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Voice of Experience: Michelle Nyberg, Vice President, Services Division, Goldman Sachs

Michelle NybergIn our final profile covering Pride voices this June, Michelle Nyberg comments on the importance of diversity, her role as co-head of Australia & New Zealand affinity network Gays, Lesbians and Mates, and managing Australia and New Zealand’s Services footprint.

“Diversity is an asset and a valuable contribution to a large organization such as Goldman Sachs,” notes Michelle Nyberg, a vice president in the Services Division at Goldman Sachs’ Sydney office. “Junior women should not be swayed by misconceptions that the financial services industry is searching for ‘cookie-cutter’ candidates – it’s important to be yourself because everyone brings something new and different to the table.”

Over the course of her 16-year career at Goldman Sachs, Nyberg has sought to share her own unique views during a tenure that has spanned both the Operations and Services divisions. In 1997, Nyberg joined the Operations Division in Melbourne as an analyst. During that time period she worked for JBWere, an Australian and New Zealand stock brokerage firm that later formed a joint venture with Goldman Sachs and was fully acquired by the firm in 2011. Within six months, her manager was reassigned, and she took the initiative to express her interest in a leadership role.

“I didn’t have any experience managing a team, but I raised my hand to lead the team for a period of six months – to my surprise my request was approved,” says Nyberg. “What I learned through that experience is if you’re prepared to work hard and take risks, people will support you and provide you with new opportunities.”

Providing the Best Work Experience and Environment for Colleagues

Nyberg, who went on to lead the Operations team in Sydney before moving to the Services Division, then transitioned to overseeing a range of projects, including the JBWere integration and the renewal of the firm’s corporate leases in Sydney and Melbourne. “The opportunity to renew corporate leases for a firm like Goldman Sachs only occurs about every 10 years,” notes Nyberg. “I feel lucky to have been involved in such a complex project that affects our people’s day-to-day experience.”

Today, Nyberg’s role has expanded further and she is involved in evaluating and enhancing the region’s environmental, social and governance framework to support responsible operational practices and supply chain while increasing building efficiencies. This is in addition to real estate-related projects, such as providing Goldman Sachs people with modern workspaces. “My team is making tangible changes in people’s work environment, while fostering a culture of risk management to adjust business practices and driving commerciality, and it’s really exciting to lead these efforts,” says Nyberg. “Our division’s mission statement is to create the world’s best work experience and environment for the people of Goldman Sachs. I take that to heart and approach all my projects with that mindset.”

Furthering Diversity and Inclusion in Australia & New Zealand

In addition to managing the firm’s Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) real estate footprint and corporate services, Nyberg has served for the past eight years as co-head of the Gays, Lesbians and Mates (GLaM) affinity network in ANZ, which brings together members and allies of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex (LGBTI) community.

As co-head, Nyberg has overseen the growth of the network to include 55 percent of Goldman Sachs’ ANZ people, helped provide leadership with tools to develop inclusive teams, offered training for LGBTI allies and reverse mentoring and organized numerous educational external speaker sessions featuring individuals in the LGBTI community, including Olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe. Nyberg notes that she is not afraid to push the boundaries to ensure challenging topics are discussed in order to educate Goldman Sachs people in ANZ, and says that one of her proudest professional achievements has been “seeing GLaM grow by fostering a sense of community for members and allies of the LGBTI community.” She also notes that Goldman Sachs’ receipt of the 2014 “Employer of the Year” award in the Australian Workplace Equality Index Awards was another exciting moment.

To that end, this year Nyberg was nominated for the Australian LGBTI Inclusion Awards “Network Leader of the Year” by senior leaders in Australia in recognition for her leadership of GLaM. “It was a big honor to be nominated for this award,” says Nyberg. “As someone who was not out at the office for more than a decade, I know how important it is to bring your whole self to work to perform your best.”

She notes that she was initially inspired to come out to her colleagues after attending a firmwide townhall that celebrated the launch of Goldman Sachs’ diversity program in ANZ. During the event a video was played featuring a female managing director in the Securities Division, who was openly gay at work. Nyberg ultimately connected with her over coffee, and as a result of their conversation says: “I felt comfortable enough to come out in the workplace however, there is still more work to be done. Today, I aim to serve as a role model and be accessible to folks across the firm as they navigate their own journey.”

Outside of the Office

Outside of the office, Nyberg enjoys wine tasting, and has installed a wine cellar in her basement. In addition, she loves to be active, making every effort to carve out time throughout the week to visit the gym. Nyberg, who recently married her partner of 15 years – after Australia allowed same sex marriage –is looking forward to honeymooning in Italy and Croatia this summer with her wife.

