Tag Archive for: voice of experience

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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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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Voice of Experience: Angie Sabel, Managing Director at Abbot Downing New York

Being curious will get you far on your professional journey, finds Angie Sabel. “It drives your understanding of the ‘why’ and the people and the process.”

Angie SabelAnd that’s an approach that helps Sabel always anticipate how she can best serve her clients. “I am always anticipating and prepared with solutions no matter what the discussion might be with clients and colleagues.”

Helping Families Drives a Successful and Fulfilling Career

Sabel started her career in public accounting with a goal of advancing to a position where she would work hands-on with family offices or family enterprise. She gravitated toward this work because of the desire to be an inclusive contributing partner across all touch points of a client’s financial vision. “Helping future generations offers a connectivity and longevity that has been very rewarding,” she says. She finds that the best part of her position is meeting the entire family and understanding each individual’s role and how they want to use their wealth to positively impact their families and communities.

Sabel finds fulfillment in knowing that her team of thought leaders provides the most knowledgeable resources to help her clients. “Wealth clients are unique in their needs and clients realizes we have a depth of resources available, including connecting with other clients, that provide options to assist with decision making,” she says. “I’m proud to work with people who have spent their whole career developing their craft. Because each one is unique in its own way, we can share our knowledge, research and experience to help them achieve their goals.”

For Sabel, building these long-standing relationships has been one of the professional achievements she’s most proud of. “In school you’re always encouraged to earn the best scores in order to show you’re prepared and capable, but I have realized that even more important is really understanding the person with whom you’re working—whether it’s a client or manager. By focusing more on them and less on yourself, you’ll find ways to connect and that is how you are going to create the relationships that will lead to a rewarding career.”

Embracing the Benefits of Being a Mentor and Mentee

As Sabel nurtures the next generation of wealth advisors, she assures rising talent that no one needs to feel as though they have to strive for perfection. “It’s more engaging when we come as our real selves,” she says, adding that she wishes she had known this earlier in her career, as she would have been more prone to making decisions faster and being more confident knowing that she didn’t have to come with all the answers.

To that end, she encourages rising talent to explore avenues to build their self confidence. The good news, she says, is that this trait isn’t relative—it’s about what makes you personally confident. And for that reason, there’s no single prescribed path to success, but everyone needs to think about what they want to do and why they are seeking a particular position. “Be honest with yourself and trust your instincts to make good, informed decisions,” she advises.

Sabel always looks for opportunities to build her professional skills, and knows that learning can come at any time, and from any direction. She finds her direct manager to be an important resource and frequently learns from the mentees she has met through her work as a mentor with Smith Family Business Initiative at Cornell, noting that their energy and questions inspire her.

Professional development is important, and she particularly appreciates participating in roundtables, as she finds them to be a very practical model for sharing what you’re dealing with in real time, and obtaining advice and best practices from others who have been in applicable situations. “Because roundtables are less formal and structured, they encourage people to come together and share ideas in a more free-form manner, without having to rely on a prepared agenda. It’s a forum where people feel comfortable to share their vulnerabilities, and learn from each other.”

Sabel enjoys exploring new restaurants in New York with her husband, and sharing her experiences with friends, family and colleagues. She considers her husband to be one of her most influential advocates. “It’s important to have someone outside of work who can serve as a mentor in another way—someone who offers a different perspective, but always encourages you.”

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Akila Raman, Partner, Investment Banking Division, Goldman Sachs

Akila Raman recommends to others: “Treat the senior people you work with as clients.”

Akila RamanRaman, who graduated with a degree in political theory and a certificate in finance from Princeton University, said she “found her home” in corporate derivatives at Goldman Sachs. She says of her decision to pursue a career at the firm, “I wanted to work at Goldman Sachs because I knew it was a very team-oriented culture.”

While she originally thought she would remain for only two years at Goldman Sachs, Raman stayed at the firm during the financial crisis and beyond.

“During the financial crisis I had a unique vantage point for observing the firm’s leaders coming together to adapt to changes and anticipate client needs,” said Raman. “As volatile markets became an increasingly important focus, our corporate hedging business became even more important for our clients, and I was ultimately asked to lead a joint risk management and debt financing effort.”

Hard Work Yields Results

After several years, Raman was named head of Natural Resources Debt Capital Markets and Risk Management within the Investment Banking Division. Reflecting upon her most significant client achievement, Raman cites her work advising Great Plains Energy, the local utility company in her Missouri hometown, on its merger with Westar Energy.

