Chapter 14
Women's Initiative Network and Reverse Mentoring Program
Interview with Karen Peetz, President of BNY Mellon
Karen was promoted to president of BNY Mellon in 2013. She has worked in banking for 30 years and was the company's first female vice chair. Karen is passionate about fostering a responsible, risk-sensitive banking culture and making the business case for diverse talent. She is also a leading player in the finance sector's changing risk and regulation frameworks, aimed at strengthening reliability and rebuilding trust in the sector.
Since 2009, BNY Mellon has witnessed a 100 percent increase in the number of women and a 35 percent increase in the number of people from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds at Executive Committee, Operating Committee, and Regional Operating Committee levels. Forty-four percent of the global workforce are women; 36 percent of the VPs are women; 26 percent of the MDs are women; and 19 percent of the Executive Committee are women.
Women in the Economy
How do you see the role of women in today's economic world?
I think that the good news is that companies around the world are recognizing that with women being at least half of the world's population, it's very important that they get engaged, if nothing else, in order to optimize economic opportunities. And when you look at it that way, you realize that the country that does the best job of mobilizing women will end up performing better.
I think we are moving from what was an altruistic suggestion to a much more economic imperative. And that's very healthy and will, I think, create much more opportunity as countries in various ages and stages of development understand that. And with efforts like the push for board membership, and efforts to promote women and have parity—that's kind of the icing on the cake.
Do you think women managers bring any particular advantages to the company? If so, what?
Yes, I do think that many of the typical female skills—like being highly collaborative, having strong intuition about people, understanding risk, and solid organizational skills—tend to be high on the list. Certainly anybody who can run a career and run a family has to be pretty organized. And the female approach can be hugely helpful to traditionally male bastions such as business. The flip side, though, is that the women have to have the confidence to be heard and to lead; so it's great if you have that skill set, but if you cannot get yourself into a position to be heard or to lead, then it doesn't matter if you have all those softer skills.
Do you think, given the bad press that the banking sector has had over the last few years, that the presence of more women at the top will have a positive effect on that sector?
Yes, I think that we can't say, “Women would have done this or that differently,” because who knows what more senior women would have done. But I think that the same skill set that I just talked about—the ability to collaborate and to come to mutual agreements about solutions and really get people involved—is the new expectation, particularly for the younger generation. And I think that the changing appetite from an autocratic to a more democratic, from a top down to a more participative, leadership style will play to women's strengths as well.
Obstacles Facing Women
What are the major obstacles that prevent women from attaining key decision-making posts?
McKinsey has done some excellent research, and they've come up with what are statistically significant either derailers or inhibitors for women. And I happen to agree with them.
The Number 1 obstacle is “lack of sponsors”: sponsor being someone who is in the room with the power to actually do something for you—and certainly in my own career, that's been instrumental: I wouldn't have progressed to where I am without strong, and frankly all male, sponsors. That's the first inhibitor.
The second obstacle is “lack of role models.” That, of course, becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you don't see senior women then you don't believe that you can actually do it. That's changing as we get more CEOs and women in senior places—women such as the Angela Merkels, the very senior female politicians, and Hillary Clinton, for instance.
The other inhibitors, which I think are hugely impactful, are two categories of prejudice—and of course nobody really likes to talk about that. The first one is prejudice about women and preconceived notions about what they can do or want to do—stereotypes, if you will.
And the second factor is prejudice about ourselves—that's the limiting thoughts or limiting horizons that many women have, whether it's through socialization or self-doubt. They have prejudices about themselves and so when others have prejudices about them, then women feel there's nothing wrong with that.
Overcoming the Obstacles
At BNY Mellon, 44 percent of your global workforce are women, 36 percent of your VPs are women, 26 percent of your MDs are women, and 19 percent of your Executive Committee are woman. So BNY Mellon has made great steps forward in the promotion of women.
How can we support women to overcome these obstacles?
I think we have to help women with their mind-sets—that concept of prejudice about ourselves. You need to have the right mind-set to succeed. And what's interesting here in the United States is that they're correlating long-term success career-wise with athletic participation as a young girl. That actually happened to me: I was heavily involved in competitive athletics, and they're saying—and I agree—that learning about competition, self-reliance within a team, winning, but also losing, is hugely helpful to get into that mind-set. In many ways, it's a marathon, not a sprint, and you're going to have ups and downs. You're going to win some and lose some. And as you go up the chain, you're judged on how you handle both—the losing and the winning—and how you stick with it. Now that I've been thirty-plus years in banking, I can think of whole years that weren't that fun. But when I look back on it, I learned something; I grew; I developed; and I stuck with it.