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Mover & Shaker: Nicole Poteat, Vice President and Private Client Advisor, Bank of America Private Bank

Nicole PoteatBy Cathie Ericson

Before finding her current position, Nicole Poteat was unsure there was a career in finance that would allow her to truly bring her full self to the table.

Now, as a Private Client Advisor with Bank of America Private Bank she has a strong institution behind her, but also plays the role of entrepreneur, allowing her to combine her professional and intellectual drive with her personal interest in building relationships and helping others thrive.

“It’s important for young professionals to remain open to the idea that even if the seat they are currently in is not a fit, there is still a path out there that will capitalize on the different facets of their passions and abilities. They just have to remain vigilant about seeking it.”

Finding a Passion in Client Service

Fortunately Poteat was able to find that path. She studied government at Harvard and then graduated from Boston College Law School, starting her career in the government and non-profit space. At the same time, her wife Emilie was finishing a PhD and studying the sharing economy, which piqued Nicole’s interest in how companies thrive in today’s environment. That led her to look into a position with Goldman Sachs as a summer associate, subsequently joining the firm full-time after graduation. While her “bigger picture” enterprise strategy role offered lots of opportunity for growth, she realized she missed having a direct impact and forming client relationships; therefore, when she was approached by a recruiter from U.S. Trust, she transitioned to the private banking world where she has been for almost two years.

The position has been an ideal match for her talents and interest. “One of the reasons I love this role is that I can support the development and careers of people doing fascinating work without having to solely focus on one niche industry,” she says, noting that she works with professional such as doctors, founders and investors. “My clients are solving so many interesting problems—often with groundbreaking products—and it’s exciting to be able to support them and help them navigate their lives and their personal wealth as they experience professional success. Many of them are diverse, and it’s particularly satisfying to work with this population who hasn’t historically been in touch with the private banking world.”

Poteat says that one of the biggest looming assumptions when she left law school and started her career was that a transition into the corporate world meant an unsustainable lifestyle with unmanageable work hours. While she has experienced this at times in her career, she has also found a path to sustainability by “developing a career I’m passionate about where the work doesn’t feel like work—it’s a vocation. I love what I do so the time I am spending on it feels exciting and challenging rather than unmanageable.”

And, she says, the key is to be thoughtful about what you want to do—from impact to responsibilities—and then identify where your skills match up to those desires and how that can be applied professionally.

The Process of Finding a Mentor

Early in her career, Poteat would hear people talk about the end product of having great sponsors or mentors, without being explicit about what it took to develop those relationships. “It was a process to learn that there’s no ‘easy bake oven,’ one-size-fits-all strategy to getting the right mentor for you.” And, she points out, it seems especially daunting when all you’re hearing is the end result…the big difference that this one person made in a career.

Now, she has found, the journey to form those strong relationships has to begin with a context where people are ready to see you and what you can offer and even from there, other things need to line up. “Ultimately it’s about finding someone who wants to see you in that way (as a mentee) and cares about you and your career and wants to support you.”

And that can take a lot of conversations to find the people who are going to be willing to support you and fully see you. Poteat is proud that she has found such relationships by forging those conversations, which has led to a cadre of mentors at her current firm, including her manager and colleagues, as well as people from other contexts of her life, such as David Beatty, a friend and founder of Gaingels, an angel-investing group.

She is particularly appreciative of the opportunity to learn from women who blazed trails as the “first” women in the room; noting that her cousin, Jeannette, was one such trailblazer. Jeannette Loeb was the first female Partner at Goldman Sachs. Poteat has been fascinated by the tales she’s heard of those early days and what it was like to be effective in spaces that were built for, and up until that point had only been filled by, men.

She feels fortunate to work for a company like Bank of America that actively works to stay modern by putting diverse teams in place to serve a wide variety of clients. “It’s not the old-school bank of the past, but one that looks like the clients of today, and I’ve benefited from their efforts to be awake to that need.”

A Full Life Outside Work

Poteat is a member of Gaingels, an angel investing group focused on companies with LGBT representation at the C-suite level. She is an active philanthropist, having endowed the Michael Poteat Global Education Scholarship at Elon University in memory of her brother. The scholarship benefits students living with chronic illness, allowing them to experience internships and study abroad, thus hopefully setting them on a path to find a career “click” for their interests. She is also a board member of the Ackerman Institute for the Family, the family therapy non-profit.

She and her wife Emilie live in Westchester with their two golden retrievers, Charlie and Eliot, and recently announced that they will be joined by two more family members when their twins arrive this fall.

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Op-Ed: A journey from visibility to engagement and action

Kelly Widelska
In 2011, The Glass Hammer featured me in one of their articles as a rising star, I had realized then that the personal choice I had made to be out in the workplace was a critical part of my confidence; and that being authentic and bringing all of myself to work was part of my value proposition to an organization.

