Tag Archive for: Mover and Shaker

Mover and Shaker: Karyn Cavanaugh, CFA, Senior Market Strategist, Voya Investment Management

karen cavanaugh, voyaSuccess comes from two major strengths, believes Karyn Cavanaugh, CFA and senior market strategist in Voya’s Multi-Asset Strategies and Solutions (MASS) group. “Work hard, but be nice. People work with those whom they like to work with, so be that person. Then back it up with competence. Be the person who does what needs to get done,” Cavanaugh says. This approach has served her well. Even though she was never actively jockeying for position, she has a reputation as someone who did more than was needed, always moving the ball forward.

Cavanaugh admits her career path was not as linear as most. She says she spent her 20’s “making money and having fun,” as a consultant. She then had three children in three years, so her priority was juggling that with work. At the age of 40, when her youngest started school, she realized it was time to focus on her next move down the career path she wanted. She took a position in internal business development, using her finance background, and then the recession hit.

“My whole group was kicked out, and that’s when I figured out the importance of networking,” she says. Although she had actively participated in groups for fellow University of Connecticut alumni and Chartered Financial Analysts®, she admits that “it was a brutal time.”

At the same time, Cavanaugh saw a chance to reinvent herself. “I realized I’m a finance person, and my other career paths hadn’t been as fulfilling because, deep down, I’m an investment person who loves looking at the market and following economics.”

By happenstance, she ran into a colleague who had hired her right out of college, who was working for ING (now Voya). He remembered she had been both smart and a good worker, and took a chance on her.

Together, they created and evolved the Global Perspectives program, parlaying $40,000 they had been given in seed money into $750,000,000 over four years. Cavanaugh routinely appears on CNBC, Fox Business News, Market Watch, NPR and other shows as a spokesperson for Voya. For Cavanaugh, it’s a dream position. “I get to manage a portfolio and share my views on the market,” she says. “Things do work out if you work hard.”

Right now, she is most excited about continuing to grow the assets under management and build wealth for the investors. The current volatile market has made her portfolio shine, she says, because it focuses on mitigating risk. “In this type of market, people realize they need professional advice and management,” she says.

The Myth of Corporate Drama

Corporate America hardly lived up to Cavanaugh’s worst fears, where she pictured a back-stabbing TV drama. “The reality is most people just want to do great work, do their job successfully and go home. They do want to help each other.” That’s been a welcome realization that has been confirmed with the wonderful managers she’s had at Voya.

She appreciates the mentorship she receives more than most because much of her early career was spent as an hourly consultant. “My work was well respected and appreciated, but it was different than working for a corporation,” she says. “I didn’t have a clear career path or someone who was watching out to promote me.”

She says that her role models are “all the women who came before me on Wall Street.” When her son was recently accepted at the University of South Carolina, she suggested he research Darla Moore, after whom the business school is named. One of the original female Wall Street pioneers in the 1980s, Moore left South Carolina in her grandma’s car and took the whole industry by storm.

“Women like that blazed the trail and made Wall Street accessible to all women,” Cavanaugh says.

Anything Can Happen

The biggest career lesson that Cavanaugh learned came when she was laid off. “Even if you do everything right, even if you are a good employee, it can happen to you,” she says.

She feels fortunate that she had paved the way for her future success and credits earning her CFA designation as one of her wisest moves. Although she describes the program as “three years of hell,” — only about 20 percent of those who start ever finish – the designation adds an unprecedented layer of credibility as the gold standard in portfolio management. “I’m happy that I had the sense to do it as it has paid off over the years,” she says.

The CFA society provides a key networking niche for her, and she has been active as a president and board member. “It’s easy to get into your own silo and the CFA society provides excellent networking and educational opportunities.” She says she wishes more women would earn the designation since it’s a vital stepping stone to establishing credibility in the investment world.

Becoming Part of the Charleston Community

Since relocating to Charleston, Cavanaugh has mentored local women starting an investment club, helping them learn how to research companies, decipher P/E ratios and sharing her investment knowledge.

Cavanaugh seeks out anything related to the water – crabbing, fishing, boating and beaching. Her three teens keep her busy, and the whole family loves to travel. Most recently they went snorkeling in St. Thomas, and she has taken her daughters to Paris.

She loves living in Charleston and has a goal of trying a different restaurant every time she goes out. “l have become an aficionado of the best shrimp and grits,” she says.