The other thing to help women succeed is encouraging them to get diverse work experience. Many women get stuck in historically female-type roles—and they may get to the top of whatever pyramid that is, such as legal or HR, where females have historically done well. But it's more unusual to see women in business roles. So you must not get complacent at an early stage if you have a long-term desire to get to the top; you have to be constantly developing and expanding.
So those are broad principles, but what we do at BNY Mellon to support women is that we have some structures that we call “Employee Resource Groups.” They're not only for women—they're also for people of color, people from diverse backgrounds, and people with disabilities. They are networks where people can gain exposure, professional development, and business experience in a low-threat environment.
We also have begun something that we call a “Nine Box Talent Review,” which we're integrating into our organization. It's a way of calibrating talent within every group in the company. What I think is great about it is that everyone's name has to be on the piece of paper. Therefore, it captures diverse people in a very clear and transparent way of talking about talent. Everybody's name has to be on the paper, so people that might not have been considered otherwise will have both their performance and potential discussed and calibrated. It's part and parcel of the appraisal system. Management teams are being tasked to not only put names on paper, but to discuss how to develop those people—and then that smaller group of top talent gets special development and attention.
Do you think that your Employee Resource Group WIN has been specifically successful in promoting women in BNY Mellon?
The leadership experiences that many women have availed themselves of within our Women's Initiatives Network, or WIN, have absolutely increased their confidence, and enhanced their profile. And the network that they have developed means they're more likely to know whether there's a job opening in this spot or that spot.
I don't think we can point to We did this and then we got that. But the leadership experiences that many women have availed themselves of within our Women's Initiatives Network, or WIN, have absolutely increased their confidence, enhanced their profile, and frankly, improved their managers' understanding of their roles and potential. And then the network that they have developed means they're more likely to know whether there's a job opening in this spot or that spot. They're more likely to be able to call a woman who's in a group or in a job posting and connect with them in a self-help way. And then, of course, we have a mentoring program that's actually a year-long investment in their professional development.
What is the Reverse Mentoring Program?
I have a very high-potential mentor in our Markets Group; and at my first meeting with her, she said, “So, where are your goals, and what are you actually doing?” You know, I was a little intimidated so I showed her not only the goals that had been submitted to the board, that I was on the hook for, but I also showed her the summary of my performance for the year, to really give her a sense of the level I was operating at, the kind of goals, and the formality that she might not have been as aware of. But it was just a funny conversation—I was explaining myself to this twenty-two-year-old—which I do at home all the time. And, growing out of this generation-type initiative, we have a new Employee Resource Group, or an Affinity Group, called GenEdge, which is meant for that generation to engage them in a similar way, with those from other generations, as we've done with women and people of color, and so on. So it's good.
So what was the goal of the Reverse Mentoring Program?
It was a way of taking some high-potential junior people and connecting them to senior people for their experience, wisdom, and hopefully motivation. But equally it was to connect the more senior people to younger people who have been recruited for their potential, but who are pretty far down in the organization. And to get their views (and I have to say my mentor is incredibly mature) of the kind of things senior management should be thinking about to relate to their generation.
Interview with Jean Wynn, Managing Director and Chief Administrative Officer of BNY Mellon's Office of the President
Jean Wynn provides oversight for BNY Mellon's company-wide initiatives in the areas of organizational development, sales effectiveness, and employee engagement. She also leads BNY Mellon's Global Innovation Program. Jean is co-chair of BNY Mellon's Women's Initiative Network (WIN) and is co-founder of the Wall Street Women's Alliance. For its success in promoting the advancement of women in the company, the leaders of BNY Mellon's WIN were named a Top Team (2009) by American Banker Magazine/US Banker, as part of the annual review of the most powerful women on Wall Street.
Since 2009, BNY Mellon has witnessed a 100 percent increase in the number of women and a 35 percent increase in the number of people from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds at Executive Committee, Operating Committee, and Regional Operating Committee levels: 44 percent of the global workforce are women; 36 percent of the VPs are women; 26 percent of the MDs are women; and 19 percent of the Executive Committee are women.
How do you see the role of women in today's economic/financial world?
Certainly all the statistics point to the fact that women are commanding a growing share of financial assets in economies around the world, and they control a considerable amount of spending, roughly two-thirds in the United States as an example. This is finally being more widely recognized as a growing economic paradigm shift where women are becoming much more financially pronounced. There are more women who have expanded their wealth due to more of them being in the workforce for an extended period of time and at higher levels, albeit we have not seen as many as we would like rise to the top ranks. Nonetheless, there has been progress and, as a result, we see more financial independence on the part of women. So to that end, businesses should begin to re-orient themselves to this demographic shift, in recognition of that command of that purse, and start looking at their business model and go-to-market strategies on the consumer side as well as on the institutional side.
Do you think women managers bring any particular advantages to the company? If so, what?