Eight years later, as my career has progressed into more senior positions, that value proposition remains a truth for me and for my success. My choice to be out – and having a supportive environment in which to be out – gave me one less thing to worry about, so I could focus my attentions on what mattered – managing the trials and tribulations of running global programs and their teams.

Out for others

I have always been an advocate for role models in organizations to help lead changes in approaches and attitudes. As a role model, I can be out for others, using my seniority to hopefully give people greater confidence to be themselves. I still believe that it is important to see yourself growing and developing within an organization and out visibility by senior leadership is critical to encouraging LBTI women as their career develops.

Working in an international organization, despite being in a bubble in Washington DC, I remain mindful of the reality of the challenges of being LGBTI in the 170 countries in which the World Bank Group is present around the world. Working as part of GLOBE (our LGBTI Employee Resource Group), we support our staff who may be working in countries where being LGBTI is criminalized or stigmatized. For example, we have worked with HR to ensure that LGBTI staff members who may be posted to challenging countries have i) a choice to discuss declining the position, without a negative impact on their career and ii) an understanding of how the World Bank Group will keep them and their family safe. We embrace the “Embassy model” of LGBTI inclusion meaning it doesn’t matter where in the world you are, we will implement and enforce protective policies and LGBTI-supportive measures, and we are working hard to make that a tangible reality for all our staff.

Out for global impact

It is an interesting time to be working in global development. The World Bank Group approaches exclusion based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) through its commitments on gender equality and social inclusion. The links between gender equality and development are well established in the World Development Report 2012. Social Inclusion is key to achieve the World Bank Groups twin goals of eradicating extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity. Specifically, sexual and gender minorities are particularly important because they are likely overrepresented in the bottom 40%. While robust data is scarce, the existing evidence indicates that LGBTI groups have worse education outcomes due to bullying and stigma, higher unemployment rates, as well as lack of access to adequate health services, housing and financial services.

I now represent IFC on the World Bank Group SOGI taskforce. A multi-sectoral group set up to advance SOGI issues and to scale-up research, programs, and staff trainings. We are looking at ways that the IFC can support the private sector in this undertaking.

Joining the SOGI taskforce has been a great opportunity for me – outside of my day job – to understand at a deeper level the many issues and challenges that LGBTI people face in and outside of the workforce. My participation has helped me to develop new knowledge and skills.

I am only beginning to really understand how complicated human structures are – and how fragile organizations and economies are despite being the backbones of societies around the world. This fragility underlines my continued belief that role modelling is still critical to the implementation of changes that we want to see in the world for all. Ensuring that no person is left behind, as per the promise of the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development goals.

About the Author:

Kelly Widelska is the Global Head of Knowledge & Learning for the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group and the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. She is also a member of the World Bank Group Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) Taskforce.

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Voice of Experience: Noriko Umeki, Partner, PwC Japan

Noriko Umekiby Cathie Ericson

When reflecting on her career, Noriko Umeki wishes she had known earlier the importance of communication, as well as using personal marketing to further her endeavors.

“One day I realized that I wouldn’t be evaluated highly just because I was working on the job in front of me. People who get chances for better positions display a high level of interpersonal abilities so it’s important to expand your network both inside and outside the company by letting people know about you,” she says.

“Each one of us has to seize our opportunities, and in Japan, women are less aware about this concept unfortunately.” However, she adds, over the past years, there have been small but significant strides with the ratio of female managers gradually improving from 2% when she started her career to 12% in Japan.

Increasing Her Profile at PwC and in the Accountant Community

Umeki started her career at PwC as a Japanese Certified Public Accountant (JCPA) and has engaged in accounting services for the past 25 years, becoming a partner in 2009. Her experience in audit services includes both Japanese and foreign companies in the financial service, manufacturing and pharmaceutical industries.
As an ally, Umeki voluntarily became involved in Diversity & Inclusion activities for PwC Japan Group when she became a partner. In the past decade, she has expanded the firm’s D&I activities, improving D&I awareness and cultivating an inclusive culture at PwC Japan. She considers this an important achievement, given that the World Economic Forum has ranked Japan as 110th in the 2018 Gender Gap Report, highlighting that this issue is an ongoing challenge for Japanese companies.

To that end she has focused on producing female leaders, fostering female juniors and promoting support for LGBT+ members at PwC Japan.

In addition to her work with PwC, Umeki has assumed the post of director at Japan Institute of Certified Public Accountants (JICPA) this coming summer. “I am getting very excited to work on whatever I can do to contribute to development of JICPA,” she says. “The job of experts in accounting should be of social significance, and I would very much like to appeal to society so that young brilliant people will know the attractiveness of J-CPAs and be willing to join us.” And, she says, that will include encouraging young female accountants to join the industry, given that the percentage of female J-CPAs is still very low—at only around 20% in Japan.

