Tag Archive for: People

Sharon Claffey Kaliouby: VP Strategic Alliances, Learning Pool

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Sharon Claffey KalioubyAs I matured through the corporate world, I saw that many organizations that don’t succeed in L&D are valuing what you know versus what you share,” says Sharon Claffey Kaliouby. “The learning approaches we’re focusing on are a catalyst for change, in creating opportunities to learn collaboratively to facilitate the business goals.”

As a leader in the field of learning and development (L&D), Kaliouby speaks to her life-long love of learning, why paradoxically breaking our educational conditioning is inherent to professional success, and the quandary of the L&D leadership gender gap.

Learning is About Sharing, Not Just Knowing

Named one of the Top 50 Leaders in Learning & Development in 2019 and honored as Learning Professional of the Year in 2018 by The Learning & Performance Institute, Kaliouby is passionate about helping organizations to drive their goals forward by building individual and organization-wide capabilities through education.

“You can spend your entire life doing something that everybody else thinks you should do,” she advises her own daughters. “Or you can do something you totally love and are passionate about, and feel truly alive. That’s the direction you should always go. Stick with your inner gut and don’t let anyone change your mind.”

Kaliouby worked in-house for nearly twenty years before making an intentional move to Learning Pool, a pioneering full-service customized e-learning provider working across a large international client base, from companies to NGOs to higher education.

Kaliouby speaks emphatically about reframing what we value in and how we experience learning: “As we go through our educational system, and almost anywhere in the world, there is one thing that collaboration is usually called: cheating. Collaboration in the school system is called cheating, so we’re educated not to collaborate.”

In academia, success often means not sharing your knowledge but that flips the moment we exit formal education. She notes women are disproportionately represented among top students but not top executives. The early displaced value on autonomous success can also stunt institutional development.

“Innovative organizations are sharing cultures who want employees to share their success and knowledge with other colleagues. You’re not elevated in the organization based on how much more you know than others, but how much you share the knowledge,“ observes Kaliouby.

Learning that Values Your Participation

With Learning Pool, the L&D objectives begin with asking what learning is going to be most directly valuable to the core organizational goals. The strategic approach is that learners not only comprehend the content, but are also involved in their education, with their participation being a factor in the measure of their learning success. Sharing (such as comments in an online forum) becomes weighted by the richness of knowledge the individual holds and shares, rather than their title.

Kaliouby is increasingly motivated by Learning Pool’s Learning Experience Platform (LXP) Stream, which is designed to enable the self-determined learner to find and to access particular courses they need or want for themselves. She points out that the rush to compulsory online education in the past eighteen months widely replicated the classroom rather than customizing education for the positive capabilities of this medium, and this has potentially created resistance to online learning among a whole generation of students. But at the same time, that challenging experience may compel reflection from those students, based on what they truly needed, that compels developments yet to come in the L&D space.

Going Back to Being Human and Being Learners

When it comes to remote working, ‘upskilling’ and ‘reskilling’ are part of the hot themes right now, and with Covid-19, the L&D field has moved towards the human side of business in many ways – such as skilling up on EQ, capacity for empathy and holistic communication skills.

“Some people that were hired as a CEO in 2018 were not equipped to be the chief empathy office of 2020 or 2021. But what’s nice is the human equation is now being valued, as much as learning data analytics in the scientific backgrounds were highly valued,” notes Kaliouby. “We need soft skills now because we’re all in crisis mode, but I hope it’s more than a trend.”

From her perspective, we’re circling back to the 1990’s when family and kids were invited into the office or gatherings. Whereas in the 2000’s, the 9/11 and financial crises put sustained employment into more jeopardy, and it became safer emotionally not to know each other so personally. With Zoom, we’re invited back into witnessing colleagues in their lives outside of work, and this impacts learning too.

“Now, we want learning to be about the whole person. When you’re learning something in your organization, to better the business goals, you also want to be building for yourself too,” says Kaliouby. “You’re building knowledge that’s going to make you a different, more insightful or more aware person, regardless of what the topic is.”

She notes that for the first time, a lot of people have the space and bandwidth to take up guitar or language lessons online, for example, rather than just be entertained. We are in some way becoming learners again, who wish to be effective in all spherical aspects of our lives.

Why Are There Too Few Women Leaders in L&D?

In 2013, Kaliouby became the co-founder of #WomeninLearning, which actively promotes women in learning and leadership – supporting an awareness of gender equality and an environment committed to a more diverse future. Bringing great talent into an industry is not the same as threading that talent up to leadership, and the gender gap at the top of L&D is astounding considering it’s a predominantly female field.

2019 research data showed that while women are coming into the learning field as 2/3 of support roles, and many assume women lead the field, they actually comprise less than 1/3 of senior authority roles at the leadership level. Compared to a male-dominated field like finance, Kaliouby notes, “It’s even worse news because we have more women in the learning sector, and we’re still flipping it: there’s more men than women leaders.”

#WomeninLearning has raised the conversation, even in the context of her own household: “I see my daughter, who is in the workforce, sharing her salary with her friends and speak adamantly that she can’t understand why the guys over there that didn’t do as well in school are making more money. They’re stating, ‘we’re not going to stand for this and we’re not going to stand for diversity of thought not to be valued’.”

Due to a recent company acquisition, Kaliouby has had the opportunity to become more familiar with Higher Education, and finds the approach to managing gender dynamics intriguing: “In Higher Education, the women actively state they don’t care about the title, but they want to earn equal pay. I think in the corporate world, we focused too much on wanting the right title, but if we’re never going to catch up on the salary, that’s to the side.”

Not only does the notion of not having equal room for women in leadership (“space for one”) work against women helping to bring other women up, but Kaliouby notes that the ‘confidence gap’ has a real basis in hiring trends: “Women are hired on their experience not their potential, and men are hired on their potential,” she says. “And that is the biggest disaster in regards to the gender gap in learning.” Women self-select themselves out of applying for a job if they do not have the exact background and this is even more limiting (we can’t get there if we are not even applying for the roles).

She notes that 94% of C-Suite women have all played a sport, and playing sports builds both a grit and resilience, as well as learning what you’re particularly skilled at, and what you’re not.

So she recommends picking up a new sport: “If you pick up something brand-new, you’ll know what it’s like to start and be an entry level person. You’ll know that awkward feeling, the ability not to fully understand your full map, and you might develop another angle of empathy as well.”

A two-time member of the USFA National gold medal women’s sabre fencing team herself, Kaliouby recently began a couple of new sports, including pickle ball. She accredits her athletic background for giving her a perseverance that has served her professional journey.

A Lifelong Appreciation of Self-Development

“I could have been a full-time student forever. That was always my desire, she says. “I do feel like I’m a lifelong learner now.”

