Tag Archive for: People

Voice of Experience: Amanda Rubin, Managing Director, Global co-Head of Brand and Content Strategy, Goldman Sachs

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 By Cathie EricsonAmanda Rubin

“When you work with a group of intelligent and diverse people there are bound to be those who disagree with your opinion, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t speak up,” says Goldman Sachs’ Amanda Rubin.

When first beginning a new position, she recommends focusing on excelling in the fundamentals of your role.  But once you have mastered some of your tasks, Rubin advocates communicating your opinions with confidence. “Sharing a thoughtful opinion backed by good judgment and facts will allow you to differentiate yourself and move forward in a meaningful way,” she says.

As your career progresses, Rubin advises that you are responsible for harvesting talent, and this means allowing junior members on your team to express their points of view: “Remember that your team is looking at you and your actions – from how you treat people and encourage them to be involved in the dialogue to how you engage in your day-to-day activities.”

An Evolving Industry, Ripe For Disruption

After earning her BA in Political Science from Emory University and an MBA from The George Washington School of Government and Business Administration, Rubin dove into the advertising world. She earned positions at top agencies such as Chiat Day, Ogilvy & Mather and DDB Needham Worldwide, where her MBA made her a perfect match with industry-leading financial services clients.

Building on her robust background working with clients in the space, Rubin joined Goldman Sachs’ Brand Marketing and Digital Strategy Group in the late 1990s, eager to parlay her experience into helping to establish the firm’s marketing department. At the time, the firm was just beginning to enhance its external communication efforts as it built its brand in advance of its initial public offering. In support of these efforts, Rubin helped launch Goldman Sachs’ first public website; developed a series of advertising campaigns designed to position Goldman Sachs competitively; and created recruitment marketing materials to further cement the firm as an employer of choice globally.

Almost a decade later as the financial crisis began, Rubin and the team had to evolve their strategy as the firm made a conscious effort to combat an increasingly negative narrative in traditional and social media. “We realized that a lot of people didn’t know what Goldman Sachs does, so we began to actively engage the public in our communication efforts,” she explains.  Previously Goldman Sachs had only targeted a limited set of stakeholders with its marketing outreach, but the crisis became a pivot point in her career as this set of constituents broadened and changed.

“While our approach may be different from other financial services firms who have more of a retail presence, our goal is the same: to demonstrate transparency and share the firm’s purpose and mission.”

Creating her team is the professional achievement Rubin is most proud of to date.  “When I look across the floor and see this talented group of people who are making an impact, it’s gratifying to consider the important role we are playing in shaping the firm’s narrative and explaining the role of Goldman Sachs in the economy and markets.  I am proud of what the team has accomplished and the profile we have earned for the firm.”

As Goldman Sachs has begun its foray into the retail space by taking deposits and making loans, her team has been working closely with the consumer group as they look at new ways to engage and leverage what she describes as “the most innovative toolkit available.”  From Facebook to Twitter, they are constantly seeking new ways to introduce Goldman Sachs’ thinking and expertise to new channels and audiences.

This focus is more important than ever given the general disruption surrounding the intersection of advertising, media and brands.  Previously, each was a separate pillar: a brand would depend on agencies to develop content, which media companies would then distribute.  Now, as brands have the ability to be publishers of content, it allows them to directly share insights with their audience.  “Lines will continue to be blurred, which creates opportunities to establish our own thought leadership platform, distribute content efficiently and partner with new entities,” Rubin says.

Continuous Learning Yields Growth

One reason Rubin has been able to thrive during this time of disruption in the traditional marketing environment is her enjoyment of continuous learning.

“It’s not possible to keep up with changes in this industry if you’re not willing to continuously learn and ask questions, which can be uncomfortable at times,” she acknowledges.  However, she believes being intellectually curious and leveraging talented people is a strength.

In addition to staying abreast of industry changes, Rubin advises that networking is also vital to success in the space.  “That’s the only way you can expand your day-to-day world and contribute in a valuable way to people beyond your immediate sphere,” she says.

An advocate for more formal networking involvement as well, Rubin served as co-chair of the Legal, Compliance, Internal Audit and Executive Office Women’s Network from 2010 to 2014.

“One of the greatest things about Goldman Sachs is our people, and you have a unique opportunity while working here to connect with and learn from a group of incredibly intelligent and accomplished individuals,” she says.

Work and Family: Mutually Beneficial

With two teenagers and a husband, Rubin embraces both her time at work and at home. She finds that being a mom gives her valuable perspective that helps her in the workplace, and in turn, her colleagues give her perspective that helps her be a better mom.

“My kids see me experience highs and lows; they see me working hard and succeeding, but they also see me face challenges, dust myself off and go back to work the next day. I am grateful that work provides me with a platform to teach them these life lessons.”

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Voice of Experience: Leilani Farol, Executive Director, Program Management at J.P. Morgan

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By Cathie Ericson

JP Morgan

“Remember why you were hired, and you will continue to outperform. We brought you in not to conform but to shake things up,” is the advice JP Morgan’s Leilani Farol gives young women.

“Don’t do exactly what your boss does, but do things in a new way that only you can.”