An Appealing Career

Umeki believes it’s important for young female professionals to realize that they can successfully continue an accounting career through lots of life events.

“One of the attractions in this profession is that we are able to enhance our value through work and to differentiate ourselves from others since we are required to have a deep knowledge and wide experience,” Umeki says. She recommends that women seek their own leadership style and find the work/life balance that works for them.

Sometimes she sees Japanese women hesitating to take higher positions, yet she notices that many males are becoming increasingly supportive. “We females should change our own awareness and try anything when we are given the opportunity, finding the courage to take the next step,” she says.

Fostering a More Inclusive Culture

The biggest value Umeki has received in becoming an ally for the LGBT+ community is that her perspective has become much wider. “I remember being deeply shocked when I realized that I myself, as a woman, had been discriminating against other minorities unconsciously,” she says. “I was astonished to realize how many people are bound by old stereotypes and customs, but after becoming an ally, I have come to think more about the true nature of the situation. Putting myself in somebody’s shoes is very helpful in my career, as well as in my private life,” Umeki says.

She urges others to deepen their understanding about the LGBT+ community by attending related events or seminars, which will bring D&I issues to light and encourage personal action.

Among some of the advances that have been taken by PwC Japan Group to foster an inclusive culture are establishing an internal network for LGBT+ colleagues and allies. “When companies provide a safe environment, people are able to fulfill their potential to be their best since they will feel safe to be accepted as they are. “ And, Umeki notes, it can help companies attract and retain talented personnel.

She recommends that companies make a point to create that inclusive culture, but also to establish the same benefits for LGBT+ couples as for same-sex marriage, even though Japan does not yet have the necessary legal system.

Trying One New Thing Every Year

Since turning 40, Umeki has made a policy to try one new thing every year; among the new activities she has tried are fishing, yoga, boxing, calligraphy and golf, and she plans to use her accounting acumen to add activities that contribute to issues on women and society.

“I believe that it is never too late to start something when we are supposed to live for 100 years,” she notes.

And although she already cites her most important personal achievement as becoming partner at PwC while raising her two children without suspending her career, she says that from now on, she intends to pursue her career and private life in her own way. “I will enjoy life more,” she says.

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Mover & Shaker: Helen Campbell, Management Consultant, Implement Consulting Group

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Helen Campbell_1209by Cathie Ericson

A career that allowed Helen Campbell to live and work in multiple countries gave her a unique view into culture and the way it should impact your working life.

For example she had always assumed that it was important to fit in and adhere to the company values, which was reinforced with her first professional role in Japan, where the culture was still then very much about dedicating yourself to a company for life.

“I realize now that especially in consulting, it should not be about signing up to a company’s way of working, but rather that by joining a company you should change and add to it and bring your own uniqueness to it,” she says.

A Career Spanning Multiple Countries and Roles

Campbell studied electrical engineering at Queen’s University of Belfast, as well as Japanese as she hoped to visit Japan. Her chance came at a career fair at the university, where she learned about an Irish government program that supported Irish graduates finding a job in Japan with companies that had a link with Ireland. She got a job with Fujikin, a Japanese manufacturing company, and flew to Japan with 16 other Irish graduates.

As the first female and non-Japanese engineer the company had hired, there was quite a bit of adjustment on both sides, but Campbell worked for them for six years—two in Japan, one in Dusseldorf in Germany and three in London, in a variety of roles that included engineer, key account manager and project manager. Realizing that was the role she enjoyed the most, she decided to look for another position where she could develop these skills and joined QinetiQ, a UK defense company, where she managed a range of defense and commercial projects and travelled to countries like Jordan and Brunei.

It was there that Campbell interacted with several consultants and became interested in the opportunity that consultancy provides to be part of transformational projects. She joined PwC in London in their Portfolio and Programme Management consulting practice and worked there for eight years, including transferring to Stockholm with them in December 2016.

Last year she decided it was time to try something new and left PwC to join Implement Consulting Group, a Nordic consultancy, as a senior consultant.

The company is growing rapidly and thus feels very entrepreneurial even with around 900 employees, Campbell notes. As it’s not as well-known in Sweden as Denmark, she is excited about growing the business, especially around supporting clients with the delivery of their largest and most complex transformations.

Starting an LGBT Network, Which Started a Movement

While her career has held an impressive mix of managing large efforts like a merger of two airlines’ finance functions and large-scale IT implementations, what Campbell is most proud of is the feedback she gets from junior consultants with whom she has worked. “I really enjoy teaching others and encouraging them to stretch themselves on projects, and because of that I’ve helped many consultants achieve promotions, which is extremely rewarding,” she says.

While working for PwC, Campbell co-founded the LGBT network for the UK; along with a small team she built a strong network—called GLEE@PwC (Gays, Lesbians and Everyone Else)—and developed a brand around it. That included hosting high-profile client events, where they got a majority of the UK employees wearing rainbow lanyards. Through running the network, she sat on several panel events and spoke at conferences about the value of being your true self at work.

