ICEDRSpecialReport-TakingCharge_000

Surprisingly, these women leaders felt
that you don’t need to invest too much
energy mapping out a ten year career
plan. In fact, they went further and
suggested that the reality of your career
will likely not match any long-term plan
you create or expectations you set. As
Jane Leung, Head of iShares Asia Pacific
at BlackRock explains: “When I talk to
young women early in their careers, I tell
them that life does not always happen
the way you think it is going to… the
more flexible you can be - the better.”
Taking Charge
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Interestingly, several women noted
that they did not have to leave their
company to get a different career
experience. Many liked the fact that
they could have a variety of career
experiences within one organization.
Suchitra Prabhu, who works for Logica
(now part of CGI) in India says:
“What I love about Logica is its flat
structure and open environment. It
is easy to negotiate your next career
step.” Similarly, Gina Dellabarca has
worked at Westpac since 1991 and
“A plan is a nice thing to have,
but a career
is an obstacle course. It’s not a path. There is
no straight line.”
Kristin Peck, a member of Pfizer’s
executive leadership team, agrees: “A
plan is a nice thing to have, but a career is
an obstacle course. It’s not a path. There
is no straight line. It winds, goes over
hills and rocks and you have to jump
across the stream a few times. Sometimes
you have to go sideways or backwards
to go forwards. I think that’s the most
important thing that women starting
their career should know. Many people
believe their careers are linear. My career
took me from commercial real estate
finance, to real estate private equity, to
investment banking, to management
consulting, to an HR strategy job, to a
general strategy job, to leading innovation,
and going back to business development.
There was no straight line there.”
Kristin Peck, Executive Vice President, Pfizer
attributes part of her success to taking
opportunities to move across business
units within the company. Rebecca
Riant, Director, Head of Deposits at
Westpac Institutional Bank, shares this
view: “The leaders at Westpac do a
great job of enabling people to move
around within the organization. Having
that culture of internal mobility is
very important to me. If you can find
an organization that has a culture of
promoting opportunities internally into
different roles, I call that the Golden
Willy Wonka Ticket.”
Most of these women executives
keep two or three destination jobs in
mind. As opportunities come their
way, they weigh the role in terms of
what it does for those two or three
different options. “I don’t want to be
perfectly qualified for only one job
in the organization,” explained one
executive. In addition, their advice is
not to become too comfortable in a
role. As Niki Kesoglou, Head of Senior
Talent Development Asia Pacific at
Credit Suisse says, “Four to five years
is enough time to stay in one job. You
need to constantly be pushing yourself
out of your comfort zone.”
Having a variety of experiences has
many benefits, as it allows you to
look at the world from different
perspectives, to embrace diversity
and to expand your imagination.
Samantha Mobley, a Partner at Baker
& McKenzie, who recently spent
six weeks in the Caribbean doing a
dive master course (and is already
planning her next sabbatical for 2019!)
believes imagination is important
when exploring and building career
paths: “A quality that I have, if I was
going to boast, is imagination. I am
not sure how many lawyers really have
imagination. Imagination is what you
need if you are going to build out a
Samantha
Mobley
Baker &
McKenzie
practice, which is what I am doing at
the global level at the moment. My
mandate is to grow this global team. I
love building. But in order to build, you