Soft Skills Make the Difference

Leilani is proof that grades aren’t everything. As a self-described C-student, she never let her grades hold her back.

In fact Leilani hoped to parlay her degrees in marketing and computer information services into a position with one of the big companies that was conducting on-campus interviews. She visited one of the IBM recruiters while he was planning for the evening meetings but he told her she wasn’t on the list due to her grades. She persisted, and he said she could talk to him while he prepped for the first real interview; she impressed him so much she got the job.

Her career took off with stops at IBM, 1-800-Flowers, Estee Lauder, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals and finally JP Morgan. This has been her longest tenure to date, a place she has stayed because of the variety of roles within the firm, from tech operations to cybersecurity and her current position in global technology infrastructure.

While she started out as a technical developer, she soon realized her social skills lent themselves to success as a business analyst; Leilani credits these soft skills with being able to attain “unexpected wins” despite her non-traditional background. In an environment where most people rise within the financial industry, she was recently promoted to executive director even though she came into the industry through a different route.

She’s also learned to trust herself. “I could have taken my ‘C-student-ness’ and said that was my path, but I know my ability and what I can offer to any organization so when I was given an opportunity I knew I would take it and run with it. It’s fun to come in every day and be thrown into the deep end.”

One area of particular fascination within the financial industry is technology risk, given the potential for cybersecurity incidents. “We always have to stay diligent with both active and passive plans to address any potential attacks. The hacker’s job is to attack, and mine is to thwart it. It’s a high-stakes game.”

Finding Support As a Woman and LGBT

Leilani counsels women not to put a gender barrier on themselves by assuming they will hit a ceiling. “I encourage them to work on realizing their value as a tremendous asset to the technology industry. You need to get out of your own way and be bold and fearless with all you bring to the table,” she says.

And women need to help one another. One moment that stands out was meeting the CTO who reported to President Obama at a Lesbians Who Tech Conference. At the time Leilani’s six-year-old hated computers, and she was trying to show her the many ways that women were successful in tech. “She gave me her card and asked my daughter to email her. This woman was so busy and did it anyway, and that meant a lot to me.”

In addition to her outside groups, Leilani appreciates the dedicated JP Morgan business resource groups such as Women in Tech and Women in FinTech and notes she’s always been able to find a supportive network of women in technology willing to bring people along.

She also recognizes great strides that have been made in the LGBT movement. She laughs that when she first started in the corporate world, there technically was a LGBT group, yet it was a “secret list.”  Fast forward to 2015 when she co-chaired the Tri State Pride Network, marching her family proudly down Fifth Avenue. “It was positively overwhelming to look around and see the support.

“Being gay is a non-event for me in my corporate life, but it didn’t happen because I did it but because of the fact others paved the way,” she says.

Leilani says that her two daughters, age nine and two, are as different as can be — one more gender nonspecific and the other “a princess.”  She appreciates her wife, who is a psychotherapist and has adjusted her schedule to be with the kids most of the time.

Originally transplanted to the east coast on a volleyball scholarship, she still enjoys sports, particularly following beach volleyball.

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Voice of Experience: Barbra Bukovac, Partner, Vice Chairman, Mid-Central Region, PwC US

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By Cathie Ericsonbarbra

On most mornings, Barbra Bukovac is up before the sun. Running shoes tied, she’s out the door knocking out a few miles before her day gets started–even when her weather app shows temperatures in the single digits during Chicago’s winter months. “You have to get it in when you can,” Bukovac says with a laugh. For Bukovac, her morning runs are usually an opportunity to think through the day ahead and organize her thoughts, from what she wants to accomplish to where her kids need to be and when. In fact, the new Vice Chairman of PwC’s Mid-Central Region equates running to having a career.

Finding Success in Balance

“When you’re out for a run, sometimes the best thing to do is to slow down for a bit and then speed up when you’re ready,” says Bukovac. “I think the same holds true in our professional lives as well. Sometimes we have to pull back and then accelerate forward when the time is right.”

Bukovac’s career with PwC began over 25 years ago as an auditor in Chicago where she supported PwC’s international tax practice during their busy season, working with both U.S. companies expanding their international footprint and foreign companies doing business in the United States. But once she had her first daughter, she left the firm to work for a client, worried that she wouldn’t be able to balance working at a professional services firm with her family.

“Looking back at that time in my life, I made a really big career decision without stopping to consider what might be possible at PwC. In fact, there were options, but I didn’t ask. I just assumed,” Bukovac said. Three years later, when her husband took a job requiring the family to move to Boston, Bukovac considered a potential return to the professional services industry and to her old firm.

But there were still many assumptions that she needed to overcome – mainly in figuring out how she would be able to balance client commitments while running a household and also having a working spouse. “When I returned to PwC as a senior tax manager, it was critical for me to have direct communication about my schedule with my teams, my clients and the partners for whom I worked,” Bukovac said. What she found was that more people were understanding and supportive of her schedule as they had similar situations and could rely on her to get the work done.

The move would eventually pay off for Bukovac as a couple years later, she was named partner in the international tax group. After working as a PwC partner full-time for several years, she challenged her own assumptions again and asked her leaders for an 80 percent work schedule with Fridays off. “With two young daughters, it was important for me to be involved in their classrooms and connect with the other professional moms who were similarly choosing to take a day at home,” Bukovac said.