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Mover and Shaker: Julie Moog, Director, Business Information Security Office, TIAA-CREF

Julie Moog Although situations at work will arise where there may not be a clearly defined solution, you can succeed if you do your homework and surround yourself with others who can help you. Julie Moog, TIAA-CREF, learned this advice while progressing in her career. “You have to be willing to take on big unknowns and new opportunities. If you face challenges head on and come to the table prepared, you will come out on top.”

Moog began her career as an intern with Ernst and Young’s technology risk services department, which then translated into her first full-time role post-graduation. She spent the next five years there handling a myriad of responsibilities from internal audit to regulatory compliance to vendor management for several financial services firms. The work often had to be completed quickly and under pressure since she was with the clients for a brief amount of time. “I loved being a consultant because it gave me deep insight into the financial services sector and provided an excellent base from which to launch my career. You have to be a problem solver with quick turnarounds but high-quality work,” Moog says.

Her decision to leave EY presented her with an important learning moment. Leaving a first job that had been such a positive experience is always challenging because it is all that you know. “You may waver over whether you are making the right choice,” she says, “but in hindsight it was the best thing that I could have done.”

Moog then became an information risk manager within the investment bank side of JP Morgan Chase, supporting emerging markets for the Americas. The new role entailed frequent travel to South America and fascinating new learning experiences dealing with international regulators and requirements.

She was given the opportunity to oversee a strategic front office application that the firm was deploying across their fixed income, currencies and commodities platforms. She helped design and implement the controls, before walking international regulators through the control suite that they had developed. Moog then moved into the corporate risk management team where she was the global lead of application assessment services, rolling out solutions firm-wide.

Tackling New Challenges

From there she went to work at TIAA-CREF within the IT risk management team. She created the BISO (Banking Information Security Office) organization, acting as a liaison between information security and both technology and business partners. The goal of the BISO is to work with senior technology leaders and their business partners to understand risk and cybersecurity topics, from regulatory requirements to the types of services provided by the greater team.

This past December, Moog was promoted to the Information Security Officer for TIAA-CREF’s Trust Company in addition to continuing to head the IT BISO organization. “It’s a great opportunity and challenge that I’m looking forward to,” she says, adding that although she had been in the risk space and security officer role for many years, she never had this level of responsibility. Moog is responsible for the strategic direction of the entire program and reports to the board of directors. “I’ve worked closely in the past with the CIO and CTO but I have never shared in the boardroom on a day-to-day basis. This elevated level of responsibility is an exciting new phase for my career.”

Mentoring and Sponsorship

Although she hasn’t had a formal sponsorship arrangement, Moog has benefitted from informal relationships over the years, starting at EY where there was a strong community of women in all different phases of their careers. “I continue to leverage that network in seeking advice on career and personal choices,” she says adding, “You have to view any mentoring or networking relationship as a two-way street.”

To create a strong community in her current role, Moog and her co-chair launched TIAA-CREF’s Information Security Women’s Leadership Group in 2015. The group’s objective is to build strong women leaders within the cybersecurity team. The group offers education and training, community outreach and networking opportunities. “We wanted a way to engage with each other since we’re in different locations,” she says.

The group has had a successful first year, focusing on both technical hard skills and soft skills for employees, as well as planning a variety of events that are open to everyone in the company. In addition, they organized a Cyber School Challenge for 600 students in the Charlotte area that discussed cyber bullying and issues around creating a positive digital footprint – a program which they intend to expand this year.

Balancing Career and Home Successfully

While there were many moms who worked in the community where she grew up, her own mom stayed at home while Moog and her siblings were in school. When Moog entered the workforce as an intern, she remembers noticing the women who held the title of partners. “Something clicked in me, because I had never really thought about where my career could take me. It was eye-opening to get that long-term perspective that women can succeed in both their personal and professional lives.”

Moog’s father was the primary breadwinner, but she recalls that he was still present in their lives, prioritizing the importance of being home for dinner and coaching teams for her and her siblings. “His work/life balance and work ethic both really stood out to me. He excelled professionally and maintained a high-quality, ethical career path and choices, but was still present in our lives,” Moog says.

As she is newly establishing her family, she strives to emulate his path. “Your career is important but family always comes first and in our fast paced, 24/7 society you can sometimes lose sight of that.” Outside of work, Moog has one focus – her son William who is 18 months. “My husband and I are consumed, and we love every second of it.”

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Mover and Shaker: Maureen Erokwu, CEO, Vosmap

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Maureen Erokwu“Anything worth having is worth fighting for,” says Maureen Erokwu, CEO of Vosmap.

