have saved a lot of time getting to where I am.”

Update: Paula Arrojo remains in this position, now with Goldman Sachs for 21 years.

8. Beyond Your Role, Build Your Personal Brand

After watching too many women voice their great idea only after the meeting finished, inhibiting their success from their hesitation to speak up, Patricia McCarthy, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs, emphasized the importance of being proactively seen and heard.

“When you have good ideas, you need to voice them and add value. Remember that your job is to contribute to your team, and that entails being confident and pushing yourself beyond what your perceived role is,” McCarthy noted. “More than achieving a title or promotion, my biggest source of pride is establishing a personal brand as an individual who can improve a process.”

Update: Patricia McCarthy remains in this position, now with Goldman Sachs for over 17 years.

9. Be Your Own Best Advocate

When it comes to advancing as you become more senior, Grissel Mercado, as Counsel at Shearman & Sterling LLP, emphasized you have to go beyond focusing on doing excellent work and build a profile.

“Young attorneys tend to focus on delivering excellent work, which is important, but also expected. You also have to seek out opportunities to network,” said Mercado. “Nobody is a better advocate for you than yourself. Women need to take more initiative. If you’re talking with the team before a call, mention a success, just as a man would.”

Update: With the firm for 14 years, Grissel Mercado was appointed to Partner at Shearman & Sterling LLP.

10. Self-Promote To The Leaders Above You

Take the shame out of self-promotion and instead learn how to do it by doing it, emphasized Ilka Vázquez, Advisory Partner at PwC US.

“I think it’s ok to brag a little about your impact and what you’re bringing to the table. We assume someone is noticing our great work and will reward us, but the reality is that you can speed up the process if you talk about your success to people who are influential,” Vázquez noted. “Your elevator speech gets better the more you give it and can help you establish a personal brand.”

Update: Ilka Vázquez remains in this position, now with PwC for 11 years.

11. Know That You Are Ready (Enough!)

Opportunity is the chance to grow into the role, communicated Neddy Perez, as Global Head of Diversity & Inclusion, Talent Management COE at McCormick & Company.

“Women are still socialized to put their heads down and work hard with the hope that someone will recognize your success. The reality is you have to become your own best advocate. As long as you feel comfortable with 70% of requirements of a job then go for it,” encouraged Perez. “No one is ever 100% ready for their next job; we just have to get comfortable with asking for what we want and going for it.”

Update: Neddy Perez remains in this position, now with McCormick & Company for nearly 3 years.

Look out next week for part two of this series on wisdom and insight from Latina leaders in business over the years.

By Aimee Hansen

/by

Embracing Culturally Relevant Latina Leadership

, ,

Latina LeadersTheglasshammer is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month 2021 with profiles of Latina leaders and feature themes.

When we look at the numbers among corporate leadership for Latinx executives, little has quantitatively shifted, but what is finally evolving is the talk around the journey: towards valuing culturally integrative leadership.

Latina Style called out the Top 10 Corporate Latina Executives of 2020, included Agnes Suarez, President & CEO of AIG; Leticia M. Sanchez, Executive Director and Market Director of Banking at JP Morgan Chase & Co. Customer Bank; Luz Esparza, Managing Director, Los Angeles of Accenture; Patty Arvielo, Co-Founder and President of New American Funding, and Patty Juarez, National Diverse Segments Director, Commercial Banking Group, Wells Fargo & Company.

But among 16 current Hispanic CEOS of the top S&P 500 companies, women hold none of those positions. Between 2000 and 2020, Latinx have made up only 36 of new Fortune 500 CEO appointments, and there’s been 41 Latinx CEOS, with only two being women.

While calling out Latinx tech leaders, Latin America Reports points out that Latin America itself has been now birthed 17 unicorns, 14 of which have developed in the last three years, and mostly in finance, insurance, and real estate.

Nit Reeder of Ernst & Young notes that Latinx entrepreneurs are leading the start-up scene, with over 40% of Latinx entrepreneurs being millennial and Latinas starting up businesses at five times the rate of their male counterparts. But the same time, even as far back as November, Covid-19 was closing a third of Latinx-owned businesses.