Throughout the years, she has continued to appreciate the focus PwC places on flexibility, which she says is the reason she’s been able to advance her career and be successful in her different roles, while still feeling positive about the balance she has achieved with her family.

A Passion for Mentoring Women

As proud as Bukovac was to become partner, she says her greatest professional achievement has been helping to promote other partners. She has sponsored five women on their path to partner, and she describes the feeling as “incomparable” to see their accomplishments and how far they’ve come.

In fact, she says that identifying a role model and mentor was one of the defining moments of her career, knowing she had superiors of whom she could ask questions. While it’s important for both men and women, she says it’s even more critical for women, particularly as they work to achieve balance.

She has a particular interest in tempering the notion that women need to leave challenging positions in order to simultaneously fulfill work and family goals. “You don’t have to opt out of promotions or the next step; women often assume they don’t have the ability to achieve those higher roles, without ever asking,” Bukovac says. She notes that at PwC, all partners and staff are encouraged to communicate both their personal and professional goals with their managers and staff as there are many programs and policies in place to support individuals’ choices both in and out of the office.

“The roads we run all have twists and turns along the way. So do our careers. Sometimes it’s best to slow down, and other times we need to speed up. It’s important to remember that there isn’t one right choice and having the right guidance along the way makes all the difference. I wouldn’t be where I am today without the support of my mentors,” Bukovac says.

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Voice of Experience: Lye-Sim Lam, Partner, Asset Management Practice, PwC US

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By Cathie Ericsonvoice of experience

Success comes from your forging your own organic, authentic interactions and experiences, rather than just from conventional networks, says PwC Partner Lye-Sim Lam.

“I have thrived and learned to be resourceful and adapt to many different cultures, and I’ve built a large, diverse network of colleagues and friends from all walks of life, around the world,” she says. This independence came from acclimating to cities where she didn’t have a ready-made safety net in terms of family and friends, and gravitating to people who also have more distinctive journeys and paths, which she finds relatable.

A Fascinating Career Journey

When Lam turned 19, she moved to Belfast and earned her undergraduate degree in accounting at Queens University. She landed an internship at Coopers & Lybrand after participating in what was called the “milk round” where aspiring candidates interview with seven large accounting firms.

After her internship she decided she wanted to move into the financial services industry and reached out to the human resources manager to find opportunities to work on banking engagements. Since Ireland didn’t then have a thriving financial services industry, she was encouraged to look elsewhere. Coincidentally, the HR department had just received a request from the Cayman Island office for a senior associate.

As Lam says, that sounded “so exotic and perfect,” but since it was 1993, they resorted to the encyclopedia and a paper atlas to find out more about it. A promotional blurb proclaimed it as a growing financial service center, where all the largest institutions have registered offices: That sounded promising so she moved there and got her first exposure to the hedge fund industry which was already a prominent fixture in this little island nation.

She enjoyed studying the industry and learning about the strategies of the asset managers, and decided to continue specializing in the field. However, the client base was relatively small and homogenous, andshe realized after several years that there was a repetition in clients. Her desireto diversify within the industryprompted her move to the United States in 2000.

Looking back, she is proud that she took the leap of faith to follow her career abroad, a big departure from her comfort zone after growing up in Malaysia in what she describes as a relatively insular environment, where she didn’t travel much. The move to Ireland had been a big change, and it opened doors to other offices and experiences — eventually landing her in New York, the epitome of the American Dream.

Over the years she has had much success, eventually becoming a partner at PwC in 2009.

Embracing The Confidence That Comes with Age

Lam says that when she hit age 40, she started to develop a greater sense of calm– what she describes as self-awareness and acceptance –to a point where she feels more comfortable in her own skin. She compares the prior feeling to seeing an outfit online and then realizing that while it looks good, it doesn’t feel quite right on you. Fortunately shehas found that is an experience you outgrow as you become more grounded and sure. “I have a great sense of who I am and my boundaries,” she says. “I am more confident in the decisions I make and feel sure-footed even when I move to uncharted waters.”

Right now she finds the industry particularly exciting because of the changes brought on by technology – not just its impact on productivity, but also how the phenomenon impacts upon behavior and languages.

“We see the ramifications in that we are now more productive and efficient, but everyone also expects immediate gratification, which impacts the service industry and clients’ expectations,” she notes.

Now her clients are expected to provide more data quickly and to produce strong returns at a lower cost to their investors. Some of those pressures are, in turn, passed on to their service providers; so the work her team produces has to be delivered quicker and more efficiently at a lower cost basis, yet without jeopardizing quality.

As they all learn to adapt, she says it requires her and her peers to be more agile and embrace a culture shift in terms of being more open to change.

This new reliance on technology will also change the way that the new generation of staff are educated to anticipate the new way of auditing. Lam says that makes her even more proud to work for PwC, as the leaders do an excellent job of looking to the future and equipping the next generation.