In fact it was only when she joined PwC that she came truly out at work, and at that point there was a lack of LGBT role models and especially women. A turning point she remembers is when EY won the Stonewall LGBT Workplace of the Year Award, and Liz Bingham made a speech about her career at EY before and after she came out at work. “This was the first time I had heard a senior lesbian woman speak about the value of being herself at work,” Campbell says.

Developing GLEE generated a lot of attention internally in PwC with poster campaigns, a designated Twitter account, internal news articles and more, which meant that many on the committee were contacted by LGBT people across the country about coming out or about becoming more of an activist. Through those efforts, Campbell was able to mentor several LGBT men and women. “I have loved supporting them in their personal journey, both in and out of work,” she says.

Campbell believes there is still a big journey in the corporate world and in society around acceptance and normalizing trans-gender people. “Even in Sweden, which is fairly progressive, I am not sure I have seen any trans-supportive policies,” she says, although she notes that gender-neutral bathrooms are the norm.

For those reasons, it’s important to continue to be open and transparent—as a way to bring attention to LGBT issues and change hearts and minds.

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Intrepid Woman: Stephanie Sandberg, Executive Director, Team LPAC

Stephanie SandbergStephanie Sandberg is a fan of bringing your whole self to the lunch table, or anywhere.

“There’s so much energy that is consumed by not saying the things you are thinking,” she says. So right up front when she was at a business lunch and someone would ask what her husband does, she would blurt out early that she was with a woman. “It helped ease the conversation and provided me a sense of wholeness,” she says, in urging young gay people to be open with their reality.

A Career in Media As the Foundation for Her Current Work

Sandberg spent the first 25 years of her career in magazine publishing, working on marketing for titles like the L.A. Times, Newsweek and the New Yorker before becoming president and publisher of the New Republic and, later, executive publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review. Then she pivoted to consultant work.

After dabbling in a variety of projects, she realized she wanted to focus on one area and became interested in women’s leadership and the barriers to advancement women faced at the top echelons. Sandberg joined Out Leadership on a project basis, which aligned with her interests in diversity and inclusion.

But, she found, “inclusion” was often male-dominated.

“Lesbians are underrepresented, underleveraged and don’t have a voice at the table,” she says. “The gay world is very similar to the straight world in how gendered it is.”

So she helped the organization launch OutWOMEN, running discussion dinners to get people around the table.

“We realized that women don’t come together as intentionally around professional matters,” Sandberg notes, so they launched both formal and informal events. The satisfaction she derived from this work pointed her consulting in that direction, and she ended up at a holiday party for LPAC in 2018, where she learned they were looking for an executive director.

Leveraging the Voices of Gay Women

Today Sandberg heads LPAC as a political voice for the LGBTQ+ community. One of her first moves was officially shortening the name from “Lesbian Political Action Committee” to its acronym, as she found the name wasn’t embraced by everyone.

Then she began leveraging what she learned at OUTWomen about how women come together. Just as she had previously discovered that women prefer to socialize differently, she learned in her early days with LPAC that LGBTQ women’s political concerns are different, but rarely discussed as such. “Gay women don’t always have the same priorities as gay men,” she points out, adding that healthcare, choice and women’s equality are paramount to gay women. “We needed to carve out a place and build a voice for this subset from the LGBTQ community and address inequalities by championing candidates who support us.”

Right now her mission is to make sure the community knows about LPAC, particularly people who have the financial capacity to support the group. The biggest challenge, she finds, is building the group out to where potential donors not only know about it, but also choose it as a priority among so many worthy causes.

“If they understand that their investment is an investment in strengthening this community, and then convert that enthusiasm and awareness by including us in their giving, I will have done my job,” she says.

Sandberg believes that will come as they build empirical data about how they have amplified the effect for the candidates they endorse. To that end, they launched a nonprofit group Project LPAC and have a fundraising event—Levity and Justice for All –scheduled for June 25, the only official World Pride event specifically for women.

Sandberg has the benefit of knowing the work she does will benefit her personal life, too, including for her wife of 20 years and two daughters, ages 16 and 12, but she also knows the importance of making them the focal point of her life aside from work.

“While my work is important, a broader wholeness comes from have a balance; a lot of career people find themselves too deep in the work, and while it matters, it can’t at the expense of family,” she says. “You have to treasure being able to have family experiences at the end of the day; my main goal is to spend that time with my girls.”

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Voice of Experience: Diane Bell, Partner, Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP

Diane BellEqual treatment as an LGBTQ professional has always been important to Diane Bell—and she has found that at Katten.