And in a broader glance of the Latinx working population, a recent Aspen Institute report emphasizes integration of the Latinx workforce into the digital economy—as the group highest at risk of digital displacement from automation.

Gaps in Both Perception and Opportunities

The IBM Institute for Business Value published a survey report called Untapped Potential: The Hispanic Talent Advantage, based on 1000 Hispanic leaders offering their perceptions on the opportunities and lack thereof in the corporate workplace during a 33 hour virtual jam session.

When it comes to perception of the Hispanic community, only 16% of participants felt the community is unified and nearly nobody (2.5%) felt the perceptions of the Hispanic community reflect the reality.

They found 41% of Hispanic executives say they benefited from formal mentoring or training but only a quarter of junior managers felt they had access to mentoring programs and only 31% had access to workplace training.

Only 1 in 5 felt empowered to overcome the professional challenges they faced.

The experience of prejudice or feeling they needed to work harder was very prominent. 87% of all participants had experienced racial prejudice, and 63% had experienced prejudice due to accent, language or speech pattern. 63% of the participants felt they had to work harder because of their Hispanic identity and 82% of Latinas felt they did not get the respect they deserve. Latina women were also more likely to cite discrimination based on gender (78%) than white women (67%).

Among the senior leaders, they were most likely to give value to strong communication skills, personal organizational skills, and business savvy in terms of capabilities that supported their success. “Success” was most likely to be defined as both “achieving financial security” and “creating positive change”.

The report notes that a key gap was between the value that mentorship had played in supporting the more senior Hispanic leaders and the lack of mentorship reported available in the perception of the junior managers aspiring to leadership, urging companies to create a hiring advantage by cultivating more mentorship and sponsorship opportunities for young Latinx talent.

Latina women with sponsorship earn 6.1% more than those who lack sponsors, and early on, it can contribute to more stretch assignments and promotions.

Culturally Relevant Leadership Development

Whereas misperception of identity and feeling penalized for it are brutal headwinds to face in the corporate environment, there is increasing encouragement for Latinas to focus on turning this to your advantage.

Recent qualitative dissertation research entitled Recognizing La Cultura: The Experience of Cultural Scripts in Latina Leadership out of the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota found that in different ways, cultural identity and firsthand experiences can be catalytic in informing leadership approaches and trajectories.

Cultural scripts included:

  • familismo: the importance of close, protective, and extended family relationships
  • marianismo: gender roles according to which women are expected to be selfless, self-sacrificing, and nurturing
  • personalismo: creating personal and meaningful relationships
  • colectivismo: the importance of belonging to a group and recognizing the needs of that group
  • respeto: high regard granted to persons because of their formal authority, age, or social power
  • simpatía: promoting pleasant interactions and positive relationships, while avoiding conflict and disharmony

Based on her findings, Patricia E. Conde-Brooks, the dissertation author, emphasizes that “culturally relevant leadership development needs to be encouraged in the Latino community,” meaning the integration of cultural assets as fuel in the leadership journey.

She found that Latina leaders sustain a strong cultural heritage, and that leveraging the positive aspects of these cultural scripts not only fosters pride and empowers Latina women, but can be leveraged as important leadership assets in your toolbox.

At the same time, overcoming the inhibiting influence of marianismo is part of the journey for some Latina women. And while self-promotion is often felt to go against the cultural grain, a survey into women’s fear of self-promotion found that “African American (44%) and Hispanic (47%) women are far less likely to downplay their strengths and abilities than white (60%) women”: influenced by their generally younger age profile.

One organization tapping into social and navigational cultural wealth to accelerate Latina women to the C-Suite is LatinaVIDA, whose mission “is to empower and equip Latina professionals to overcome systemic workplace barriers through culturally relevant leadership programs.”

Drawing from the key traits that define many successful Latina leaders, the organization focuses on fostering Visibility (getting noticed for your talent and leadership), Identity (strong comfort with personal and cultural identities), Determination (holding your personal vision despite challenges and barriers) and Action (a willingness to step up and take responsibility of all facets of your life).

LatinaVIDA offers a number of programs and events, including culturally relevant peer-to peer empowerment, mentorship, collaboration and leadership development.

By: Aimee Hansen

/by