Making Progress On Women’s Issues – Slowly

Lam says that unfortunately the challenges of women today are not much different than those her mother’s generation encountered. She finds that women are still at a crossroads when deciding when to start a young family and whether to take a career break. “Caregiving and child care issues still fall squarely on women,” she says, and most women say that the mindset hasn’t moved as quickly as would be expected.

She finds women are still subject to societal biases, and there is a punitive aftertaste when they have to make these choices. “Even the apprehension that surrounds making these decisions tells me that we are not on a level playing field,” she says, adding that although society is making strides, she looks forward to the day when it doesn’t feel like a sacrifice for women to have both a family and career.

One other area where she encourages women to make their own progress is in not minimizing the attributes of females that are beneficial in business, such as creating communities and building networks, lending a helping hand and asking for advice.

She recently dined with a young accountant looking to make a big career change who lamented the lack of recognition from her supervisors and ample rewards for her work, when compared to a male colleague, who tended to be more aggressive, bold and braggadocious to his supervisors.

The young accountant didn’t want to be that way, so Lam reminded her of the beneficial qualities that don’t rely on over-championing your own cause.

Carving Out Free Time

While her life might be balanced, she says her home is a “zoo,” with two Yorkie rescue pups and a cat. Living close to Central Park, she takes advantage of the opportunity to run there to clear her mind.

And, Lam looks forward to the annual pilgrimage to Singapore, where all her immediate family reunite at her mother’s house for two to three weeks. “It takes some juggling to plan, involving three different time zones, but it’s worth all of it to make that trip back home,” she says.

“Even with social media, nothing beats being together in person.”

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Voice of Experience: Tiffany Wirth, Vice President of Healthcare Marketing, WEX

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Success is not defined by the company you work for; rather, it is defined by your own personality and the opportunities you create for your team and tiffany wirth yourself, says WEX Health’s Vice President of Healthcare Marketing Tiffany Wirth.

“It’s a mindset of, ‘Here’s what I am going to do to build the company and my team,’ rather than focusing on what the company can do for you.”

Wirth has a pinnacle of expertise, with a career that started at the “biggest of the big” companies and then pivoted to a startup.

Directly after earning her bachelor’s degree in marketing, Wirth landed a job at Microsoft. “Gaining a background in a several areas at one of the best brands in the world had a huge impact on my career,” she says. Among the areas where she learned the ropes were product marketing, marketing strategy; and segmenting strategy.

Twelve years later, a core team Wirth worked with at Microsoft replicated the brand’s best practices on a much smaller level at a startup. They successfully built a healthcare benefits technology platform organization, which was acquired by WEX, Inc. two years ago. Although there were challenges in moving from one of the world’s biggest companies to a startup, Wirth found that a key component was a focus on partnerships and relationships. “It’s one thing throughout my career path that has been a constant —  helping partners grow their businesses and helping teammates grow in their skillsets.”

And that is the professional achievement she is most proud of to date – building a brand and marketing team from the ground up. “I’ve built my team by focusing on each person’s unique skill set and how collectively we can deliver tremendous results and a positive ROI to WEX Health and our partners,” she says.

A Network as One of the Building Blocks to Career Success

When Wirth first started her career, she assumed that working hard was what mattered most, and that if she succeeded, she would stay in one place for her entire career, if she chose. While that can be true for some, Wirth soon found out there were so many other measures of success.

Wirth says that having a mentor has played a significant role in her successful career. “A mentor can help you so much with challenging yourself to do and achieve more for yourself, your team, and ultimately, your company.”

Additionally, she says, a mentor can help you believe in yourself and build your confidence to excel at stretch assignments and ask for promotions and/or pay increases.

Over the years, Wirth has found the significance of an adage to ring true: Don’t burn your bridges.

As a woman, she says that it’s natural to gravitate to other successful women, such as Sheryl Sandberg and Arianna Huffington, two people she follows closely. She has found their views to be crucial in understanding work/life balance, particularly Huffington’s current focus on the importance of adequate sleep.

Always Achieving Lessons in Leadership

As a leader, Wirth says it’s important to make sure you’re doing the share of work that makes you credible to the team, and that you are quick to share what went well and what can be improved on. However, she feels strongly that it’s not a female leader’s job to be “likeable. but that being authentic and worthy of respect are more important. She points out that one of the most critical  components of leadership is “EQ,” or emotional intelligence, part of which is to hire people smarter than you, and then give them due credit and celebrat their successes.

Wirth is actively working on a mentorship program at WEX Health and finds that one of the biggest learnings has been to encourage mentors and mentees to do things that make them feel uncomfortable: Although that is naturally hard, showing initiative – even if you’re not 100% prepared – will earn opportunities that could otherwise pass a person by if she didn’t jump in. A huge component is listening, which can be much more valuable than always talking.

She appreciates being part of an organization that invests in her leadership: At WEX Health, she finds that the company invests time and resources to ensure directors are successful in their positions, including offering sessions with an executive coach to build their leadership skills for current and future roles.

Personal Time Means Family Time and Focusing on Health

Married with two children, ages 5 and 11, Wirth finds that the most important thing to do in her free time is to spend it with her family, be present and create memories. When she is not spending time with her family, Wirth enjoys running and working out for both mental and physical health, and she focuses on always getting ample sleep.

