Women on the Move Podcast

Introducing Season Three of Women on the Move

Welcome to Season 3 of Women on The Move podcast. In the first two seasons, host Sam Saperstein spoke with incredible business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and, the talented executives at JPMorgan Chase.

In season 3, we're focused on fearless female business owners and how they are meeting the needs of their customers and community while facing a global pandemic with grit and resilience. 

Make sure you rate, review and subscribe to our podcast so you don’t miss any episodes.

 

 

Episode Eight: Racquel Oden and Toye Wigley, JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Knowing when to pivot

While reflecting on their individual career journeys, Racquel and Toye offer examples of the conscious choices they made and why.

Racquel, who leads the Northeast region for Consumer and Wealth at JPMorgan Chase discusses the importance of being 110% prepared. She shares a story of when preparedness unexpectedly catalyzed the trajectory of her career.

Toye delivers marketing and public relations strategy for the firm’s Advancing Black Pathways initiative and makes the case for making strategic career moves even when the role offered may appear to be less than a perfect fit.

Mentors, sponsors and the importance of authenticity

In this episode, we explore why mentors and sponsors are critical to career success and what to expect from these critical relationships. We also learn how Toye previously struggled with authenticity and what ultimately helped her get comfortable bringing her whole self to work.   

Racquel shares a pet peeve with year-end performance reviews and explains why reviews done ineffectively could be the key to what is holding you back.

Talking about empowerment

Empowerment is a recurring theme in this episode and Racquel and Toye share advice on how to empower others as well as yourself.

For Toye, advocating on behalf of the black community is both her personal and professional passion. She points out that a majority of black women are the CFOs of their households and would benefit from financial education around planning, spending, saving and investing. She works to provide this information through the bank’s Advancing Black Pathways initiative.

When in need of moral support or a boost of confidence, remember your networks. Racquel touts the importance of tapping into the encouragement and guidance your colleagues, friends and family can provide.

 

Episode Seven: Rebecca Bullene, Greenery NYC

Soul-searching and finding purpose

Rebecca’s childhood fascination with nature led her down the path to garden design, large-scale plant installations and entrepreneurship. Rebecca walks us through her very relatable experience and the twists and turns of her career path. 

While climbing the ladder as an audio book publisher in New York, Rebecca found herself unfulfilled. As the outward trappings of success grew, an internal voice grew louder pointing her back to her roots.

Taking a leap of faith

After a period of soul-searching, Rebecca left her corporate job and eventually landed a role as website editor for the Brooklyn Botanical Garden. Despite a significant pay cut, Rebecca began to thrive again while working with world-class master gardeners of horticulture and garden design. 

Slowly, Rebecca found a way to pivot her work directly into the gardens themselves and acquired a small following of visitors, board members and wealthy individuals seeking her guidance.  It wasn’t long before word spread and demand for her work grew.  

The power of access

This new-found success led her to start Greenery NYC, however not without the typical challenges small business owners face including scaling business and accessing capital. She recalls a key turning point when she began reaching out for help which in turn led her to much needed resources, mentors and the confidence to invest in herself and her company.    

Rebecca offers savvy advice to women entrepreneurs needing to overcome self-doubt when approaching professional resources for help. She advocates moving past the need to wait until you have all the answers or ‘enough experience’ before reaching out and accessing your potential

 

Episode Six: Elaine Meyers, JPMorgan Chase & Co.

A unique client approach

As a financial advisor who specializes in the needs of the ultra-high-net-worth client, Elaine has assembled a diverse team of experts who have one thing in common; passion.  For Elaine, this is the key differentiator for her business.  Her clients are focused innovators and require a partner who understands how to address their complex and rapidly changing needs.   After more than 20 years running a multi-family style business, meeting face to face with her clients continues to be the most rewarding part of her job.  Elaine finds that she learns from her clients as much as they learn from her.

A good career choice for women

Women have a natural ability to multi-task and outsource and as a mother of four, Elaine uses these qualities to manage both her family and business. The flexible nature of being a financial advisor allows her to divide her time efficiently between both worlds. Having the freedom to switch ‘hats’ and pivot between work and family as needed gives her peace of mind and allows her to be the best mother and advisor she can be.