For example, she initially hesitated to bring her partner to firm events as she got to know the culture, but after several months, a more senior manager inquired as to why she didn’t bring her. “It was eye-opening to see that it was far more than acceptance that they were offering, in that they were almost offended I wasn’t bringing my partner, as though I wasn’t proud of the firm,” Bell said. And she has seen that culture embrace diversity throughout her tenure there.

Relationship Building Drives Career Satisfaction

Although Bell has been with Katten for 13 years, she originally joined a smaller firm right out of law school, selecting it due to its culture and people. However, after the tech bubble burst, she realized that the corporate group she had joined was going to be slow to recover, so she decided to look into another firm that would allow her to develop her skill set. She found a great opportunity in Katten’s Corporate practice, where she has honed her skills doing the challenging work of private company mergers and acquisitions, while delighting in the wonderful people she’s met along the way. “I’m really happy with the kind of lawyer I’ve turned out to be,” she says.

Bell values the firm’s emphasis on building relationships with their clients noting two transactions that have been particularly meaningful. In one, near the beginning of her time at Katten, she helped a small business owner, who immigrated with the proverbial “$20 in his pocket,” sell the wildly successful business he eventually built and receive the most appealing terms possible. “As a more junior member of the team, I got to know him and his wife well, and it was incredibly rewarding to act as a counselor for them,” Bell says. “When we got confirmation that the payment hit their account, they hugged each other, then bear-hugged me.”

Her second memorable moment involved another family-owned business that had gotten a valuation for estate planning purposes and were blown away by its size, leading them to consider an exit strategy much earlier than they expected. They initially decided to use a broker who didn’t seem up to the job. Bell felt that they could do better, and get a better price, with another broker, and the broker that Katten introduced the family to ultimately put together a package that led the business to realize almost twice what they had initially hoped for. “It was very rewarding to help guide this wonderful family through what to them was a very confusing process,” Bell says.

Being Open Pays Dividends

Bell always recommends that younger associates find senior attorneys willing to act as sponsors. She, for example, feels fortunate that the former managing partner of the firm’s Los Angeles office, who now serves as a Los Angeles Superior Court judge, took it upon himself to actively look out for newer professionals during the lean years of the recession—and in fact, she says it’s due to him she is still there. “You need those people up the food chain looking out for you,” she notes.

From the beginning of her career journey, Bell has made a conscious effort to be transparent about her orientation. “I thought that if potential employers weren’t accepting, then I didn’t even want to start down the road with them,” she said. For example, she noted on her resume that she interned at Lambda Legal, an organization that focuses civil rights impact litigation to benefit the LGBT community and individuals living with HIV impact while in law school.

In fact, Bell says that trying to conform in any way that’s against your authentic personality can be a hindrance to your career. She has found that as she let her true self shine through to her coworkers, she got along far better and gained more respect. Even more importantly, she says, she no longer had to expend the emotional energy on trying to be someone she wasn’t. “It frees up so much bandwidth to not try to assimilate into what I thought that the associate mold was supposed to be, which was against my character in a number of ways,” she said.

As co-founder of Katten’s LGBT Coalition, Bell says its purpose has morphed over time; it first was formed to ensure LGBT attorneys were on an equal playing field with respect to employee benefits and insurance coverage—that her wife, for example, would be recognized as family and receive the same benefits offered to spouses. When grappling with issues like this, she has found that at Katten typically it only requires explaining the concern before the issue is addressed. “If people don’t understand that there is a problem, they won’t know it needs to be fixed,” she said.

Over the years as marriage equality resolved many of those types of issues, the coalition now focuses on other aspects such as recruiting and retention of LGBT attorneys and organizing the firm’s biennial LGBT Attorney Retreats, which takes place in Philadelphia this coming year.

Away from the office, Bell enjoys spending time with her family; she has been with her wife almost 20 years, and they have two children, ages 9 and 1-1/2.

And she continues her work with civil rights organization Lambda Legal as a member of the board of directors. “Katten has played an important role in helping support this work financially and also allowing me time to travel for my duties,” she says.

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Voice of Experience: Laura Raymond, Vice President and Business Development Officer, Wells Fargo Commercial Banking

Laura Raymond WFC

By Cathie Ericson

“Be a horse with blinders on,” recommended Laura Raymond’s dad, who had had a successful 40-year career in banking.

It didn’t take long in Raymond’s career to learn the wisdom of that—to tune out the constant distractions and focus on the task at hand, rather than letting the highs and lows get in your way.

Reaching for Success

That solid advice has helped Raymond build an impressive career in sales. Over the years she has held roles in sales business development in diverse industries, starting in media advertising. After transitioning to the account side and a commission sales role, she embraced the challenge and learned to really hit the pavement, as she says.