When reflecting back on her passion and love for learning, Kaliouby feels the valuing of education in her Irish Catholic family home in Boston imprinted strongly upon her. She witnessed her father get his diploma while employed as a Policeman, and he emphasized to her that the one thing someone can never take away from you is your intelligence. He went on to become a university professor of criminal justice. Though she lost him young, her own passion for learning today carries on his legacy of the drive to realize further capacities and visions that are seeded within oneself.

Both of her daughters, top achievers academically, carried on the family legacy of valuing education and learned Arabic growing up (with mom auditing class with them as well), as their father is Egyptian. In addition to continuing her sports participation with fencing, pickle ball and more, learning sign language is the next personal stretch that Kaliouby has her eyes set on.

By: Aimee Hansen

Learning Pool offers innovative learning platforms not only including the LXP Stream, but also a Learning Management System and a Learning Record Store (LRS) titled Learning Locker (one of the most downloaded LRS’ in the world). Learning Pool also offers off the shelf courseware (as well as custom courses). Kaliouby is most proud of the Corporate Social Responsibility courses made available for ALL at no cost on their website – including courses focused on climate change, mental health, stress, anxiety and the uncomfortable truth of racial inequality.

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Marcia Diaz: Managing Director, PGIM Real Estate

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Marcia Diaz “Wherever you are, get the best experience, keep developing your skills, and keep networking. Whenever you’re asked to do something, make sure you do it well,” says Marcia Diaz. “You’re creating your brand. Whatever happens next, make sure someone will want to pick you to be on their team.”

Diaz speaks to unexpected opportunities in the right moment, making both your work and your ambitions known, leveraging your position and the value in sometimes asking forgiveness rather than permission.

When One Door Closes, Another Opens (Again!)

What at first appears as a stable and steady thirty-year stint of experience in commercial real estate financial services with PGIM Real Estate was actually a little touch-and-go in moments of Diaz’s journey.

Beginning in retail and then obtaining her MBA at UC Berkeley, Diaz joined the Prudential Realty Group, following the track of getting initial experience at a big institution–to “see as many deals as possible, learn the fundamentals, and get some good grounding”–before planning to go onto work at a real estate developer.

Less than a year after starting as a junior loan officer, the market turned and she found herself working on foreclosures: “Pretty quickly, I was put in a totally different position than I thought I was going to be in, and it was so much more adversarial than the sales side. But I tell people it was like medicine. At the time, I didn’t like it, but it was the best learning experience for a new person in real estate–you learn all the things that can go wrong and you really come to understand the loan documents.”

A few years later, Diaz got into the heart of real estate, moving over to an asset management role and working on mega deals in LA and San Francisco. But as Prudential prepared to go public, the strategy included selling off the major assets she’d been working on.

Just as she had chosen a severance option, she received an invitation to join real estate investment banking in Prudential Securities. For three years, she gained experience in capital markets and M&A, though it felt too far removed from real estate to her. That’s when the head office decided to close down the investment banking group, and she received her second severance package.

As she pondered what was next, she received a second unexpected call, again from within the greater company. This time the offer was to head up the re-opening of the LA real estate office. She would be building and hiring her team and working with multifamily agency products. Since accepting, Diaz has remained on the debt side in originations in the LA office.

“It’s a been a very dynamic company with lots of changes and new opportunities – loan originations, dispositions, asset management, investment banking,” summarizes Diaz. “Every time I got comfortable in one of my roles, some new opportunity and challenge came up where I moved to a different role, and that’s kept me here.”

Real Estate Holds a Story


Diaz enjoys how approachable and tangible real estate is when it comes to the often abstract world of finance. She loves the story that is behind each asset: “Every property is so different and every one has a story. Even after thirty years, my favorite thing is still to go to a new market and hear the story from the developer and the owner and why they’re excited about it.”

“These people are such experts. They tell you why this specific corner is better than that corner and why they’ve laid out the development the way they have.”

Beyond the West Coast, she’s been able to explore London, Mexico and other new markets to feed her passion.

Do Your Best Work, But Also Make it Known

“My parents instilled in me that the only thing you can control is yourself and what you do, so make sure whatever you’re doing, you excel in it,” says Diaz, which she remembers applying even to the most meticulous of tasks in her retail days. “Focus on your performance and whatever you are doing, do your very best work and a lot falls into place.”

Diaz accredits her insistence on showing up with her best effort as to why her name was twice spoken for new opportunities in different parts of the organization. At the same time, Diaz learned that doing your best work is only half the equation. What came less naturally for her was self-promotion, as well as being direct and assertive about what she wanted and where she wanted to go. 

“During my career, there have been some people who I felt maybe weren’t as qualified as I was, but made it known what they wanted to do–whether a new responsibility or promotion–and I watched it happen for them,” she notes. “I learned you can’t just wait for things to happen. You’ve got to make them happen. Talk to your boss, raise your hand for opportunities, make sure people know what you’re interested in. Don’t let them just assume you’re happy to stay where you are.”

Diaz feels as though her networking was often by default. While that contributed to her opportunity offers, she could have benefited from doing even more: “Start your networking early on, and be proactive, strategic and disciplined about it. This business is so much about contacts and relationships and how you help each other out and refer business.”

Leverage Being Memorable in the Room

Having been in the organization for three decades, from the days when the boys club was shockingly overt at moments, through a time of greater social maturing, Diaz has often been the only woman at the working social event, meeting table or competitive pitch.

But generally recalling the notion of being around the table with twelve men, all dressed similarly and with similar names, it never escaped Diaz that while she was trying to remember “who was who” amongst them, she herself stood out.

So while it can be very intimidating, and Diaz jokes it would help if she was a golfer, she also has chosen to make standing out as a woman work for her, as opposed to seeing it as inhibiting her.

“When I was marketing to borrowers and brokers, I could be competing with five other guys (lenders) who had been in their office that day, but they’re going to remember Marcia. So I tell junior female team members to take advantage of that, but to remember you also must be clear and compelling in your pitch.”

Speak Truthfully and Directly

Diaz feels she has gained respect and trust as someone who will tell the truth, even when it’s difficult or controversial.

“To be a good leader, you need to be able to cheer your team on with all the good stuff. But to make changes and keep progressing, you also need to be willing to address the challenges and difficult matters,” notes Diaz. “I think people appreciate direct and honest feedback and ‘knowing where they stand.’”

Diaz observes that it’s far kinder to be truthful and direct even in critical feedback and to give someone the opportunity to receive and address it, rather than to avoid that conversation until it’s too late.

Grooming and developing talent has become a bigger aspect of her daily life the more senior she has become and is now the most important part of her position. From watching new hires rise to senior positions over decades with her, to understanding the dreams of university student mentees, it’s what she finds most gratifying in the work.