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Voice of Experience: Paget MacColl, Partner, Investment Management Division, Goldman Sachs

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By Cathie EricsonVoice of Experience

“Develop great friendships at work, across the industry and at every level,” recommends Paget MacColl, Partner at Goldman Sachs. “If you’re working with people you have a strong relationship with every day, work is more rewarding and certainly more enjoyable,” she says.
Through both formal and informal networking, MacColl says she has developed deep, lasting relationships, which she notes are critical to advancing one’s career. She stresses that networking outside the firm can be more challenging but is equally important.

Achieving Success and Sparking Other Young Women’s Ambition

MacColl began her career in Goldman Sachs’ Securities Division Debt Capital Markets Group, which offered broad exposure to various types of investments and clients. In her third year at the firm in 2001, she moved into the Investment Management Division and joined the Alternative Capital Markets Group. Growing on that team, she came to co-lead the group and oversaw fundraising for private equity funds and other alternative investments, a space that experienced tremendous growth from 2001 until 2007. “It was an exciting time to be in this group because of the huge growth in the alternative investment industry. I got to see the height of the market, and then after the financial crisis, I saw the depths that the industry reached. Both provided great learning opportunities.”
In 2012, MacColl took a brief hiatus from the firm to work for a client, a former Goldman Sachs colleague, where she quickly realized that life outside of Goldman Sachs is very different. “The grass is not always greener,” she said. “I call it my five-month dose of perspective.” Due to strong relationships with mentors and sponsors, she returned to Goldman Sachs. Upon her return, MacColl was asked to build out an institutional capital markets team within the Investment Management Division. In this role, she works with investment teams and institutional sales, leading fundraising campaigns for various investing strategies.
In addition, she now oversees the middle-market sales team in GSAM as well as the firm’s relationships with global investment consultants, which she says is an exciting challenge given their high level of sophistication and intricate relationships. “It’s an interesting dynamic; we need to work with consultants collaboratively, yet sometimes we compete with one another.”
MacColl says being named partner is the professional achievement she is most proud of since beginning her career as an analyst. An active mentor and sponsor to other women, she has also been involved in recruiting. “I love seeing the spark in young women’s eyes as they think, ‘I can do that too.’”

Be Master of Your Career

MacColl says it’s important for younger professionals not to assume that managers and decision makers are aware of their career aspirations. “Communication is imperative. You need to communicate what you want and obtain the feedback you need to move forward,” she reminds women. “Finding great mentors, sponsors and friends you trust at work is critical to this, but it’s also important that you’re prepared for and make yourself open to receiving the toughest feedback.”

She also advises women not to be afraid to ask questions. “I learned so much about my career and potential career trajectory, as well as about the firm and how my colleagues viewed me while I was leaving the firm. When I returned, I realized there were so many questions I hadn’t asked the first time around. This is your career and your future and the onus is on you to ask those questions.”

Creating a Village Inside and Outside of Work

MacColl currently heads the Firmwide Women’s Network, which is comprised of 6,000 people in the Americas, 25 percent of whom are men. She is also a member of the Governance Board of the Wall Street Women’s Alliance, a group of senior women leaders at financial firms that come together to foster commercial outcomes, but also provide mentorship and best practices to one another. “It is a network of women I truly value,” she notes.

She also believes that women can be their own toughest critics and they have to remember that it’s impossible to do everything perfectly as they take on more responsibility and become more senior, often while simultaneously raising a family.

“I frequently see women put pressure on themselves to achieve ‘perfection’ in every aspect of their lives, which can be isolating and destructive. When you share your challenges with others, you realize everyone is facing similar issues and it makes you more accessible and helps you reframe your own reality. You can’t possibly do it all, and you have to remind yourself it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

Her strong family life is bolstered by longevity: she met her husband, who works at Credit Suisse, in college. In addition to two daughters, aged ten and five years old, they have an eight-year-old son.

In an engaging example of the adage, “It takes a village,” they live near their tight-knit families, including her two sisters who live on her same street. “My husband’s siblings and my sisters have kids that are all of similar ages. As you can imagine, we spend a ton of time together,” she says. “We’ve created our own village and are fortunate that ours is family, but I’ve come to realize that anyone who wants a long and successful career needs to find a community of people who can support them.”

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Voice of Experience: Denise Landman, CEO, Victoria’s Secret Pink

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Denise LandmanDenise Landman is CEO of Victoria’s Secret Pink, a $2 billion specialty retail brand marketed to college girls. She is carefully crafting a culture of integrity and trust at her organization while finding innovative ways to engage with her target customers.

True North

“I personally have a fiduciary responsibility to create value for my organization and a secure future for my business leaders,” said Landman. “Leadership is a conscious effort. It is a muscle to develop and build, and requires deep introspection. People become leaders when they decide for themselves what and who they will be.”

“For me,” continued Landman, “the best leaders have emerged as being very authentic. Authentic leaders are guided by an inner compass, or true north. Your integrity is what creates a sense of community in the organization that ultimately translates to performance.”