“We hear success stories about career journeys, but more people need to see what the process looks like and understand that it’s going to be hard. Sometimes we give up right before it all comes together, but you have to go through the ugly stage first and resist comparing yourself to those who have already been through those phases.”

This sage advice comes from someone who created her own thriving career by focusing on her skill sets and passions.

After graduating and beginning a career in business development, Erokwu decided to take a step back and mindfully determine what impact she was going to have in the world.

She focused on developing her interest in photography, which not only showed her the importance of passion but helped her meet people who opened up a new world – as they were inviting her places to capture a moment, she determined that she could parlay her passion into a career.

“I learned that in some ways, it doesn’t matter how good you are; it’s how you market yourself and tell your story, and that’s what determines if the world will know who you are.”

Having begun her career in Florida, she returned to the livelier pace of New York and landed a contract with Google. Most people consider Google a technology company, but she discovered that with Google Maps, there’s the element of life imagery which gave her the opportunity to combine photos and technology — two things she loves — into her current role creating imagery of businesses on Google and ensuring the photos meet technical standards.

Erokwu says her success has come from three simple steps: have a vision, build the team and then constantly test and pivot if you have to. “Don’t give up when it gets hard, but use those failures as learning opportunities,” she says. “It just means you are that much closer to getting it right.”

Appreciating the Chance to Mentor and Role Model

The professional achievement she is most proud of so far — being able to monetize something she loves – is also allowing her to fulfill another one of her goals. “I am finally getting to a place where I can share my story and inspire other women to explore career paths. It’s not just about me, it’s about the people that I can impact. That’s my high,” she says.

And it stems from her early experience not having the mentors she needed, which she now realizes made her journey more frustrating than it had to be. Although she always had great support from her family, it wasn’t the guidance she needed to run and build a business and therefore her success took longer. And that’s why she encourages people to seek out mentorship early on. “It helps you fast track,” she acknowledges.

Though she never had one particular role model, she worked to create her own. “If I read about someone in an industry article who had wisdom I could capture, I would make them a role model in my mind. I encourage people who don’t have a dedicated role model to keep their eyes open for qualities that are what you need,” Erokwu says, adding that she also greatly admires the foresight of Elon Musk and what he’s done with his brand.

Her desire to be a mentor also plays out in her daily work, which involves helping local businesses find marketing opportunities. “We’re not only mapping them, but we’re hosting events and giving them tools they can leverage online to really stand out and make their business successful.”

She encourages women to find support groups because she has seen that something incredible happens when women work together. “Sometimes when there are men in the room, women get silent, but when you find spaces with just women, you are going to be your best self.”

When women find spaces that validate them wholeheartedly, they can move to the next level. For Erokwu, those “communities of allies” included Digital Undivided and Lesbians In Tech.

Opening up the World

As an advisor for the group, she says it has been life-changing to share their mission and has also created opportunities for professional development, such as speaking on panels.
Although her work focuses on New York, the nature of it takes her to places worldwide, fulfilling her desire to travel.

“My love for photography has turned into a love of programming,” she says, adding that she taught herself how to code.

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Mover and Shaker: Christina Smedley, Brand and Communications Officer, PayPal

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Christina Smedley“The skills you need to navigate the corporate world are ‘earned,’ not ‘learned,’” says PayPal’s Christina Smedley, who is quick to clarify that doesn’t mean that newer professionals don’t offer value to add. She believes that you have to find ideas from anyone around you and cites her experience with creative interns as an excellent example. “Ideas come from everywhere but some skill sets take time to learn.”

Born in Jamaica, Smedley grew up in England and had her first job on a factory line, where one of her tasks — inspecting clear shampoo bottles for flaws – provided her first entrée to the importance of quality control and paying attention to details.

Prior to joining PayPal, Smedley worked for Edelman, where she was global chair of consumer marketing which entailed telling stories for big brands. One of her many initiatives during that time was helming Dove’s award-winning “Real Beauty” campaign where she helped change the way that people look at beauty — an important crusade both professionally and personally, as she has a teenager daughter. Prior to that, she handled worldwide communications for Amazon, helping change the way people would shop during a time when most people had never even heard of the website or the concept of online retail.

In her current role at PayPal, she is responsible for communications and marketing for global consumers and making sure the company is connecting them with tools to move money more simply.

“Money is such an intrinsic part of life, and it is changing faster in the next three years than it has in the past 20 years,” she says. “It’s exciting to be part of that narrative, and it’s why I’m passionate about what I do.”