Ask Forgiveness, Not Permission (Sometimes)

As someone who identifies as a “rule follower,” Diaz has had a few successful, dynamic movers and shakers in her journey that passed on an important message: sometimes you just gotta ask for forgiveness, not permission. While taken to the extreme, it may become reckless, she sees the value in being willing to take some informed risk.

“The notion is that when you know things are right, you gotta go with it, especially in the world of transactions,” says Diaz. “That sticks with me, because I think that sometimes you need to have the confidence to recognize you have enough world experience and just go with it.”

As one of her retail bosses early on taught her, ultimately no one else is as close to your business or can tell you what’s best for it.

With so many unexpected twists and turns in her own journey, Diaz also emphasizes to her mentees that there are many things out of your control, so put your energy into doing your best where you are now.

So much of her professional fulfillment comes from in-person social interaction that Diaz awaits the day she can return to the field and hear more real estate stories directly.

She has already combined her love of tennis and travel by attending both Wimbledon and the US Open and would love to travel to France or Australia next to do the same. She grew up on the West Coast as a Pac-12 girl and loves college football season.

By: Aimee Hansen

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14 Career Insights and Tips From Women Leaders in Asia (Part 2)

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women leaders in asiaDuring our Spotlight on Asia this month, The Glass Hammer has curated the best of career insights and tips from inspiring female executives and women leaders in Asia.

In the first part of this series, we shared seven top tips. This week, we continue with seven more experience-based insights from Asian female executives.

1. Get out of your own way.

“The barriers to success for women in our profession are sometimes ourselves,” said Quek Bin Hwee, previously as the Vice-Chairman of PwC Singapore and the Markets Leader of PwC Asia. “We sometimes believe we cannot reach the pinnacle of our career. This is not always true. It is possible for those who desire it. These women tend to embrace change and always keep an open mind.”

Update: After 25 years of global and regional positions with PwC Singapore until 2017, Quek Bin Hwee sits as director across several boards and member on others.

2. Define your own possibilities for yourself.

“You need to determine your own path and carve out your own unique identity,” advised Paloma Wang, previously as a Partner, Capital Markets Group at Shearman & Sterling in Hong Kong, when reflecting on her trajectory. “Don’t let anyone else dictate who you are as a professional or as a person.”

Having ascended to partnership by 37 years old, Wang shared, “By establishing your own priorities and doing the things that truly make you happy, you will drive your career path in the right direction. Don’t make concessions because you are junior or because you are a woman. Plant your feet firmly and set your sights on achieving everything you want.”

Update: Paloma Wang is presently a Partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates.

3. Take the risk of influencing outcomes.

“Earlier in my career, I was more reserved about expressing my views,” said Stephanie Hui, as Head of the Merchant Banking Division in Asia Pacific Ex-Japan at Goldman Sachs, who grew up as a Chinese woman in a conservative family in Hong Kong.

“But over time, I realized we are in the business of taking calculated risks and just keeping my head down to produce top quality work while hoping others would notice would not make me a leader,” Hui noted. “Instead, I would have to effectively and respectfully influence outcome. I learned that being vocal in the right context is important.”

Update: Stephanie Hui is an MD responsible for the private equity investing business of Goldman Sachs in Asia and has been with the firm for 26 years.

4. Do not contort yourself to conform.

“When I was first starting to practice law, I tried to mimic my male colleagues by dressing how they dressed and talking like them,” said Jun Wei, Managing Partner at Hogan Lovells in Beijing. “One day, a client of mine who was a very successful business woman told me that no matter how much I tried to act like a man, I would always be a woman. She urged me to be proud of my identity.”

Wei emphasized the importance of junior women lawyers to be themselves and resist conforming to male-dominated work environments just to fit in.

Update: Jun Wei remains a Managing Partner at Hogan Lovells, now over 19 years with the firm across mergers.

5. Manage your boss.

“It is important to know how to manage your boss,” said Siew Choo Ng, Senior Vice President, Head of Global Network Partnerships in Asia at American Express. “He or she is the one who can be your sponsor and help you with your career. Often times you are competing for their time and sponsorship with your other team members, so it helps to distinguish yourself from the pack.”

If she could have learned anything sooner to help her navigate, Ng said that would be the golden piece of advice.

Update: Siew Choo Ng still holds this position on her LinkedIn Profile.

6. Leap before you have all the answers.

“I think women have the tendency to be a bit conservative at work. What I mean is that we like to gather all of the information we can before providing an answer, for example. While that is important, I think women need to try to be a little more daring, take more risks and be confident,” said Wei Hopeman, previously as Managing Director and Head of Asia for Citi Ventures in Shanghai. “You have to start down a new path long before you have all of the answers because by the time you get all the answers, the original opportunity will be gone. This is something I have learned from my own career.”

“If you never take on new challenges and new experiences, then you are never really allowing yourself to learn and grow,” said Hopeman. “You learn every day. No matter how senior or junior you are, part of making yourself better is learning from your mistakes and your successes.”

Update: Wei Hopeman has been the Co-founder and Managing Partner of Arbor Ventures for the past seven years and sits on several boards.

7. Seek to align with your purpose.

“To begin finding out what your purpose in life is, imagine looking back forty years from now and asking yourself what would make you proud, or if you would be able to admit to having lived a full and meaningful life,” suggested Nora Wu, formerly the PwC Global Vice Chairwoman and PwC Global Human Capital Leader out of China. “The answers will give you a good indication of what you want, or should, aim for in life.”

Wu then advised to not hold back: “You never know where one opportunity or interaction will lead you and you only can find out if you give it your best shot. You should never be afraid to work hard or put in the long hours. Work-life balance is indeed possible, especially if you do not separate your work and your life. By aligning your purpose, personality, and aspirations, it will be easier to create a balance.”

Update: Nora Wu is now an independent board member at JD Logistics and sits on a few boards.

We hope you enjoyed this two-part retrospective! Click here to see part one.

By: Aimee Hansen

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14 Career Insights and Tips From Women Leaders in Asia (Part 1)

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women leaders in AsiaEvery August for the last ten years, The Glass Hammer has featured career insights and tips from women leaders and executives in Asia.

In this retrospective feature, we’ve mined the best experience-based guidance across those interviews, and this month we’ll be sharing in two parts!

Here are the first seven tips:

1. Be open to learn from everyone.

“Be open in your career,” advised Pamela Yeo, General Counsel and Senior Vice President at AIG Property Casualty Asia Pacific. “When you realize that everyone around you can teach you something new, and you become receptive to knowledge sharing and connecting, this can have a big impact on your advancement.”

Yeo urged young professionals to put themselves out there to catapult your journey through connection.

Update: Pamela Yeo remains in the position she has now held for nearly 17 years.