“Building a culture of honesty can only create positive outcomes,” said Landman. “I make mistakes as well. None of us are mistake-proof. It is often that you learn the most through your mistakes. I embrace those mistakes when they occur in my organization.”

How to Market to College Girls

Many people involved in branding want to go straight to product development.

Landman, on the other hand, needed to spend more time thinking about the characteristics of the college girl. “I needed to define her for myself. I would not allow designers to design anything until we had a clear sense of what this eighteen year old girl wants,” said Landman. “Eighteen year old girls are still young and naive, and, in other respects, preparing to be the women they will be in the future. It is a fragile age. I have to go back to what it means to be an eighteen year old, and how to translate this understanding into a product.”

Learning Your Craft

Landman spent the early days of her career perfecting the fundamentals. “It was only when I knew I could be effective with my career choice that I strive for higher levels of responsibility,” said Landman. “I couldn’t have put myself out there if I didn’t have the right stuff. I am a big proponent of honing your craft and knowing what you are talking about.”

Work-Life Integration

Landman adopted two sons (one from Russia and one from Ohio) when she was 50. When asked about work-life integration, Landman said that she and her husband made the decision that he would stay at home and she would continue with her career. “It is such a personal journey, and there is no one blueprint or roadmap to follow,” stressed Landman.“I am learning a lot about how to be the best mom while also being whole and effective in my professional life.It is hard.”

By Hua Wang

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Voice of Experience: Meredith Addy, National Chair Patent Litigation, Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP

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Meredith AddyMimi Addy is probably the only artist/electrical engineer/lawyer/MBA you will ever meet. And each part of that description represents an interesting facet that has contributed to her successful and varied career.

Addy initially earned a degree in electrical engineering for one important reason: she recognized the value of being financially independent, and when researching which careers were the most lucrative, engineering came out on top. To maintain a balance, she combined it with a double major in something about which she is passionate — art.

After graduation, she decided to parlay her technical education into a career that was more “people-facing” than a typical engineering career and pursued law school to become a patent lawyer.

New Degrees, New Opportunities

With the ‘90s recession in full swing, Addy’s background as an electrical engineer lawyer gave her an advantage, and she joined Willian Brinks Olds Hofer Gilson & Lione (“Brinks”). She remembers how privileged she felt to be an associate at the large, established intellectual property firm and worked there for 17 years.

While an associate at Brinks, she returned to school at John Marshall Law School to earn her LLM in intellectual property, which introduced her to new areas of law, but one of the biggest benefits was the networking opportunities the school offered. Her teachers were federal judges and top practitioners, and she also forged meaningful relationships with her peers that have paid off as they have risen in the industry.

One important connection she made was with the Honorable Paul Michel, a federal appellate judge specializing in patent cases. She told him that if he ever needed a law clerk, she would love to be considered, and a year later, his office contacted her about an opening, which she applied for and earned.

“That clerkship really focused my career,” she recalls, adding that it was a bold move that put her on a new path.

After a year in Washington, D.C., she returned to private practice at Brinks where she focused on federal appeals in patent cases. She was named a partner in 2000 and stayed there until 2011 when it appeared the firm was going in a divergent direction. “Because of the great people, I would have loved to have stayed at Brinks for my entire career, but I got to a point where I needed something different than the firm was able to offer.”

She had learned that she enjoyed the process of managing, building and growing teams so turned her attention to finding an opportunity where she could run a practice. She moved to Steptoe & Johnson’s Chicago office as managing partner and head of their office, which she doubled in size during her tenure.

“It was fun to be collaborating with the people whom you respect in the community and whose company you also enjoy,” she says.

While there, she started to note that the practice of law was changing and that individual skills were no longer enough to gain an advantage so she returned to school and earned her MBA at the University of Chicago. “At various points in my career, different accomplishments appear to be my biggest achievement, but right now it’s earning that MBA because it reinvigorated my interest in my career and in new ways that I could succeed.”

She then landed at Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, which was looking for someone to chair and grow the patent litigation group, and she was eager to apply her managerial skills to running the practice and large litigation teams.

Along with her legal work, Addy is currently focused on trying to develop a new model for reviewing and billing legal services. “Most clients are looking for a better way to forecast to management what the legal costs should be,” she says.

Women in the Legal Field

Addy believes that there are issues that will always make it harder for professional women than men. “If I’m the one having the child, I have to take time to be with the child, and that will affect my career path. Life is about choices: You can’t have it all, all of the time, but if you plan well, you can do a lot,” she says. “Even in today’s legal practice, however, there are subliminal biases you can’t get rid of, and no matter how hard we try to level the playing field, women will always be working harder.”

As a lawyer and former engineer, she understands firsthand the importance of encouraging more women to pursue careers in male-dominated industries. She sees a need for more networking-based women’s groups for mentoring and business development opportunities. “We can be successful in the system as it is, but women need to help women,” she says, adding “We network differently than men do, and that’s a fact.”

Addy, who wishes she had had the confidence and assertiveness when starting out that she developed later on, feels passionately that women need to be taught to be assertive because you will never get what you want unless you ask for it, even pursue it. “People will notice your good work, but that’s not enough. You have to ask for assignments and opportunities and put yourself out there. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no.”