Finding the right advisor

When looking for a financial advisor, Elaine suggests you take your time and interview multiple advisors until you find someone you can easily relate to and communicate with. You should also look for an expert in the area of your specific situation.  Lastly, make sure you find an advisor who can listen effectively, which has been key in Elaine’s personal success.

 

Episode Five: Kaguya Komatsu, JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Kaguya Komatsu

Finding purpose in your work

Kaguya has found deep connections on both a professional and personal level.  As head of Japan’s Institutional Client Sales and Marketing, Kaguya sees her leadership role as one of service.  She views her work as providing value not only to her client base but also benefiting the next generation of clients.      Working mothers in Japan face similar work-life balance issues to those held around the world.  Kaguya shares her views on where progress has been made for mothers in the workplace and where more work is needed.

The power of honest feedback

Fortunately, Kaguya has benefited from managers who have taken a strong interest in nurturing her career path. Kaguya describes a particularly tough manager who recognized and rewarded her strong work ethic and who was responsible for starting her on the career trajectory she now enjoys.  She also shares a story about a watershed moment she had with her current manager where they discussed a potential promotion and ultimately both came away with a key life lesson.

Paying it forward

Women in Japan have traditionally been raised to be quiet, modest and receptive.  In this context, Kaguya explains why she invests her time teaching female colleagues to understand these learned behaviors and equip them with tools to find their voices and be more confident and productive.  She also helps women understand that it’s okay when you don’t have all the answers and to view those moments as opportunities.

 

Episode Four: Camila Penna, JPMorgan Chase & Co,

Camila Penna

‘Having it all’ is different for everyone

Camila Penna wants to see more women occupying senior management positions in sales and trading.  As the head of equity sales across eight regions, she has seen some progress in this area, but recognizes there is more work to be done.  In her view, reframing the conversation around ‘having it all’ or work-life balance is key to demystifying this common misnomer. Camila suggests a simple shift in the definition could make all the difference.  Using herself as the example, she admits that having it all can evolve over the years, but being satisfied with what you have at the time can help create a sense of balance and control.

Career Management

No one has total control of their career trajectory and yet Camila has relied on a few ‘rules of the road’ that have served her well.  For one, she always arms herself with as much information she can prior to making key decisions.  She recommends being goal-oriented and maintaining regularly scheduled conversations with your manager to stay on track.  Through the years, Camila has come to truly value and understand the importance of diversity.  She can attest that by pursuing diverse views and skillsets, managers and their organizations will reap better outcomes.

Giving yourself permission

Camila wears many hats as the manager of a global workforce, and the mother to a young child. Keeping it all together requires carefully coordinated planning with her teams and family.  And she acknowledges that with her heavy travel schedule, there are times she allows herself to reassess priorities and even consider taking a pause.  On the home front, she has a husband who believes in sharing the household and family responsibilities, down the middle. They both enjoy entertaining, staying physically active and spending optimal time with their son, Noah.

 

Episode Three: Sarah Heffron and Joanna Martin, JPMorgan Chase & Co,

Same goal, different approaches

Sarah Heffron and Joanna Martin are members of the J.P. Morgan Electronic Client Solutions team in London.  Sarah runs European Equities Execution for traders and Joanna leads the Global Liquidity Solutions group focused on institutional client product needs.  Over the years, Sarah and Joanna have come to develop a strong collaborative working relationship while driving institutional client business and building their teams.  Although their roles are distinctly different they have found in certain situations that the unique blend of their skillsets enable them to find alternative solutions and unexpected approaches.  While one brings an analytic and problem-solving nature to the table the other brings the ability to connect dots and motivate people.

What it takes

As leaders of large working groups, Sarah and Joanna are responsible for managing and building effective teams. Their personnel management approach includes understanding an individual employees’ career trajectory and continuously projecting out what the organizations’ future talent needs will likely be.   For early-stage employees, Sarah and Joanna tend to look for key skillsets they believe will add value to the business and grow the candidates’ career.  At the top of the list is the ability to harness the power of data, understand processes and deliver analytics.  They will be looking for talent who can build dashboards for traders, sales, and product to drive real time decision-making. Joanna also watches out for ‘self-starters’ who are curious and can collaborate, a skillset that together can set the stage for career mobility and new opportunities.