2. Do not keep your head down.

As a junior analyst, Kathy Matsui was told to “work hard, keep your head down, and you will go far.”

“This was the worst advice I could have been given as a woman just beginning her career, but when I first began working the idea that an ‘invisible hand’ would simply promote you was widespread,” Matsui told us, previously as Vice Chair, Global Investment Research at Goldman Sachs in Japan back in 2019. “Aside from excelling in one’s job, women need to also identify mentors, connect with others across their organization, and share their accomplishments.”

Update: After over 26 years with Goldman Sachs, Kathy Matsui is a founding General Partner of MPower Partners, Japan’s first ESG-focused global VC fund, as of May 2021.

3. Check your self-limiting assumptions and projections.

Earlier in her career, Kathy Matsui also shared with us the risk of operating inside the framework of your own self-limiting projections, which meant she spent too much time early on spinning her wheels just to prove her worth.

“My client base here was pretty homogenous when I first started working in Japan, in that it was mostly Japanese men who were twice my age,” remarked Matsui. “At the beginning, I felt like I had three strikes against me because I was female, foreign, and young. But this was really a perception that I put upon myself because professionally, nobody actually treated me differently based on my identity.”

4. Claim your voice in the conversation and early on.

“Put it all out there on the field every day,” recommended Padideh Raphael, Partner at Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong. “Women tend to wait for validation before sharing their opinion, but they should speak up earlier.”

As a first generation American raised with gender-related boundaries by her Iranian mom, Raphael said: “I believe there are no inherent barriers to success in this industry, but in some cases I have seen that women are traditionally raised or shaped to abide by societal norms,” she says.  “To the extent possible, women should be confident in having a place in the discussion.”

Update: Padideh Trojanow (Raphael) remains a partner at Goldman Sachs, now with the firm for over 22 years.

5. Discern your own truth when it comes to work and family.

“Each person has to look inside themselves and make their own choice without feeling pressure from family members, and then ask them to support that choice,” asserted Xing Zhou when it come to work and family life, as Diversity & Inclusion Leader at PwC China. “I view it as an achievement that as the mom of two children, I am able to find the balance and can serve as a role model for others in my firm and industry.”

Zhou discussed how Chinese women face pressure from their husbands and in-laws to shift their focus entirely to motherhood, whereas that is not every woman’s desire for herself and only she can truly decide.

Update: Xing Zhou has been with PwC Hong Kong and Mainland China for 24 years. She has now additionally taken up the roles of North Markets Leader and Beijing Office Lead Partner of Mainland China.

6. Make clear choices to keep evolving.

“There were lots of things I was interested in, and I wasn’t sure what to focus on; I was always hedging my bets. Only when I started to make choices, and others could see what I was about, did it all came together,” stated Ay Wen Lie, Partner, M&A Advisory at PwC in Singapore.

Wen Lie advised getting clear on what you stand for and believe in, both when it come to the work you are doing and creating your personal brand, otherwise you dilute your ability to impact and stand out: “Don’t be afraid to make choices, play to your strengths and focus your energy on where you can best add value.”

Update: Ay Wen Lie has been a Partner at PwC in Singapore for ten years.

7. Constantly nurture your network, internally and externally.

“For women at all levels of their careers, constantly building your personal network both internally and externally is extremely valuable,” said Teo Lay Lim, previously as Country Managing Director of Singapore for Accenture. “Building personal networks helps you to draw on others to augment your own insights [and] perspectives,” she added, emphasizing that Accenture had more than 85 local women’s networking groups in 32 countries to help build up their networks.

Update: Teo Lay Lim is now a Chairperson at Accenture in Singapore, with over 33 years with the firm.

Look out for Part 2 of this retrospective of top advice from female executives in Asia!

By: Aimee Hansen

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Grace Jamgochian: Partner, Mergers & Acquisitions, Shearman & Sterling

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Grace Jamgochian“Law professionals are not selling widgets. We’re selling thoughts. We’re selling our expertise. We’re selling relationships,” advises Grace Jamgochian. “So remembering the human nature of our business is so integral to what we do.”

Jamgochian speaks to why M&A is animating every single day, the pay-off of being goal-oriented and why it’s important to treat law as a service-oriented business.

Loving the Hub Responsibility of M&A

As a full-service Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) partner at Shearman & Sterling LLP (Shearman), Jamgochian works across a broad general corporate practice — from public M&A, to private M&A, to private equity — gravitating towards the areas of tech, media, and telecom, infrastructure, and consumer products.

“M&A is a quasi-business and business strategy function. We advise our clients on more than just the technical aspects of the law. We partner with them to achieve their objectives, and we work closely with our internal specialists to make sure all bases are covered,” says Jamgochian. “As an M&A lawyer, you’re responsible for managing, coordinating and completing the entire deal. I love M&A because that responsibility fits well with my personality and drives me.”

Jamgochian thrives on the pace, breadth, variety and overview that M&A demands of her at Shearman.

“Every day is different. I have a general sense of my to-do list but M&A is often a series of fire drills,” she says, “Being on my toes is the type of practice that I’ve always wanted, and that’s why I’ve continued in M&A for more than a decade.”

Jamgochian also enjoys the teamwork needed for M&A transactions. “M&A is the central hub for a deal. My group handles the “corporate” pieces but we also collect the input of specialists such as in IP, Tax, Compensation, Real Estate, and Regulatory. I view a transaction agreement like a complex puzzle, and each person contributes a few pieces into the big puzzle that I’m ultimately 100% responsible for,” she says.

Jamgochian credits a year-ish long stint as an in-house attorney at Thomson Reuters, right after graduating from Cornell Law School, with immersing her into the business perspective of law from the very beginning.

“While others used the Shearman associate deferral year in 2010 for non-professional pursuits, I chose to work at a client handling M&A and securities matters so that I could get my feet wet right out of the gate. Having this opportunity set me up to be a practical, business-minded and solution-oriented attorney from the start,” Jamgochian reflects. “A deal needs business-minded lawyers. It can’t just be working in theory. You need to assess and advise on the risks, but you also need a good dose of reality and know what market practice is.”

Being Goal-Oriented As Her Key to Success

Though Jamgochian is newly elected to the Shearman partnership this year, it’s been in her sights since she first began her law career. Her journey to partner felt both intentional and linear.

“Always give yourself options. From Day 1, I tried to put myself in a position to be partner down the road, even if I couldn’t predict the future and would have been open to other paths. I volunteered for basically everything, from deals to extracurricular responsibilities like involvement in inclusion networks and bar associations. If you want to be a partner, you don’t wake up one day and suddenly have the skills. You should start thinking about business development early on and what technical and “soft” skills you’ll need to develop,” says Jamgochian.

She says her colleagues would most likely also remark on her efficiency, organization and ability to carry through a goal to completion.