On the Home Front

Addy still embraces the creative side of her nature, saying that creating and collecting art relaxes her mind and enhances her legal career. But her best stress relief? Her daughters, Jackie, age 14, and Meaghan, age 12: “fantastic athletes, outgoing girls and my buds.”

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Voice of Experience: Susanne V. Clark, General Counsel, Senior Managing Director; Centerbridge Partners, L.P.

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Susanne V. Clark“Be brave. Take smart risks. Recognize that you belong at the table.” For Susanne Clark of Centerbridge Partners, those are three key elements for women who aspire to success in the professional world.

Clark has lived the philosophy of “smart risks,” with a career path that has involved a series of decisions to step outside of her comfort zone, each of which added a new layer of experience.

She began her career as a capital markets lawyer at Shearman & Sterling and after a few years joined Goldman Sachs in its Investment Banking Division, which expanded her responsibilities and skills to the broad range of investment banking services. She later joined a team working for Goldman’s public parent company, which extended her responsibilities and had the benefit of allowing her to see the business through an even broader lens, interacting with all of Goldman’s divisions including sales and trading, prime brokerage, research and asset management.

She became increasingly curious about asset management from Goldman’s dealings with fund clients, took a leap and reached beyond her historical skill set to join Amaranth Group, her first experience working directly for an investment adviser. From there, she took her first general counsel role at Basso Capital Management, which she found was a perfect place to learn how to hold her own as a general counsel. From there, she joined Centerbridge Partners, a private investment firm that manages capital for the world’s most prominent pensions, endowments and foundations, where she is a Senior Managing Director and the firm’s chief legal officer. In each case, she let the excitement of a new challenge overtake the fear of failure.

At Centerbridge, she has designed and developed its Legal & Compliance department, which she credits as the professional achievement she is most proud of so far, having built the department from the ground up, but with ample credit to her team for their role in the department’s success. “We have a diverse team of professionals who are dedicated to each other and their work. It is a pleasure to step back and observe how capable they are,” Clark said.

Confidence Counts

Clark knows that it’s good to be humble, but cautions women not to confuse humility with unhelpful and unnecessary self-deprecation. She says that early in her career, she wrote in a self-evaluation that she needed to “gain confidence in her new role.” Although her intent was just to set personal goals, that comment found its way into the next year’s review – “Be more confident.” Clark recalls. “Seeking to convey that I was eager to learn, I unwittingly created a false impression that I was unsure of myself. It was a good lesson to have learned early on.”

An Ideal Industry for Women

Clark finds there is an inaccurate presumption that the asset management industry is a man’s world. “In fact, investment firms are a great place for women because there is no glass ceiling. In general most asset management firms are meritocracies where success is defined and driven by one’s work product and results,” she says. “It’s a dynamic industry that offers great career mobility for motivated professionals who do excellent work.”

Making an Impact

She has been following recent studies on board composition, which show that better decision making occurs on boards of directors that include women. And she has started to see more and more women in the GC seat within the fund industry. “It excites me to see these high-impact women at complex firms who are doing a great job for their firms.”

During her early years in large organizations, she participated in and benefitted from programs that focused on career development. At other firms, she finds the approach may be more organic, but equally powerful provided that the organization is focused on the growth of its professionals, as is the case at Centerbridge. Whether large or small, she believes that firms benefit from good managers who prioritize the career development of others.

Outside of the firm, Clark participates in various mentoring platforms and professional peer groups – including a few for C-suite women – where she has “made many long-standing friendships.” She notes that “These groups provide a context for exchanging professional insights, sharing pitfalls and triumphs, establishing connections and collecting wisdom that covers the full career arc.” Among Clark’s favorite mentoring moments was the fast-paced award-winning Minute Mentoring® program, which she describes as speed dating for career success.

Clark’s philanthropic activities are largely focused on education, including sitting on the board of an independent school in Connecticut. She also participates in a foundation that focuses on education. Though it’s not limited to girls, the group benefits girls as well as boys by helping them develop their confidence and a wide range of life skills.

By Cathie Ericson

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Intrepid Women: Sandy Chaikin, Co-Founder of Chaikin Analytics

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Sandy ChaikinFrom cosmetics to commodities to travel and tourism, Sandy Chaikin has successfully re-invented herself and her career.Starting in marketing roles, she fine-tuned her skills to open her own consulting firm and a Bed & Breakfast in Connecticut.When the stock market fell in 2008 and she lost 40% of her investments, Chaikin decided it was time to transform once again. After co-founding Chaikin Analytics in 2009, she is now helping other women re-invent themselves as confident and profitable stock market investors.

After graduating from the University of Denver with degrees in Sociology and Psychology, Chaikin moved to New York and started her career in the cosmetics industry.She held senior marketing roles at L’Oreal and Elizabeth Arden. Chaikin then moved to her home-town, Philadelphia, and took a marketing role at The Franklin Mint.

“Marketing a service or product is the same formula in any industry – identify your audience, have a unique product, know how to promote, package and price your service,” she said.

In 1995, Chaikin moved to Connecticut and opened her own marketing consulting firm. It was also around this time that she segued into the travel and tourism business by opening a Bed and Breakfast.