Career mobility survival tips

When facing a steep learning curve such as starting a new role, Sarah advises that you need to get comfortable with not fully understanding certain dimensions of the job and the business for a while.  Joanna adds that asking questions to understand complex concepts demonstrates a willingness to learn and go the ‘extra mile’.  Both recommend developing strong communication skills and learning how and when to have a productive discussion with your manager about your new role.

 

Episode Two: Lori Beer and Elinda Welsh, JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Attract, retain, promote

Currently, women represent about a quarter of the computer science workforce. Beer understands why and as Chief Information Officer for JPMorgan Chase, she has led the strategy to put an end-to-end solution in place for young women.  Elinda Welsh, one of the strategy’s benefactors, is a software engineer who is on the fast track for new, exciting and challenging opportunities.  Elinda’s opportunities started with an internship back in Glasgow, and following that was tapped to participate in a variety of highly coordinated and focused skills-based programs.  Along the way she received critical support provided by mentors, technology leaders and business managers. In this episode, two successful women in technology share their experiences and perspectives from uniquely different ends of the career spectrum.

Technology: From a bank’s perspective

From a cross-enterprise point of view, Lori’s global organization of industry experts are tasked with ensuring the integrity of the organization’s data.  This translates into three overarching priorities for Lori and her team; protecting customers, clients and the firm. They spend the majority of their energies focusing on data use, data rights, A.I. and cyber security.  In the consumer space, Lori touches on the work they are doing to improve client experiences by providing more virtual assistance capabilities and intuitive credit cards.  For the latter, their goal is to lower potential fraudulent activity by making credit cards innately and preemptively ‘smarter’.

Brightest and smartest

With the growing need to attract top talent, it doesn’t hurt to have an annual working budget of $11 billion and over 50k technologists globally.  Lori’s organization is constantly scouting for bright minds and high achievers and believes JPMorgan Chase’s industry leading position in technology creates a competitive advantage.  This advantage gives her team the ability to gather extensive thought leadership and diverse perspectives For Lori, the competitive differentiators boil down to having the capacity to engage top talent, deliver seamless execution and provide a collaborative environment.

 

Episode One: Gordon Smith, JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Diversity and Inclusion: A career-long focus

Gordon is a leading champion for JPMorgan Chase's diversity, inclusion and talent development efforts.  It was years ago while working with a female mentee, when Gordon became keenly aware of the need for diversity and inclusion. While expressing her concerns about organizations lacking diversity, she told him companies are sending the message that they are not the place for diverse talent.  From that point on, Gordon has maintained a keen focus on management accountability and instituting real business metrics designed to help managers maintain and grow the firm in this area.  Gordon believes driving the organization to better reflect diversity  will positively impact JPMorgan Chase’s overall culture and better serve customers and the communities they live in.

Simplification is Innovation

You could say that Gordon is fixated on the customer experience and looks for meaningful ways to take complexity out of business.  Gordon understands that by simplifying products and making them easier to understand, customers can continue building their businesses and focusing on growth.

Advancing Gender Equality

On male allies and advancing gender equality… Gordon discusses the importance of having senior male leaders leaning-in to provide mentorship, deliver talent reviews and give constructive developmental feedback.  Building a diverse workforce takes a thoughtful, organizational approach.  It starts with the role of the recruiter who understands their role in building the talent of the future and carries through to managers who remain focused on diversity as they grow their teams.  Promotions and stretch opportunities need to be reinforced with a support system designed to encourage, fill knowledge gaps and ensure success for employees and the company.

 

Introducing Season Two of Women on the Move

Thank you for listening to the first season of the Women on the Move podcast, where we spoke to some incredible business leaders at the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland.

In season two of the Women on the Move podcast, host Sam Saperstein will introduce you to the x-factor at JPMorgan Chase, the talented executives who lead the company and foster an inclusive culture. You’ll hear career lessons, advice and stories from leaders representing all of JPMorgan Chase's businesses and geographies. 

Make sure you rate, review and subscribe to our podcast so you don’t miss any episodes.