At PayPal one of her roles has been to unify the brand globally including rebuilding the website and launching a new brand image; previously, due to its meteoric growth, the brand looked different in Australia than in Germany, for example.

And that’s what keeps her inspired in her day-to-day work: the opportunity she sees ahead to make it simple for people to move their money and provide a secure, effective double-sided network for merchants.

Sponsors and Mentors Play Valuable Roles

During her career ascension, Smedley has benefited from both sponsors and mentors and sees a role for both. Her trusted mentors have been people with whom she can share dreams and aspirations, but her sponsors have been those who have pushed her in ways she didn’t even think she was ready for.

“A sponsor might put you forward for a stretch assignment you hadn’t considered or a promotion you weren’t even asking for. Women tend not to put themselves out there, but you have to push yourself even if you think you aren’t ready; just take that deep breath, jump in, and ask for feedback.”

Along the way she has worked with women whom she says have left an indelible mark as mentors, and she’s also able to find qualities she’d like to emulate throughout different business units within PayPal. For example, she feels inspired by the customer service team, who can ably handle tough moments and respond positively under pressure.

Continuous Learning

She acknowledges that it’s as important to have a pause in your career as it is to drive forward, though assuming that philosophy can be challenging for individuals who are focused on advancement.

“We have so many influences and when you’re in the middle of a dynamic industry, it’s sometimes challenging to just stop for a moment and assess what we’re trying to do as a team, but that’s when you’re learning nuances and skills.” She says that she underscores that concept to those she mentors – that doing the same job for a period of time allows to you to hone the craftsmanship that will ultimately make you a better professional.

Smedley actively supports PayPal’s Women’s Initiative, a company-wide initiative that enables women throughout the organization to advance their careers through conferences, networking and continuous learning.

Smedley says she loves to travel and has brought that drive to her family, including her 16-year-old twins. In addition, Smedley is passionate about literacy and supports programs that advance the skills in her native Jamaica, since she has seen the impact that learning and reading can have on communities. “It’s vital to me to look after my homeland,” she says.

By Cathie Ericson

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Mover and Shaker: Lauren Koopman, Director, PwC US Sustainable Business Solutions Practice

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Lauren Koopman“The notion of ‘career’ has such a different meaning these days than it used to,” reflects PwC’s Lauren Koopman. “You ask yourself what you are going to be when you grow up, but when I think back, I couldn’t even have named it because it didn’t exist. To get the most out of your career, you have to be very fluid and realize how much change there will be over the course of your life. Don’t feel like you’re hemmed into something and just have to make the best of it.”

Koopman’s observations come from her own career trajectory, including the initial impression that she was going to be in derivatives the rest of her life, and it was just a matter of deciding for which company. But traveling the world allowed her to figure out the new, rewarding career path that she travels today.

Detour Through Wall Street on the Path to Sustainability

Koopman’s first professional position was as a management consultant and manager of e-business during the dot com craze, where her charge was to work with large banks to help them define their internet strategy — helping them switch from “brick to click” as it is commonly known.

That was her first realization that you can’t plan your career too meticulously based on the information you have. “When I was going to school, there was no internet, and then all of a sudden, I was the manager of e-business. The world is morphing so quickly, there’s really no way to look out five to 10 years to identify what you are going to do.”

She decided to return to school to earn her MBA in finance, and there she became intrigued by the complexity of derivatives, realizing that if she could master a technical skill like that it would serve her well. She was subsequently hired by Deutsche Bank and worked on the Wall Street trading floor, which was literally all men. “They used to call the woman’s bathroom ‘Lauren’s room,’” she laughs.

Koopman describes an intense environment that would begin at 7 a.m. when she would familiarize herself with overnight action in Asia and Europe, and then begin monitoring four computer screens and six phone lines.

For five years she worked on the floor, until her new husband, who had just sold his business, asked if she could make it work to travel with him. “I had always wanted to travel around the world so I took a year off and we created our “BC” (Before Child) trip, where we tackled all the harder places to travel, such as India, Beirut, Syria, China, East Asia, the Arctic Circle and Africa.

“It was the best decision I ever made; completely game changing for me,” Koopman recalls. “After seeing firsthand the real issues in the world that people were experiencing, I decided I needed to do something to make a difference.”

Combining her finance background with a second master’s degree, this time in environmental engineering, she began investigating potential options where she could make the biggest impact. She approached it with strategic analysis, creating a database of more than 100 people to speak with at foundations, banks, corporations and consulting firms.