Next she was presented with the opportunity to join Garda Cash Logistics in business development, where she partnered with treasury management sales consultants in her first exposure to banking, a field that interested her since she comes from a banking family. As cash management is just a fraction of treasury management, she set her sights on learning more, which she finds to be one of the elements that intrigues her most about any given job—the chance to always expand your knowledge in a quest to find your niche. Six years ago she was given the opportunity to join Wells Fargo in New York—and she jumped at the chance even though it was all new: new market, new product and new industry.

And that’s how she was able to attain the professional achievement she is most proud of to this day—earning a spot in the President’s Club, which is reserved for the top echelon of sales people, and which many tenured employees never achieve, in only her first year on the job. It was especially exciting because the final client that pushed her to the top came just in the nick of time on New Year’s Eve.

Since then she was recruited to join the commercial banking department, where she is currently a business development officer. As greater New York is considered an expansion market for the commercial side of Wells Fargo, she finds it exciting to be part of the growth initiatives and rewarding to onboard new clients and help them succeed.

As the banking industry is notoriously male-dominated, it can be easy for women to lose their identity and get discouraged, she finds. “But it’s important to take the lead and know your worth—to take initiative and speak up. There are times women keep their mouth shut when it’s important to voice your opinion,” Raymond says.

Embracing Diversity Inside and Outside the Workplace

Raymond says she has never worked for a company that’s so focused on diversity and inclusion as Wells Fargo. “They make an effort for everyone to feel at home, and it’s helped me find my niche and thrive,” she says.

One of her most pivotal moments was having the honor of meeting Stephanie Smith when participating in the Wells Fargo Diverse Leaders group. Raymond says that Smith shared how she came out as soon as she graduated from college so has spent her whole career being authentically open about her orientation. “It can be hard to find your confidence when you’re not being your true self.” She herself finds that there are a lot of assumptions around being a woman and being LGBTQ. “I often having people saying that I don’t look gay, and for me that’s an invitation to break the barriers down on a daily basis so we can treat everyone as equals.”

As cochair for the Wells Fargo Pride Team Member Network in New York City, she helps organize networking and mentoring opportunities within the organization and oversees the bank’s participation in Pride March and the AIDS Walk. “It’s great to be behind the scenes, helping making the ideas a reality,” she says. She also has joined a Wells Fargo team to participate in Cycle for the Cause in September, a three day bike ride from Boston to New York that raises funds to help find a cure for AIDS.

Always up for activity and adventure, Raymond enjoys traveling, and as a skiing aficionado has skied in the Alps and Canada and around the country. And, as a Philadelphia native with two older brothers, she says she is obsessed with Philadelphia sports. “But most of all I love spending time with my family, which helps me recharge and be ready to come back to work.”

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LGBT Leadership Update: Rising Corporate Activism and Executive Pride

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LGBT flag featuredBy Aimee Hansen

With June, we turn to Pride Month on the diversity calendar, so let’s focus our spotlight to recent progress on advancing LGBT inclusive business cultures and LGBT executive leadership.

Corporate Activism Defends LGBT Rights

Recently, state law setbacks to the LGBT community (and human rights) have one positive side effect: they’ve led to a collective backlash from companies and employers who have united to defend LGBT rights.

Repeatedly, companies have been asserting to state lawmakers that upholding LGBT rights is a necessary condition for attracting and maintaining the best talent for businesses.

Since North Carolina passed an anti-discrimination law that failed to protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity, over 200 business leaders – including CEOs and executives of major companies such as Apple, Bank of America, Citibank, Ernst & Young, Goldman Sachs, Facebook, IBM, Microsoft, and more – have signed an open letter to the state governor calling for a repeal to the “HB 2” law, stating that “such laws are bad for our employees and bad for business”.

Canceled plans by Paypal, Deutsche Bank and performance artists are estimated to have cost the state “tens of millions in dollars of losses”. Meanwhile, companies also joined in activism with an open letter to state leaders in Mississippi to repeal “HB 1523”, which gives individuals or organizations license to discriminate against LGBT people based on religious justification.

In the Harvard Business Review, author Andrew Winston points out that business has been ahead of the public curve when it comes to LGBT rights. Winston notes that over half of Fortune 500 companies were offering domestic partner benefits ten years ago when only 35% of Americans supported gay marriage (and 55% opposed it), and that today corporate adoption of anti-discrimination policies based on gender identity (66% of companies) outpaces public acceptance of transgender rights.

In the case of LGBT rights, Winston argues the moral imperative of non-discrimination in the workplace and the economic motivation to thrive with diverse customers are so understandably linked that business is “pro-actively influencing societal norms.”

LGBT Diversity Associated with Stock Performance

Influencing policy is part of the equation, but building an LGBT-inclusive culture is another thing. When LGBT employees do not feel free to be themselves, when they feel they have to “hide in plain sight”, it’s proven costly not only to employees but to business.