“I’m a goal-oriented person. If we all have an idea in mind of what we think should be the finish line, let’s get there and let’s be efficient about it,” says Jamgochian. “In order to do that, you need to be organized, create processes, reduce any inefficiencies of people not knowing what their role is and communicate clearly. That’s me in a nutshell.”

When it comes to her next level goal, Jamgochian would love to continue to develop herself as an M&A lawyer to rank among the top of her field.

Law is Foremost About People

Early on, it was imparted on Jamgochian that law is a service-oriented industry in which the business is “people” and “our minds”.

“We’re getting paid to think. It’s about essentially our brains and our relationships: these intangibles. So the thing that lawyers need to focus on and remember throughout our careers is our clients and to develop those relationships with clients,” says Jamgochian. “Provide them with the best legal advice, which is essentially your thoughts and expertise, but then also don’t forget that everything is people-based in law firms, whether your clients or those you work with.”

When it comes to diversity, M&A as an industry is a more white male dominated area in particular.

“I have definitely had occasions where I’m the only woman in a room of thirty people. Once you already have a male-dominated industry, then you have the lack of mentorship, you have the lack of role models and it kind of snowballs from that,” observes Jamgochian. “But I think all firms, and the industry itself, are trying to pull the reins in. Shearman is really focused on D&I efforts, plus an increasing client focus on diversity is also helping to increase the law firm diversity focus as well.”

Busy Summer and Time for Family

As it’s only a block away from home, Jamgochian has been working out of the office this year, where her workload — focusing largely on tech, media, and telecom and infrastructure — has continued to boom when she might normally see a summer slowdown.

She notes that with the change of executive administration, as well as regulatory and tax changes in the air, many people and organizations are wanting to work through deals quickly. So these days, her expertise is a commodity in fast demand.

Jamgochian’s husband is also a Big Law lawyer, and with both of them having a high-intensity lifestyle, time with their five year old son is precious. They enjoy weekend picnics in Central Park and being surrounded by family in New York City and nearby.

With a background in dance history, Jamgochian turns to movement as part of keeping her balance, which may very well help in flowing with the pace of her work. She also loves learning instruments and reading music to stay sharp – along with piano and flute, she has recently also taken up ukelele.

By: Aimee Hansen

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Trisha Sircar; Partner, Privacy, Data and Cybersecurity, Katten

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Trisha Sircar“I will say I’m incredibly lucky that I’ve had the support of many women in my industry,” says Trisha Sircar, Partner at Katten.

The terrain of data privacy and cybersecurity is evolving as quickly as our relationships to technology, so there’s rarely been a more challenging or rewarding time to be an authority in this field.

Organic networking from one of the world’s largest insurance companies to Katten

After beginning her legal career in litigation at a law firm, Sircar moved to in-house at a global insurance company. In 2014, two years into her eight-year tenure there, she segued from employment law to data privacy and cybersecurity, exploring from both legal and business vantages, usually for Fortune 500 clients.

“We’d take a deep dive into how organizations measured their data privacy and cybersecurity from a macro and micro perspective,” Sircar says. “It was very interesting to see how different clients — healthcare, pharmaceutical, hospitals, universities, media, tech, professional services firms, retail, and others — use, collect and retain data, and manage their privacy and cybersecurity risk.”

Within her last remit as counsel and compliance officer, Sircar helped implement the company’s global privacy compliance and records and information management program, as well as manage internal policies and procedures pertaining to privacy, data and cyber security across more than 50 global locations.

Through her work, Sircar developed a longstanding client relationship with Floyd Mandell and Karen Artz Ash, Katten Partners and Co-Chairs of the Intellectual Property practice.

“I had very close ties with Katten throughout my career,” she says. “I saw Floyd and others on his team as mentors and friends that I could always turn to.”

Sircar was focused on establishing her career in-house and did not plan to return to private practice, but soon found herself accepting the invitation to join Katten in January 2020.

“I knew their business model, their reputation, and I knew that I could trust them as a partner based on the multiple matters that we handled together,” she says. “I always tell my mentees and associates on my team that you should keep an open mind and be open to opportunities. So I kept an open mind, and I’ve been very happy with the decision.”

 

New World, New Questions, New Challenges

In her role at Katten, Sircar is largely confronting the issues that have arisen and solutions to be forged under the context of a public health crisis.

“I’ve recently worked on updating business continuity plans for clients that envisaged a terrorist attack in advance of 9/11 or natural disasters before Hurricane Sandy struck, but many of our clients never thought to foresee a pandemic,” says Sircar. “So we are creating a new playbook. It’s something that is dynamic and going to change day to day, every day.”

A salient focus right now is education privacy, both in creating safe and secure practices for sustaining education in a remote environment and navigating, where feasible, re-entry into the classroom.

As both an attorney and aunt, Sircar appreciates the complex considerations at play in the transition to remote learning, including the importance for schools to perform critical due diligence on software, applications and technology platforms with regards to how they protect students’ privacy, and to pay close attention to how these platforms collect data on students.

Schools need to address whether they provide sufficient disclosures to students, parents and guardians, and teachers, and employ adequate information and cybersecurity protocols so parents and guardians are clearly aware of what is going on in virtual classrooms and what support is available, according to Sircar.

“Whatever we can do to promote safe and secure practices for schools during this environment, whether they are participating remotely or in a hybrid model, is really important,” Sircar said.

Sircar clarifies there is no easy, one-size-fits-all solution. Not only are schools under state-level laws, but guidance at the district and school levels differ and fluctuate too.

Many business clients are also navigating creative changes in their client or consumer relationship and interface in the present pandemic world.

The way of overseeing businesses’ privacy policies and processes, and compliance with global privacy law, is also impacted — from managing increases in cybercrime to what to do when you can no longer run to the IT guy down the hallway.

 

Real Diversity is Visible

Despite the tech-related nature of her legal realm, Sircar attests that neither her gender nor Indian ethnic background have been personal barriers.

“My last manager was a female. Her manager was a female and the hierarchy above her were all females,” she says. “I have been fortunate to have had incredible mentors. And Katten is truly supportive and amazing in terms of their work/life balance and maternity leave policy.”

“I have interviewed with companies and law firms that I know have strong diversity and inclusion programs, and it’s not just window dressing. I see their impact at a substantive level,” says Sircar.

She recommends to do the research before interviewing, ask the hard questions and pay attention. At a senior level, she suggests reaching out to networking peers to share thoughts on the leadership culture of a firm.

“When I hired Katten at my predecessor company’s lawyers, I saw the hierarchy, and there were females and minorities in those high positions that I’d be working with or reporting to,” says Sircar. “But I think law firms generally have more work to do to achieve parity.”