At the time, PwC US was just starting its sustainability practice, and she jumped at the opportunity to build it out and wield true influence, a positon she has held for five years. In fact, she cites her professional role model as the person who hired her, who had the foresight to understand the business benefits of sustainability and the inspiration to build it out.

Though she describes her current position as a complete career shift, she is able to rely on her deep insight in the financial world by focusing on financial service clients. “They appreciate that I am able to speak their language,” she says, adding that even three years ago most of the companies hadn’t even thought about incorporating a sustainability mindset into their investment decisions. “I am proud of how much we’ve done and I am excited to expand our work into asset management and other asset classes.”

Koopman was also recently appointed to the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Young Global Leaders (YGL) forum, a group selected from around the world to form a next generation leadership network to engage in global affairs. The honor recognizes outstanding and proven young leaders under the age of 40 across business, government, and arts and culture, for their accomplishments, commitment to society and potential to contribute to shaping a better future. Previous and current YGLs include Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google Co-founder Larry Page, and Statistician Nate Silver.

Lessons Learned Along the Way

As Koopman has navigated her career, she’s learned the importance of reading people. “I had always assumed people at the top knew everything and were always right, but over the years I’ve figured out that people are people. You have to learn to evaluate your audience and understand where they’re coming from and how to speak to what they need,” she says, adding that understanding people and how an organization works is as important as technical knowledge. “Think about who you’re talking to and their needs.”

She also has seen the value of taking on every opportunity that’s presented without immediately worrying about why it wouldn’t work. “We tend to worry about failure and stay in our comfort zone,” she says. “But there’s so much value in taking on those new opportunities. Even if it‘s something that you don’t think you want to do, inherently you are learning so much from new skill sets and new people. This creates a knowledge and network reservoir you will draw on throughout your career.”

She cites learning by simply paying attention and absorbing as critical, for example times when she has watched CEOs sell an idea to a huge group of people. Koopman also pays credit to the mentors and colleagues she has met through participating in Women in Wall Street.

A Traveling Family

Koopman is quick to point to her supportive, “amazing” husband as one of her inspirations. With a two-and-a-half-year old and a six-month-old, her home life is as busy as her office. And, even though their life-changing trip was designed to hold them over until their children were a little older, they already have robust passports: the little travelers have visited Holland, Canada, Colombia and the west coast of America, along with regular trips to her husband’s family in New Zealand.

PwC US? Or globally?

By Cathie Ericson

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Voice Of Experience: Paula Smith, Senior Vice President, Head of DC and College Savings Investments at Voya Investment Management

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Paula SmithPaula Smith learned early on that while your career may take twists and turns, as hers has, there are fundamentals that will serve you well throughout. And for her, a key one is to cultivate relationships for the long term. “We are in a people business, whether we sit in product, distribution, finance or portfolio management. Networking doesn’t mean we have to spend hours going to lunch or drinks, but rather realizing that your contacts provide as much enrichment as any training, reports, seminars or meetings will.”

Smith’s first position was in human resources after a three-summer internship at Bank Julius Baer. While it wasn’t her intended starting point, it was one that proved serendipitous. She says now that her involvement with employee benefits, specifically the 401(k) program, allowed her to see first-hand how these plans worked, and the struggles for plan sponsors in getting people to join in the plan and invest the right way. Smith developed an instant liking to the details of retirement plans, specifically the importance of the investment options, how they were marketed and what they could do if used the right way.

That experience offered her insight into the importance of focusing on building skills. “It’s not about the individual job or role as much as the skills you can take away that can help you in your broader career.”This later included an MBA at Fordham University to help round out her business skills.

Soon after her stint at Julius Baer, Smith decided to move into the business side within financial services, and found a role developing and managing defined contribution/401(k) investment products and services at Sanford C. Bernstein, where she discovered her background with employee benefits was the ideal stepping stone.

From there, Smith has spent the last 20 plus years largely within product management for retirement and college savings plans at firms like J. & W. Seligman and Columbia Management – building businesses, teams and strategies, and trying to meet challenges as the financial services industry morphs over time.

“Though I didn’t have a very specific idea of where I wanted to be, I was lucky to identify a particular aspect of my first job that I loved and create a career out of it,” she said. “I still enjoy the ins and outs of retirement plans – investing, the changing rules and landscape and how, at the end of the day, helping people plan and save provides peace of mind and a positive future. This keeps things fresh and new.”