“Goldman Sachs was one of few banks that could have structured the Great Plains-Westar transaction given its unique complexities. We were able to bring together a variety of resources across GS and deliver comprehensive solutions, which ultimately resulted in value for our client and its stakeholders,” notes Raman. She continues, “Working on that transaction allowed me to form deeper relationships with the management team and also had a meaningful impact on the people in my hometown, making the deal extremely rewarding.”

Looking ahead, Raman is also interested in the effect of technology and renewables on the natural resources space. “We’re at a very interesting time in the energy space, particularly as energy policies globally are responding to changing dynamics due to technological advances, consumer preferences and investors’ ESG objectives,” says Raman. “I expect we’ll see the natural resources sector evolve over the coming years to adapt to these factors.”

Reflecting on her career, Raman, who was recently named a partner, said that being asked to join Goldman Sachs’ partnership was a career-defining moment. “As someone who began her career as a summer analyst looking up to senior bankers, being welcomed into the partnership was such an honor.”

Serving Clients Is a Priority

Raman is also keeping busy on several transactions that include complex financing and risk management solutions. She notes that Goldman’s involvement in these deals is a result of “many years of hard work and relationship-building in order to gain the trust of clients to be tapped as an advisor on these large-scale, intricate transactions.”

Raman places the same level of priority and focus when preparing deliverables for internal clients: “Treat the senior people you work with as clients – because they are,” advises Raman.

Carving Out Time for Your Passions

“Speak out, and don’t be afraid to have open lines of communication with your manager and your team around deadlines and deliverables,” recommends Raman. “Being able to carve out time for your own interests and your life is so important, especially as a junior team member.”

Outside of the office, Raman is passionate about supporting entrepreneurs: “I enjoy spending time investing in women-led companies. We don’t talk enough about wealth generation among women. I feel very passionately about having my investments reflect my values, and working towards making the next generation of entrepreneurs more diverse.”

In addition to investments she makes in her own time, Raman is also involved with Pursuit, a nonprofit that helps adults with the most need and potential receive technology training so they may get their first tech jobs and become the next generation of leaders in technology. Given many of Pursuit’s graduates are immigrants, this mission resonates with Raman, who is the daughter of Korean and Indian immigrants herself.

And, Raman makes sure to set aside plenty of time each week for her family. “No matter where I am each week, whether I’m in New York or traveling abroad, I always carve out time for my partner, and we try to make sure we have at least one kid-free evening together each week.”

She notes, “It’s important to make clear to my family that they are just as important to me as my career.” During this dedicated family time, Raman loves to experience New York’s parks and galleries with her husband and daughter, insightfully commenting, “It’s always a joy to experience New York through our daughter’s eyes.”

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Voice of Experience: Charlotte Hsu, Asia Pacific Diversity & Inclusion Leader and Singapore General Assurance Partner, PwC

Charlotte HsuFrom her leadership vantage point, PwC’s Charlotte Hsu knows that it is critical to help build a robust pipeline by encouraging other women in the industry.

“Now that you are there, don’t forget to look out for the little girls who were once you,” she says.

To that end, Hsu herself devotes time to helping bolster the careers of younger colleagues. The key, she shares, is that while basic technical competency or product knowledge is important, soft skills—or as she calls them, “fundamental skills”—are equally or more important in advancing your career. In fact, that attitude is what allowed her to build her audit career.

An Unconventional Start Leads to a Successful Audit Career

Hsu was a groundbreaker from the start, considering that she did not graduate with an accounting degree, yet is now an assurance partner in a Big Four firm. When she started her career in Singapore in the ‘90s, the most attractive jobs were management trainee programs with banks and oil and gas companies; however, as she acknowledges, her university grades weren’t sufficient to earn a spot in one of those programs.

Instead, she pursued qualification as a Forex dealer and life insurance agent—also lucrative professions—and it was through her insurance instructor that she became introduced to the auditing profession. She found herself fortunate to be recruited by a Big Six firm as an audit trainee, the program offered to non-accounting graduates.

From there her audit career took off, and she has worked in Hong Kong, New York and Shanghai over the past 20 years. She came full circle back to Singapore in 2011, while still an assurance partner, and was given the opportunity to head the Learning and Development department and is now PwC’s Asia Pacific Diversity & Inclusion partner, as well as a member of PwC’s Global Corporate Responsibility Board. “If I had not taken the chance to try a new qualification and had let my graduate status hold me back, I would not have this career, one that has made my life so meaningful,” Hsu says.