On that note, Sircar finds her pro bono work with entrepreneurs in socioeconomically disadvantaged communities, which helps to foster more diversity in law, to be essential.

“I think it’s really important that as lawyers and leaders, we don’t always look to what we deserve or what we should get,” states Sircar. “It should be more of a culture that embraces giving back.”

 

Mentorship and Support

“Katten really supports mentorship, not only at an internal level between partners and associates,” notes Sircar, “but also externally with students — from high school to college to law school.”

While she’s often gone the path on her own — from Australia to New York to law school to partnership — she emphasizes to her mentees to be willing to ask for support.

“Reaching out for help or advice does not subvert you from your task of getting to what you want to do,” says Sircar, “and it could have gotten me there faster. Be open to others’ opinions. Don’t be afraid to ask uncomfortable questions, but also be prepared for the tough answers.”

“It’s really important to get different perspectives from different people, from different backgrounds and different facets of the legal profession.”

 

Guardian of our Times

In addition to being perceived as a role model to other women and making her family proud, Sircar is proud to stand as an authority in a field of law that has an impact on everyone in this interconnected, global digital economy.

“I assist my clients in understanding and managing the evolving privacy and cybersecurity risks that they face when they create their services and products or market them, while protecting and securing personal data and confidential information,” she says. “Working in an industry that really affects everybody and holding all parties accountable to that, that’s another thing I’m proud of. I get to do a job every day that helps society by promoting and ensuring an ethical approach to the usage of data, individual privacy and sound cybersecurity hygiene.”

By Aimee Hansen

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Rising Star: Sunaina Kohli, People Experience; PwC Middle East

“My proudest achievement is that I have grown my entire career from grass roots level, with fearless determination.” says PwC’s Sunaina Kohli.

Intuitive Decisions – Dynamic Opportunities

Kenyan born, Kohli was raised and educated in the UK. She left university halfway through her law degree for personal reasons and was immediately offered an opportunity by the CEO of a small group of private investors. She worked her way up from an executive assistant to project manager and ultimately chief of staff to the CEO. At that point she felt she had tapped out her growth opportunities, so she took a six-month sabbatical to travel the world, a long-time ambition of hers.

Kohli started in Kenya with the mantra “The plan is there is no plan,” and within eight weeks she found herself in New Delhi, India, where she was offered a contract with an aviation and aerospace consultancy firm to work on government-related projects. Fast forward 10 months and a PwC recruiter discovered her through LinkedIn and hired her to join the Middle East firm.

A year in, she was presented with an opportunity to join PwC’s Global Human Capital team in New York, followed by a stint in Washington DC, working on the Global Human Capital transformation agenda, impacting the PwC Network of approximately 250,000 people.

This role evolved to an invitation to work at their Global Human Capital Leadership office and allowed her to extend her scope across the firm’s priority projects which included Diversity & Inclusion, Wellbeing, Talent Development, Workforce of the Future and change management to support the implementation of new technologies aligned with PwC’s digital transformation agenda.

Her work demanded a great amount of travel, visiting over 35 cities around the world in just three years. More recently, she was invited to rejoin the Middle East firm to drive the People Experience agenda regionally, focusing on priorities such as Wellbeing and Diversity and Inclusion.

“Very early in life, I learned that failure and hardship are incredible drivers to success, to the point that my tenacity defines my professional brand” said Kohli, who finds it’s a quality that her leaders have always appreciated and has led to many inspiring opportunities. Following your intuition can lead to new and unpredictable paths that ultimately challenge and define you.

“My decision to move my life across continents was a result of my intuition, driven by hunger for the next big challenge,” she says.

Navigating the Working World—Making a Difference

Through the Diversity and Inclusion agenda, she is proud to have the opportunity to be a strong advocate and influence, to directly and positively impact the advancement of professional women.

Kohli’s passion for supporting this agenda comes from her experiences; in the UK she worked as a volunteer to support women who struggled through domestic abuse. Kohli developed curriculums to support them on what can be a challenging journey to leave extreme situations, through to coping methods and life skills that would help them navigate their newfound independence and responsibilities.

She also taught underprivileged and disabled children to rise above their emotions through obstacles and challenges, using her classes as a way to help disabled children share commonalities with their more abled siblings. “Parents found this experience extremely rewarding as it finally gave them a leveled field for all their children to come together and share a collective interest and activity,” she added.

While in India, she worked with orphaned girls, teaching them the same types of skills, but also about empowerment. A self-taught henna artist, she was able to share that skill so that they would always have a safe means to make a living, as well as an emotional outlet through creative self-expression.

Her time spent across continents—from the gender-dominant environments of India and the Middle East to the more gender-balanced United States—has been eye opening. She feels fortunate to have worked with so many inspiring female leaders, who showed her that you can have it all if you want it, and she is eager to share this perspective now that she has returned to the Middle East; “We need to be more mindful about spotlighting our strong and successful female talent in the Middle East – you cannot be what you cannot see, so greater visibility of the incredible women that work among us is essential.”

Kohli also recognizes career sponsorship and mentoring as drivers to develop the female talent pipeline. She views sponsorship as a career game changer and has had a number of colleagues, both male and female, advocating on her behalf, vastly impacting her career progression. In addition, she has found that mentors have played a huge role in her development.

Describing the difference, she explains that mentors help you see what you may not see in yourself, pushing you closer to your aspirations; while sponsors advocate for you and believe in you. “It’s indescribably life-changing when inspiring and successful leaders see something in you and take the time to know and understand your capabilities better than you know yourself,” she notes.

Kohli’s commitment to empowering others culminated recently in joining her colleagues to successfully deliver the first women’s empowerment workshop to over 180 women from PwC offices across Saudi Arabia. This was a historic moment that defines the firm’s commitment to gender equality, especially as a UN HeForShe Impact 10 Champion.

 Creating Human Impact

All these initiatives and projects coincide and directly correlate with the work Kohli is doing for the PwC Wellbeing agenda. Specifically, she aspires to make a difference in employees’ personal and professional wellbeing and domino positive effects on communities the firm operates in. “In today’s incredibly dynamic environment, where change is the only certainty, people are having to work harder and faster than ever. Through managing wellbeing, our people will become more resilient and develop the capacity to thrive in demanding situations, helping them recover from setbacks and ultimately be able to bring their best selves to all they do,” she explained.

Kohli added, “Now, more than ever, it is extremely important to me to make a positive, human impact on people’s lives in what is a very disruptive and technology-driven world.”This ethos shines through in her philanthropic endeavors. Having lived on five continents and traveled extensively around the world, Kohli has always tried to bring a meaningful and positive impact to local communities, usually in environments when there is no one to guide, nurture and help an individual grow, she explained.