She says that she has tended toward roles where there is a building aspect, and that has provided a common thread of achievement over the course of her career. “I’m very proud of the growth of the various product lines I’ve worked on over the years. We move so quickly in our day-to-day lives, that it’s often hard to see what we’re trying to accomplish.” She says that an interesting emerging area is work they are doing with plan sponsors to help shape how they approach their DC plans.“Retirement is probably the single most important financial goal on anyone’s mind, and the work being done in our industry to help people prepare for that is so exciting.”

Lessons Learned Early

Smith had always assumed that if she worked hard, building a career would be easy, similar to how delivering on assignments in school earns you a high grade.

“But the truth is, while hard work is a very large part of it, very often it’s making sure people higher up know that you want to take on additional responsibilities,” she said, adding that it’s crucial for young women starting out to make sure that people know what they’re doing within the organization.

Early in her career she found that too often people make the mistake of silently getting the work done but rarely talking about it. “It was an important lesson, and I am cognizant of it to this day.”

Even so, she believes there is no substitute for putting in the time and effort and rolling up your sleeves to get things done, making sure that you have considered priorities to avoid devoting time and effort to activities that simply don’t matter that much in the end. “Always focus on what will help move the business forward or meet key goals.”

And, speaking of sleeves, those can have an impact on your career too. Smith advocates dressing for the job you want and not the one you have.While a bit cliché, someone offered that advice early on and it stuck.“As the culture becomes more casual, dressing well puts you in the right frame of mind and demonstrates your professionalism to others.”

Taking Smart Risks

In many cases, Smith has found that women tend to believe they have to be experts or have all the answers before they’re ready to take on a new challenge. But being thrown right into something where she didn’t necessarily have the background or expertise helped her throughout her career.

For example, when given the opportunity to launch what was a brand new product in the industry at the time – a 529 college savings program — there was no blueprint. Therefore it came with challenges, such as state involvement and unique product and regulatory requirements, which created some trepidation at first. “Sometimes it’s frightening, but in some ways, not having all the answers provides that continued learning that so many of us desperately crave,” Smith said.

Smith has found that these larger roles that involved new skills, such as leading a sales team, or being responsible for a very big budget, have provided some of the best learning moments of her career, as she found out that she enjoyed it and was successful at it.

Now, she says she would never wait for the expertise or having a large knowledge base before delving into new projects. “If you are open to learning and ask the right questions, and bring people to the table with their own knowledge, then taking on new challenge should be exciting rather than a cause for anxiety.”

In addition, success comes from being deliberate about letting people who are expert at a particular part of a project be that expert and lead the way. “When managing large business initiatives, you have to let other people play their critical role.”

Sponsors and Role Models Can Guide the Way

Smith says she has been fortunate to have had great sponsors throughout her career, both men and women. Interestingly, sometimes that sponsorship came from people who were otherwise viewed as difficult within the organization but nonetheless were helpful in shaping her path.

While she doesn’t have one specific professional role model, she has identified several who have offered ongoing career lessons – those who have a career trajectory she’d like to emulate, those who present with effectiveness, those who have a positive way of effecting change, and others who have been a touchstone in balancing her personal and professional life.

She advocates looking around deliberately to decide who has the traits and skills you would most like to have rather than choosing one person as a role model.

Family Travel

Right now, Smith says her time is divided between career and family. With a husband who is a stay-at-home dad to their two daughters, ages six and three, Smith knows it’s important for her to spend her time at home really focusing on them to recharge.

The family enjoys traveling together. “Having various trips planned throughout the year, even if it’s just for a weekend, or even not too far away, gives me something to focus on and to have my children focus on as time we’ll spend together. This goes a long way for all of us.”

By Cathie Ericson

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Mover and Shaker: Amaly Homer, Chief of Staff to the CEO of Mercer, a subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies

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amaly6_(1)As chief of staff to Mercer CEO Julio A. Portalatin, Amaly Homer holds a powerful position as a gatekeeper, confidante and strategic consultant – all focused on maximizing the organization’s goals.

She has been in the role since 2013, and within the Marsh & McLennan Companies (NYSE: MMC) family of organizations for 12 years in varied roles that have included global sales support, business development manager, proposal team lead and senior M&A project manager.

Before joining Marsh, Homer worked for a small insurance company, and finds the similarities to be more surprising than you would think. Though resources were scarce at the smaller agency, she also appreciated that there was a lot of recognition when you created something, and she believes that that gave her a strong foundational beginning for her current rise.

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