Looking back at her 27 years as an auditor, the professional achievement she is most proud of so far is the relationships that she has built—clients who became good friends and coworkers who are now part of her personal life. “When you have coworkers who are willing to go above and beyond with you, it speaks volumes about the relationship, and to me this is an achievement that outweighs any awards on the wall or the titles behind your name,” she says.

Hsu also is proud of the role she has played in professional development for her colleagues, especially the junior ones. Recognizing the need for job rotation in order to motivate and develop non-client-facing colleagues, she was able to secure buy-in from various stakeholders to allow more junior colleagues to explore short-term internal secondment and job rotations. That has allowed them to develop new skill sets, as well as get out of their comfort zones to take on new tasks.

Right now, she is taking an active role with the PwC’s Global Corporate Responsibility Board to fulfill an ambitious global target they set in 2018: to invest in the future and growth of 15 million people, NGOs and social and micro enterprises to help them maximize their potential by 2022.

“I am excited to be working with my counterparts across the PwC network in coming up with ideas to achieve that ambition,” she says, adding that it is not about meeting the KPI, but the ability to make a significant difference in so many lives. “At PwC, we believe businesses have a key role to play in solving societal challenges, alongside other stakeholders.”

In addition, like many in the field, she is wrestling with the potential for AI to transform the accounting industry. Rather than take over accounting jobs, though, she believes AI will help accountants improve their efficiency and root out fraud detection.

The Ongoing Quest to Promote Balance and Equity

Work-life balance is important, and she dispels the myth she heard back in the day that you have to leave the office after your bosses in order to be promoted. She tells her younger counterparts that it is not impossible to pursue a thriving career and have a family at the same time. “Many people have done it successfully, and there will be more and more such cases,” she says.

Unfortunately she sees that women are often tested when making choices in balancing work and personal lives, largely because the auditing profession is known for demanding hours. “For women who have to put in those hours at work and at the same time fulfill their obligations as a mom—call it maternal instinct or social pressure—most women choose family over career,” Hsu says. And even though they are seeing a rise in the number of men homemakers, the pace of the increase is still slower than that of females leaving their job to assume the role.

That’s why she sees a gap in women who are reaching the upper echelons of the industry. In fact, the fairly equal representation of females in the industry, particularly in managerial positions, should yield a reasonably strong pipeline of highly qualified women to become partners. However in reality they are seeing that women tend to drop out of the pipeline at the managerial level as that is usually the age when they start a family.

Still, she is proud of the strides that PwC has made, with women making up approximately 53 percent of managerial positions and above. As a Diversity & Inclusion partner, she has the privilege of sitting in promotion meetings to encourage equal opportunities and diversity in decision making. The firm recently reviewed its internal policies for everything from recruitment to job allocation to promotion to ensure there are no policies biased against women. In the coming months they will be running a refresher program on unconscious bias and are looking into better support for new parents and women returning from maternity leave. “We understand that returning to work after maternity is tough; thus if we are able to help smoothen the transition, we believe more new mothers will choose to stay in the profession,” Hsu notes.

Her own “off time” includes indulging in a wide variety of interests that include cooking, cars, collecting whisky, electronic gadgets and video games—in fact she just bought a VR set for the home. But what interests her most is finding ways to help the elderly and less-privileged women. “We talk a lot about gender equality but often times it’s in reference to professionals. We should not forget to care for those less-privileged women around us who are not professionals,” she points out.

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Voice of Experience: Kimberly Smith, National Co-Chair, Private Equity, Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP

As Kimberly Smith has moved up in the legal profession, she’s also advanced her belief that along the way, it’s vital to be true to yourself.

Kimberly Smith“When I started my law career I often heard this advice, but it took years of experience as a professional woman at a law firm to truly appreciate it,” she says, adding that she has seen situations where people were trying to be someone that they thought they should be, and the lack of authenticity was clear. And, as she has learned, success is not just about being smart and working hard.

Owning her Career

Of course, Smith is both those things.

Smith first joined Katten as a summer associate with a passion for the law. Upon graduating from Georgetown University Law Center in 1998, she returned to Katten as an associate and became immersed in the dot-com bubble and the funding of IPOs in record time for internet startup companies.