From her career to her volunteer work, all of Kohli’s pursuits have shared a common thread that allowed her to focus on her strengths. She concluded, “I am a very agile learner, a key skill to future-proof yourself in today’s increasingly fast evolving world where successful professionals will need to constantly adapt to remain relevant.” With this, today she has the opportunity to directly and positively impact those around her.

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Voice of Experience: Efrat Ravid, CMO, ContentSquare

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By Louise Magrathefrat

I’m a great believer that women have what it takes to be great engineers, says ContentSquare’s Efrat Ravid. “It’s imperative that more woman study engineering and technology to ensure that more women enter the field and become technology leaders. Women should be represented at least at a 50% ratio in engineering schools, in engineering companies, and in every aspect of the technology world.”

Encouraging Women to Enter the World of Technology

As an engineering student, Ravid was in a small class with 22 other students and only four of them were women. Many years later when she went for her MBA, she was in a class with 56 students, and still only six of them were women. Fifteen years later, and nothing had changed. Ravid was determined to play her part in changing this. “I wanted to make a difference, to encourage and support women in the world of technology to try and address this imbalance,” she says

She sees the demand in the market for engineers, and she knows that if women get their degree in engineering, they will be able to find great jobs and add value to their companies from day one.

Ravid began her career as an engineer, where she was sent to inland China to work directly with manufacturers and factories. Although a very young engineer at the time, she wanted to take the next step with her product and interact directly with customers to make better product versions. It was in doing this that she found her passion for the customer experience. She spent her time traveling around China and Korea and developed products that customers appreciated and got value from. “I was determined from the start to be successful, and through hard work, commitment and enthusiasm, I saw the business grow,” she comments.

Sponsorship and Mentoring of Women in Technology

Today, Ravid is the Chief Marketing Officer of an exciting SaaS company, and uses her position to mentor and sponsor other women. “I believe it is up to us as women to empower other women to become leaders in the technology industry,” she says

Ravid is passionate about hiring ambitious women who promise to do a fantastic job for ContentSquare. She believes that if women are capable and engaged that they will be successful no matter what their circumstances are (she employed the first female sales person for the US when she was six months pregnant) and comments, “When you are engaged, you are engaged. A woman can be amazing at many things at a time, and someone who is dedicated in one area can easily be dedicated in another.”

A week after this sales person was hired, she traveled with ContentSquare to a trade show in Las Vegas and she was amazing. She was the first one to show up, the last one to leave. This was a very successful woman who cared about her career, cared about her kids, and cared about her family. “I look for the value and talent in each person I hire, and take this mindset and apply it to everything that ContentSquare and I do,” she says.

Motivation for a Career in Technology Starts at Home

Ravid encourages her own children to enter in to a career in technology. Although she tells them that they can be whatever they want to be, she encourages them to study math and science.

Ravid’s daughter has accompanied her to work and was fascinated by all the successful women in the company (the head of product is a woman, many of the customer success managers are women and there are female operations managers as well). “She was so caught up with all the female role models she saw that she simply said at the end of the day ‘I’m in’,” she comments.

When Janine Tesori won her Tony Award in 2015 for Best Original Score, she told the crowd that as a young woman she didn’t realize she could have a career in music until she saw a woman act on Broadway. Holding up her Tony, she said, “For girls, you have to see it to be it. We stand on the shoulders of other women who have come before us.”

So to all the tech-women out there, Ravid thinks it’s time to bare our shoulders to the world, and give women a positive vision for success in technology.

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Voice of Experience: Kerone Vatel, Managing Director, Risk Division, Goldman Sachs

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KeroneBy Cathie Ericson

“When you have a seat at the table, use it,” advises Goldman Sachs’ Kerone Vatel. “In my 20s I often had an opportunity to interact with executives as part of strategic conversations, but I was reluctant to share my point of view. I know now that in each of those moments I missed an opportunity to influence the organization. I was more focused on my neuroses rather than on the value I could add, but recognizing this has helped to sharpen my focus and my approach in the workplace.”

Adventures in Careers: From Engineering to Business Success

Kerone studied chemical engineering at MIT, a field she pursued and was interested in as her father had been an engineer. While she was drawn to the way engineers are trained to review, evaluate and solve problems, she ultimately realized that rather than publishing research in academic journals – a career many of her classmates were pursuing – she was motivated to use her skills to disrupt existing processes.

She parlayed that interest into a career in business, initially seeking a private equity role. However, just three days before she was supposed to begin her new position, came “Career Stumbling Block Number One,” as the firm let go her entire analyst group.

Undaunted, Kerone sought the counsel of MIT’s career department, which directed her towards Capital One. The company was pioneering a novel approach to leveraging analytics and data, which interested her. Kerone joined as an analyst in the business development group, where she leveraged her math and coding skills to help grow the portfolio of low-risk credit card assets. She also attributes her six and a half years at Capital One with providing her the platform to understand strategy and analyze consumer needs.

Kerone soon relocated to New York, where her husband worked on Wall Street. They were starting a family, which made her commute to Virginia difficult. While on maternity leave, her husband was supportive and encouraged her to consider every option. She soon realized that she couldn’t leave her baby and commute up and down the East Coast, and subsequently made the difficult decision to leave Capital One.

Soon the time was right to investigate new options, and she applied for a role in Derivatives Operations Risk at Goldman Sachs, which she assumed would be a 9- to-5 type job. While her new position proved to be far more immersive, she enjoyed the challenge of a new role, and then decided to pivot her career even further, leveraging her experience in writing code. She found analytics projects to “tinker with,” as she describes it. Under the leadership of a female managing director, she helped to improve efficiencies and highlight high-risk issues in the Operations Division.

From there she moved into a new role, where her team partnered with the Strategist group, many of whom had quantum math and science backgrounds. She eventually transferred to the Operational Risk group in a firmwide role, where she was brought in to support strategy and help develop a more centralized construct when thinking about the full range of operational risk exposure, from technology issues to natural disasters. It’s a position she finds particularly fascinating as she has helped grow the team significantly and developed strong partnerships and collaborations as the firm reframed its approach to Operational Risk management.

Looking ahead, Kerone is excited about Goldman Sachs’ launch into the consumer market, and the opportunity to increase purchasing power and bring the firm’s best-in-class fiduciary services to Main Street.

Words of Wisdom Gleaned Along the Way – And Passed Along

Kerone has learned a number of valuable lessons during her journey; chief among them is to bring your whole self to work. “I felt relatively unsure of myself until I hit my mid-30s and always tried to morph myself into the styles of the people around me,” she says. “Today, I just focus on being my best self and no longer feel pressure to adapt a style that is foreign to me.”

For example, she recently had a colleague comment that she looked particularly serious one morning. “I’d had a tough morning with the kids, which I shared with my colleague. It’s ok to bring yourself to work and to show vulnerability, but it’s very important to provide team members with the context for what’s happening and why.”