When diversity is celebrated and genuinely fostered, not only individual productivity but company productivity seems to benefit. According to a recent report by Credit Suisse, the stock of companies that exhibit LGBT diversity outperform the stock of companies that do not.

LGBT diversity was factored by companies that have openly LGBT leaders and senior management, are voted as leading LGBT employers, or have many employees in local LGBT business networks.

The LGBT basket of 270 companies outperformed the MSCI ACWI by 3% annually since 2010, as well as outperforming a custom basket of companies in US, Europe and Australia by 1.4% annually.

The correlation of LGBT diversity with performance is important, since according to the report, 72% of senior LGBT executives say they have not come out at work, which is not surprising when it’s still legal to fire someone based on sexual orientation in over twenty states and based on gender identity in over thirty states.

Celebrating LGBT Executive Role Models

Celebrating diversity at the very top, for the first time in the three years since its introduction, a woman topped the 2015 list of the 100 Most Powerful LGBT Executives in the World, named by OUTstanding and the Financial Times.

Inga Beale is the first female CEO of Lloyd’s of London and openly bi-sexual. As she told The Guardian, “It’s not about me. It’s about what you do for other people. For me, it’s so important because you need these role models.”

According to OUTstanding as reported in Entreprenuer, recognition is critical since closeted LGBT employees are 70% more likely to leave a company within the first three years.

The list of LGBT power executives, for which activism outside of the workplace is also taken into account, included several from the finance world, including Accenture’s Sander van‘t Noordende (10), Citi’s Bob Annibale (28), Goldman Sach’s Gavin Wills (36), and PwC’s Andy Woodfield (78) and Mark Gossington (82).

Speaking to the inclusive culture fostered at Accenture, Sander van’t Noordende has said, “Only when people are comfortable in their workplace will they be able to get the best out of themselves,” advising individuals to not only value their difference, but also find a company that values their difference too.

Promoting LGBT C-Suite Leadership

Stanford is also stepping up to encourage aspiring LGBT executives to value their difference. Stanford Graduate School of Business introduced the Stanford LGBT Executive Leadership Program, which will first take place in late July 2016 and is accepting applications until June 24th.

With a focus on fostering authentic and impactful senior LGBT leadership and network building, Stanford states, “This is the only Executive Education program of its kind offered by a leading business school to address the significant gap in leadership for lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people in the C-suite.”

According to program co-director Tom Wurster, the one-week training is ideally aimed at “the LGBT executive with a minimum of 10 years professional experience and 5 years of management experience who is preparing to take on more significant leadership roles.”

More visible leadership within more significant leadership roles – out and proud and C-Suite is the call.

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Voice of Experience: Julie Harris, Managing Director, Goldman Sachs

Julie HarrisWelcome to Pride Week on The Glass Hammer — we’ll be profiling successful LGBT business women all week long!

Julie Harris, Managing Director at Goldman Sachs, had a master plan when she entered college – or so she thought. “I come from a blue collar family,” said Harris, “and while my parents have always been incredibly supportive, they did not have a lot of advice on career choices, so I picked a major that seemed challenging and figured I would get a good job. That was my mental model.”

Harris decided that she was going to major in Computer Science and get a job programming. This trajectory probably would have served Harris very well had she not determined in her senior year of college that while she was very interested in applying technology to business problems, she did not love programming.

It was at this juncture that Harris first tapped into a bit of profound professional wisdom. Harris said, “It was the first time I made the distinction between knowing what you can do and are good at, versus knowing what you love doing.” She adds, “This is something I have thought a lot about throughout my career when making choices. When you follow passions instead of just capabilities, it can be the difference between good and great.”

Although Harris had just spent four years preparing to graduate with a Computer Science major and enter the workforce as a top notch programmer, she was unwilling to settle. So, instead of heading to a traditional programming job, Harris decided to apply her technology background in a burgeoning industry at the time known as consulting.

“All the big accounting firms started building consulting arms because clients wanted total solutions.” Harris continued, “I started working at what was then known as Arthur Andersen, which became Andersen Consulting, and is now Accenture, in the Management Information Consulting division.” Out of the nine years Harris spent there, she only focused on programming for two of those years, ultimately moving to business analysis roles which focused more on application of technology to business problems .

Even though this experience formed the foundation for Harris’ professional career, she gleaned much more from her time as a consultant. Harris explained, “The great thing about a firm like that is that it taught someone who didn’t have professional experience how to be structured and disciplined, essentially how to be a professional.”

If Harris was going to continue to be a key player in the corporate arena she knew she had to familiarize herself with the business landscape in order to successfully navigate it. Although her knowledge of business, particularly in the financial services sector, was limited, Harris was not deterred. Instead, this motivated her to enroll in the MBA program at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern.

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