And then the bubble burst. She credits her “trial by fire” experience in the dot-com world with teaching her how not to approach deals. Now, she prefers to dig in to discover and address her clients’ long-term objectives, not just their immediate needs. In the aftermath, Smith easily transitioned to M&A work in many industries, including healthcare.

Her success led her to be promoted to partner in 2006. After a five-year stint at another law firm, she rejoined Katten in 2015 as co-head of the nationwide Private Equity practice. “There were many compelling reasons to return to Katten. It provides a strong platform with phenomenal specialists with robust experience, and one of the strongest healthcare regulatory practices in the industry,” she explains. Smith has been back three-and-a-half years, enjoying the intellectual charge of working on complicated deal structures and working closely with tax partners to find new ways to accomplish client goals that might seem impossible at first glance.

“My clients are under a lot of pressure to get the deals done quickly, and in cases where the other side won’t budge, I need to figure out how to bridge that gap,” Smith says, adding that one of the best parts of the job is the relationships she has built with repeat clients.

“I might work with an entrepreneur very closely as they sell their business and then I’m finished working with them. But with a private equity fund, I might work on their deals for 20 years so we get to know each other and work together well. Time and again I come back to the fact that the intellectual challenges and personal relationships are what make my job so wonderful.”

Taking Advantage of Every Opportunity

Smith shares that she came in to the working world with mindset familiar to many—that if she was smart and worked hard, she would be successful. “I wasn’t prepared for the fact that in every organization, it takes more than just hard work. In order to really start climbing the ladder you need take advantage of every opportunity from mentoring and networking to developing business to seeking out leadership positions.”

“It was when I started to engage myself at every level of the firm – with my clients, the leadership, my peers, and younger associates – that I started to get more traction in terms of advancing my career.”

Along with that, you have to learn to be comfortable with self-promotion, because it’s necessary to put yourself out there and tout your hard work. When she returned to Katten in an authoritative role, she realized that her words carried more weight.

“Women should not be shy about self-promotion. It doesn’t mean you have to go on about how great you are. You can keep it very factual and state something that isn’t an opinion or a boast. In law, both women and men have to make sure that people appreciate their value,” Smith says. So, for example, if you’re a litigator who just won a big case, make sure others are aware of your accomplishment.

Integrating Balance

Smith enjoys her position on the firm’s Women’s Leadership Forum National Mentorship Panel, which consists of more than a dozen women partners who counsel other women with professional and personal advice. Each mentor is profiled so rising attorneys at the firm can choose whomever is the best resource for a particular topic—everything from how to balance work and family to how to develop business.

Outside the office, Smith spends time with her husband Stephen and their two daughters—Victoria, age 11, and Natalie, age 5—and recently enjoyed a vacation to Orlando with them.

She’s also recently discovered a new hobby, when last year one of her clients invited her to be on their team to compete in the Spartan Race, an obstacle course that involves four miles of climbing walls, jumping over fire, carrying sandbags and crawling through muddy trenches. “It was a great way to develop a deeper connection to my client, but I was terrified of an obstacle course,” she admits. She began training and embarked on a rigorous fitness program that she acknowledges she might not have otherwise started. Although she completed the race a year ago, she’s maintained the workout regimen because she realized how much better she felt being active and strong.

“It presented a great turning point for me to make time to take care of myself. A lot of good has come out of that,” she said. And Smith adds, nothing bonds you more with a client than being covered in mud. “If I can be a warrior on the Spartan field, navigating the battle field of a transaction should be a piece of cake.”

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Voice of Experience: Sarah Alter, President and CEO of Network of Executive Women (NEW)

Sarah Alter“Find a company or career path with a runway that’s both long and wide so you can pivot throughout your career journey and expose yourself to diverse thoughts and perspectives,” suggests Sarah Alter.

She’s found an important piece of advice to be surrounding herself with people who have different backgrounds and experiences to achieve diversity of thought and plans—a desire that has led her to her newest challenge.

A NEW Challenge Complements Her Experience

While Alter currently serves as CEO of the Network of Executive Women (NEW), a nonprofit designed to advance all women in the workplace, the majority of her career has been in marketing and digital marketing both globally and nationally for retailers including Staples and Discover. Before taking over NEW, she served as the chief marketing officer for General Growth Properties, a shopping mall REIT that owned and operated 140 malls, helping to drive the right type of traffic into the stores.