“My personal experience owning a B&B attracted other inns and before I knew it, my consultancy was 100% focused on travel and tourism.You have to be immersed in something to market it and that’s why I was so successful, because it was my business, too.I was an innkeeper and I knew from my own experience how to market an inn – I knew what worked and what didn’t – which I then applied to my clients’ businesses.”

During her days as an innkeeper and marketing consultant, Chaikin invested in mutual funds.

“As my consulting business grew so did my 401K plan and I didn’t feel I had the inclination or knowledge to manage this myself,” she said. “On a recommendation, I met with a portfolio manager and hired a professional.”

When the markets fell in 2008, Chaikin became concerned about her investments.

“I asked him repeatedly if we should make some changes to my portfolio,” she recalled. “I remember calling him several times but he advised me to hold on to the investments. I didn’t have the confidence to over-ride his judgment.”

Chaikin ended up losing 40% of her 401K.

“This was a devastating turning point because I thought I was doing the right thing,” she said. “When you need advice, you go to a professional so I was upset this professional didn’t help me.I took the money out of his control and was determined to do this on my own.I put my money in Vanguard and started investing it myself.”

The Birth of Chaikin Analytics

Sandy’s personal losses in the stock market using a financial advisor was the inspiration behind the launch of Chaikin Analytics. She knew there was a need in the marketplace for novice investors like herself to have access to investment tools that professionals used so she could take control of her own investments.

Partnering with her husband, Marc Chaikin, a 40-year Wall Street veteran, they founded Chaikin Analytics.

“Before he retired, my husband Marc created tools for institutional investors on Wall Street.In 2009, he watched as millions of dollars were coming out of brokerage firms and into self-managed accounts like mine,” she explained.“We decided to take the tools he created for the pros and apply them to individual investors.”

The Chaikin Analytics model takes into consideration 20 different factors that professionals analyze when looking at a stock and boils everything down to one easy-to-understand rating.The ratings categorize a stock as bullish, bearish or neutral.The Chaikin Power Gauge model is also one of the only models that blends technical indicators with fundamentals. Most investors use either technical indicators OR fundamentals – Chaikin’s blends the two.

“I spend about 15 minutes a day monitoring my account and only invest in about 8-10 stocks at a time,” she explained.“I started investing in Comcast and Ebay, both had a bullish rating, and they went up 40-60%, so I was off to a good start. I also picked the two best-performing stocks in 2014, Southwest Air (LUV) and Skyworks (SWKS), and found them early on. I also knew when to get out at the top. 90% of my investments are in individual stocks.”

Chaikin said that if she can manage her own investments with no prior experience, other women can do this too.

Empowering Women in the Stock Market

While Chaikin Analytics is for all types of investors, she targets female baby boomers as well as emerging women.

Focusing on female investors is a smart move.According to BMO Wealth Institute, women currently control 51%, or $14 trillion, of personal wealth in the United States and are expected to control $22 trillion by 2020.

Chaikin Analytics is collaborating with NASDAQ to present frequent webinars educating their audience, of all levels, on how to invest in the market. Her curriculum includes knowing what to buy and sell, timing the ideal exit and entry points, how to avoid common pitfalls as well as how to shed insecurities about investing.

Chaikin cited a study done by Fidelity that only 28% of women feel confident making decisions about their financial investments on their own.This means that 72% of women don’t feel they have the knowledge to participate in the stock market.

“I have found that women are overwhelmed with financial information and find the stock market off-putting, which is believable because I found the stock market like that too. This is why we created this system, it puts everything together in one neat package…. I break it down to following 5 simple steps to build a killer portfolio.”

Besides collaborating to produce webinars, NASDAQ asked Chaikin Analytics to create 3 indices for the Exchange; the NASDAQ Chaikin Power US Large Cap Index, the NASDAQ Chaikin Power US Small Cap Index and the NASDAQ Power US Dividend Achievers.All the indices outperformed in 2014 by 52%, 77% and 49% respectively.

“We took the stocks that are in those funds, overlayed the Chaikin Power Gauge model, and then removed the non-performing stocks,” she explained. “We re-balance once a year.”

Chaikin e

xplains that the NASDAQ webinar collaboration is a pilot program and they hope to expand to other investor communities soon. Her most recent webinar has attracted about 900 attendees.

“Just like marketing an inn, you have to immerse yourself in the stock market if you want to be credible.This is why my webinars are so powerful,” she explained.“I use stocks I invest in as examples – I am one of them.”

Most Proud Accomplishment

While Chaikin has been able to reinvent and transform herself successfully throughout the years, she said conquering her insecurities about stock market investing is her greatest accomplishment.

“This was the one area of my life that I felt I didn’t manage successfully,” she said.“It’s great to have a profitable portfolio and to be making money investing. However, the benefit you can’t put a price on is the tremendous amount of confidence that you get by managing your money and your future.”

Chaikin will continue to produce webinars and help women gain the knowledge and confidence to manage their own investments.After re-inventing herself and her career throughout the years, she believes other women can transform themselves as well.

“It doesn’t matter how old you are,” she said. “Never stop learning and transitioning.”

By, Jessica Titlebaum

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