In a similar vein, Kerone recommends that women never worry alone. She believes that it is important to leverage the collective ideas and history of the organization to ensure success. When she’s asked to take on a difficult new project, she will always say “yes,” but now realizes the importance of soliciting advice upfront to tease out pitfalls and key enablers and to collect diverse points of view to shape the solution. “Earlier in my career, I kept my head down and worked extremely long hours – in retrospect, I wish that I had harnessed the power of the broader group or advocated for more resources.”

And finally, her work at Goldman Sachs has cemented the important lesson of, “If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, bring others with you.” Being named managing director was a defining moment as she reflected on the people who had mentored and sponsored her, in addition to junior colleagues from whom she’d learned along the way. “In that moment when I learned I was being named a managing director, it was so clear that everything is due to the effort of a group, all of us pushing things through together by working toward common goals.”

Kerone currently serves as the Risk Division sponsor for Goldman Sachs’ Women’s Career Strategies Initiative (WCSI), a group whose emphasis is on advocating for women who are on the cusp of being promoted to vice president. The purpose is to help women form connections throughout the firm and in their divisions, as well as learn the rules of the road from senior professionals.

“It’s important to me to help younger people get a head start as they begin their careers,” she says.

Taking Time For Herself and Her Family

Last year, Kerone committed to taking at least one short vacation each month to recharge, which she has enjoyed. She also recently took up snowboarding, a big step after a skiing accident early in her 20s.

But most importantly, Kerone savors the time she spends with her husband and her children, ages 11 and 7, gardening with others on their block in Bedford Stuyvesant. They have replanted trees that had been ravaged by storms and brightened the neighborhood with flowers, efforts that paid off after recently being named “The Greenest Block in Brooklyn.”

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Voice of Experience: Elizabeth Byrnes, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs Engineering

Liz By Cathie Ericson

Elizabeth Byrnes knows that you have to find your voice to be successful in your career. “You can have a great idea but unless you share it by confidently speaking up in the workplace, you won’t be able to effectively influence people and shape outcomes. Engineering is an interactive process — every day teams come up with new ideas and brainstorm together to refine them. When you exhibit passion and enthusiasm for your work, others are excited to work alongside you.”

She says that it took her awhile to find a leadership style that worked well and was consistent with her personality and values. “When I was young, I thought I needed to mimic how others led, but over time I figured out that while I could incorporate qualities I admired in others, I needed to stay true to who I am and incorporate them into my own personal leadership style, which I continue to refine and improve to this day.”

Building a strong, diverse network of colleagues and friends has also been an essential ingredient in Byrnes’ success. “I am more effective when I have people to bounce ideas off and people who have perspectives and skills different than my own. Relationships across our firm and throughout the industry and community at large are super valuable. These are people I can call on to provide advice and help think through and solve hard problems.”

Artificial Intelligence Paves the Way to Wall Street

Byrnes knows first-hand that you’re not always going to be aware of all existing job possibilities initially upon entering the workforce. For example, when she was pursuing her PhD in psychology, she developed an expertise in artificial intelligence and expert systems after analyzing ways to have computers interpret and summarize psychological tests. At the time, most of her colleagues saw computers as number-crunching machines not well suited to the human sciences. But, Byrnes saw an opportunity for computers to help with patient care and speed diagnosis. Not everyone in the psychology industry agreed, she says, and resistance to change was high. “I learned that it’s not enough just to have a great idea, you have to understand how to drive adoption and influence change—a very important lesson!”

After completing her PhD, she joined her professor’s software start-up in the healthcare field before eventually joining Wall Street.

“Wall Street and the financial services industry are very open-minded to technological innovation, which is refreshing and exciting,” she says. “I realized this was an industry I could grow and thrive in, and I have. There is never a shortage of complicated problems to solve and super smart and motivated people to help solve them, which means I am never bored and love my work.”

Upon joining the financial services industry, she initially worked at Manufacturers Hanover and Bankers Trust before joining Merrill Lynch, where she spent 11 years in various technology and leadership roles. She moved to Goldman Sachs in 2007 and today leads the Global Investment Research Technology group.

“When I think about what’s important now in the industry, most roads lead to data. You can’t make decisions without good data, and there has been an increase in appreciation for data modelling, analytics, entitlements and governance,” Byrnes said. “A common thread is ensuring individuals have timely access to the information they need to make informed decisions, while at the same time protecting and safeguarding this data.”

Building a Pipeline by Reaching Girls Before They Opt Out

As co-head of the Americas Women in Technology Network (WIT), Byrnes is committed to growing diverse talent and reaching and inspiring the next generation of women computer engineers. She knows firsthand the importance of building a pipeline – women only comprise 17 percent of computer science graduates in the United States. “We have to build a foundation, and the numbers aren’t where we need them to be. We have to reach back into the junior high schools and high schools to encourage girls to learn to code and to pursue studies in computer science at university,” she says. Meeting this need spurred her to champion Goldman Sachs’ partnership with Girls who Code (GWC).

Goldman Sachs was the first financial services firm to partner with GWC in 2013. Since that initial partnership, Goldman Sachs hosts 40 high school girls each summer at the firm’s New York headquarters. Over 100 WIT volunteers serve as mentors, curriculum advisors, event coordinators and speakers over the summer. “It is a true team effort,” says Byrnes. But this engagement doesn’t stop once the summer program ends. “We can’t just teach them when they’re 16 and then step back, because there are too many opportunities for them to get discouraged along the way,” Byrnes points out.

With her WIT colleagues, she helped create an alumni program to host quarterly meet-ups so the girls have an opportunity to stay connected via a supportive community of friends and role models and continuously learn about technical topics and careers. Over the summer, 80 girls attended an alumni event that focused on cybersecurity.

“Having these students see other women in technical roles is a very powerful way to give young women confidence and introduce them to the community, which is good for the industry overall. We need to reach these girls before they opt out.” Once girls enter the engineering workforce, she encourages them to stay technical. Often, women join the workforce with communications and people skills, and then are routed into project management or business analyst roles too early, which can short circuit their technical learning.

She encourages her colleagues to mentor young women, which she believes is critically important to success and retention. “We have to link arms as a community and help the next generation,” she says. “I felt like I had to make a go of it on my own and it doesn’t have to be that way. We can change the industry by encouraging more young women to enter computer science and then offering the coaching and support system to retain them.”

Byrnes is also active with organizations such as Columbia Girls in STEM and Lesbians Who Tech. She recently attended the annual Grace Hopper conference, which convenes female engineers and students to discuss updates in the industry.

Outside of work, Byrnes enjoys horseback riding with her daughters, playing with her golden retrievers and cooking and entertaining with her husband. “Being with family and friends is the best,” she says.

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