While she was drawn to the altruistic nature of NEW and the ability to advance positive opportunities for women, she knew that she was ideally suited to the job due to her previous management experience in a similar industry and her time spent on boards and as a volunteer.

In this role, Alter looks forward to helping other women embrace their true selves and set them up for success. “Women are not broken, and they don’t need to be fixed, but they need to be developed and celebrated, which is a truth regardless of gender,” she says.

“I’m proud that I was given the opportunity to be a CEO and that I am able to deliver true and meaningful impact, not just from a business and financial perspective, but to help women.”

Her empathy for women in the work world stems in part from wishing that she had known at a younger age that she could truly be herself and ultimately still be successful.

Early in her career she was in a role at a financial services company where she had far exceeded a sales target she had been given. As she walked into her review, she expected the accolades to flow, but after a cursory “good job,” her manager proceeded to tell her that it was a team effort.

While Alter embraces the importance of collaboration and shared credit, she still had expected more, but what really prompted her to search out another role was the feedback that followed. Her manager proceeded to share “insight” he’d gained from male executives who said she wore clothing that was too bright and she was too motherly. With that, Alter knew she couldn’t succeed in that sort of workplace and left for greener pastures in the retail industry—eventually coming full circle to today where she can help advocate for women.

NEW-Sponsored Research Illuminates Opportunities

Alter has already had a number of accomplishments at NEW, and one she is proud of is a recent change to the mission statement to “advance all women in the workplace.” The addition of the word “all” was important to reinforce the concept that diversity and inclusion is a business imperative and the key to success. It also reflects conversations and research studies conducted with C-suite leaders that underscored the recurring theme that advancing women of color was the biggest priority that need to be addressed.

From these research findings, NEW has developed learning programs and corporate solutions that specifically assist companies on how better to support women of color. They are designed to address two main issues; the first is bias. As she says, “Like it or not, everyone is biased, and that begets favoritism as people promote those who think and act and look like them.”

By tackling unconscious bias, companies can create a more consciously inclusive culture, she says, adding that it’s also important to focus on moving women from corporate support roles and give them the opportunity to own a P and L.

Adding more women in upper levels also negates another common problem, that of isolation. As women of color progress in their career, they frequently don’t see others like them which creates a new challenge as younger leaders tend to believe that If they can’t see it, they can’t be it.

Finally the research offers a blueprint framework of solutions to effectively address the need for companies to offer the cultures, policies and support services that women need for appropriate work/life integration.

While the NEW research focuses on what companies can do, Alter believes that women need to assert their needs to help change norms from all directions. “Embrace your true authentic self and don’t settle for a company with a culture that doesn’t allow that to happen,” she says. In addition she encourages women to build their network and continue to rebuild and nurture it so it’s ready when needed. Finally she suggests women become more comfortable and educated on the technological transformation occurring in the world of business today to help broaden opportunities for growth.

Finding a Brilliant Balance of Her Own

Alter and her husband work hard to be a team in finding appropriate work/life integration themselves. With their three kids—two currently in college and one in high school—it’s a little easier to manage career and family, and Alter is realizing the importance of focusing on herself in a physical, spiritual and emotional way.

With their kids soon embarking on their own life journeys, Alter says they have been planning fabulous family vacations that have included sojourns to Argentina and Brazil, with an upcoming trip planned for Africa. “We want to have these great experiences with them but also show them that you have to work hard to get this. We have worked hard and appreciate that we can now bless our family with these amazing journeys and time together.”

In addition to family time, Alter and her husband pay it forward in their community. Both are involved in philanthropy and have served as co-chairs for the Chicago gala that benefits the JDRF for Type 1 diabetes research. In addition, Alter says she loves to partner with local business schools to mentor and coach and judge local competitions. “I consider it a fun pay back to all the people whom I’ve had support me over the years,” she says.

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Voice of Experience: Becky Lindahl, Head of Litigation, Charlotte, N.C.; Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP

Rebecca LindahlAs a junior associate, Becky Lindahl says it took her a while to learn to stress less and recognize that building her practice was a long-term process, more particularly when it came to new business.

Only through experience did she come to realize that it was unrealistic to expect a young lawyer, fresh out of law school, to deliver solid business prospects. It turns out that some of the steps she was taking were the right ones and they ultimately put her on a path to success: making contacts in-house and keeping in touch with peers at law firms.

Now, Lindahl encourages younger associates to first focus on getting basic core skills, such as writing and reviewing and analyzing documents, down pat. “I see how they want to advise clients right away, and I can sense the frustration when they don’t have the opportunity to immediately sit in the first, or even the second, chair,” she says. “But the only way you learn is through mastering the fundamentals and observing senior attorneys to gain the experience you need. Eventually it all clicks.”

Earning Litigation Credibility

That savvy advice comes from experience and is the foundation for Lindahl’s impressive career rise. After joining Katten as a summer associate in 2005, she became a full-time associate following her graduation from Wake Forest University School of Law and federal clerkship. She was elevated to income partner in August 2014 and became Charlotte’s litigation head in January 2018.

Over the years, she has amassed numerous successes. One of her most notable was the first major case she managed from start to finish as lead counsel in a four-week federal jury trial during the summer of 2017 in Greensboro, N.C., representing a leading manufacturer and innovator in LED lighting technology. Under Lindahl’s leadership, with tens of millions of dollars in damages on the line, she scored a courtroom victory when the jury sided with her client on every issue.

“While the case was obviously high-stakes for the client financially, it also had great reputational risks and industry-wide concerns, so it was incredibly satisfying to lead the team to success,” Lindahl says. She found an affinity for bigger impact litigation and is currently lead counsel in two other similarly high-stakes lawsuits within the industry.

Concerning industry trends, Lindahl is concerned with balancing the risks and rewards of technology-assisted and automated discovery, which is becoming more prevalent in litigation. As she notes, automation of operations and services can lower costs for firms and increase efficiency. However, she also sees potential challenges in relying too much on innovating tools for tasks and processes when diving deep into cases, particularly in cases that may reach a jury. For example, lawyers might spot patterns in emails that emerging technology could miss, such as a meeting place that pops up regularly and corroborates timing of key events. “We have to be smart about managing litigation in a way that’s cost-sensitive and effective, and when you are preparing for a high-stakes trial, there is no substitute for having a comprehensive knowledge of the details of critical documents,” Lindahl says.

Advocates at Home and Work Help Bring Balance

Lindahl brings that same measured vision to her own work/life blend. With little control over your schedule in federal court, the unpredictability can be challenging for trial lawyers who are also trying to manage a family.

An understanding firm culture can help. For example, she says that she trusts her Charlotte associates to appropriately prioritize client needs and works with her associates on a one-on-one basis to provide necessary flexibility to accomplish that goal.

For her, having an understanding spouse is vital, and she encourages women who are starting in the industry to consider the importance of surrounding themselves with compassionate people in their corner. “The job is hard enough as it is, but it would be impossible to sustain without a supportive partner, if you choose to have one,” Lindahl said.

While some women have struggled over having a perfect balance or being able to “do it all,” she appreciates advice she received early in her career from a fellow female attorney at Katten who suggested she be kinder to herself and give herself some grace when things are challenging either at work or home.

Now, Lindahl passes on that same philosophy to younger associates in her current role as the Charlotte co-chair of the firm’s Women’s Leadership Forum. The group offers a national mentoring panel where senior women serve as mentors to younger women, whether for practice- or career-related topics or even personal issues.

For example, before Lindahl and her husband adopted their daughter, they went through years of infertility treatments. She said she appreciated how generous women at the firm were with their advice as she balanced the rigors of the time commitment, and that the firm’s benefits provided insurance coverage for the expensive treatments. When the couple made the decision to adopt a child, Lindahl reached out to another attorney to talk about the adoption process and managing parental leave on the short notice at which adoption sometimes occurs, and now offers her insight to women facing similar scenarios and seeking advice.

Today, she is mom to a 13-month-old daughter.

Lindahl is committed to variety of causes and sits on the board of directors for Safe Alliance, which provides wraparound support services for victims of domestic assault and sexual assault.

As an avid sports fan, she is looking forward to moving her family to Charlotte’s center city, within walking distance of the Spectrum Center, home to the NBA’s Hornets and other entertainment acts.

“There is no perfect balance between work and home, but I have had some success managing my practice and family by simply focusing on the most important task—whether client or family-related—before me at any given time,” Lindahl says.

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Get Profiled on glasshammer2.wpengine.com

group of business women - career-adviceHere at glasshammer2.wpengine.com we are always looking for great people to profile.

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