If the clients making the decisions are women, then you need to reflect that in your company as well in terms of having women in your company who can match off against that and mirror that client base. Companies can benefit from management style and traits women are known for, namely listen, consult, ask questions versus talk, give orders, and answer questions. In general, the leadership style of women tends to be more collaborative, which is a style welcomed in companies today.
There are always exceptions, but women can provide a different perspective on the thinking process, and, as innovation becomes more and more important in companies, doing things differently, leading change, and drawing upon more diverse thought processes, all point to advantages women can bring. Plus all the stats confirm the business case: put more women in senior management and on boards, and the company performs better, full stop.
What are the major obstacles that prevent women from attaining key decision-making posts?
I think there's still an element of unconscious bias. This stems from society and upbringing, and it's more pervasive in certain cultures across the globe than others. So as an example, this can lead to men making decisions around who is right for a position or who might be tapped for that assignment, and they are not necessarily doing it consciously. And then there is the fundamental biological obstacle, the fact that women do need to take time off to have a family. And as a result of that, there continues to be a certain stigma putting women at a disadvantage. As a result, they may opt out themselves, and that's another problem in terms of their confidence and ability to take action with the mind-set and resilience to make it work.
What advice or support can we give to women to overcome these obstacles? What do you do at BNY Mellon to support women to advance in the organization?
As much as we try to support women, I do think organizations need to concentrate on this a bit more: staying connected with women who go out on leave, making them feel connected, and giving them that support and encouragement, so they want to come back when they feel it appropriate, and feel confident in doing so. But, if they do want to take more extended leave, then I think there are some successful programs, and we as a company are going to be giving it a try with our WIN group. This involves establishing a re-entry program for women who have opted out for a period to come back and to get reacquainted with the workplace and by doing project work, that is, short-term assignments that will enable us and them to decide whether this test drive really works. Do they want to come back and under what circumstances, and at the same time, they are accomplishing some work for us by getting some projects done, and this also gives them something on their resume even if they don't get placed permanently with our company. So we're in the process of investigating that now, and we do think that that's an important thing to have out there to convince women that we are committed to that process and that we do want to retain the talent that they represent.
Can you tell me a little more about WIN?
WIN is our Women's Initiatives Network, and we're about eleven years into this now. It was our first employee resource group in the company, and it was championed by Karen Peetz. She got the idea right after attending a Women's Bond Club event in New York City. She looked around the room and saw that there were many impressive senior women throughout the industry represented at this dinner. She learned what many were doing in terms of the mentoring and support for women, and thought that should be replicated within our company. So we joined that organization and there were a few of us that got together and said, “What can we do to help other women in our company?” That was kind of the formation of our WIN group eleven years ago. And since that time, we've filled some gaps that the company had with respect to some developmental needs. We also networked and connected through community service. We got involved in the American Cancer Society's breast cancer walk, and the Heart Association's Go Red for Women campaign.
From there, we put more structure around it, got a budget, put in more governance, and devised a mentoring program as well, which was the first formal mentoring program in the company at that time. And then from there, that was the launch pad and since then, we've just expanded across the globe; we started really in New York and London first, and now we have 56 chapters worldwide and over 5,000 members, and we're still going strong.
Our mentoring program was set up very early on, so we were the pioneer in the company to start that. The largest benefit from the mentoring program is about providing connectivity across the company—we are a very large company—so part of what our WIN organization has been able to help the company do is certainly to drive more collaboration and knowledge about the company itself, so that people just know more about what we do and how a network within the company can help them in their day-to-day jobs.
The other thing WIN just launched, and this is in a pilot stage, is a Reverse Mentoring program, which takes our millennial WIN members and puts them with mentees on our Executive Committee, including our CEO, CFO, and president—so Karen Peetz is being mentored by a millennial. It's in its pilot stages but again, I think it does draw on more connectivity between the generations and allows for some of our senior executives to see how things are resonating throughout the company at the more junior levels.
And then the fundamental goal for our women's group is really to drive bottom line impact for the company—strategically we try to gear all of our activities, and get all of our membership, aware of this goal. WIN is very good for women to get involved in, because of the visibility and the career opportunities it creates. Ultimately, what we really are trying to do is create that bottom line impact for the company so that we're looked upon, truly, as a business resource group. And we have been able to successfully do that by connecting, and sharing our learning, with our clients, who are, in many cases, in the financial industry itself. We were a pioneer in forming the Wall Street Women's Alliance (WSWA), which is a very informal group, a “network of networks” of women's group leaders who get together to share what's working and what's not, and collectively try to solve the problems, so that we're all improving our networks. Hopefully, by pulling more women up the ranks, and therefore the industry, we'll make a difference to our industry collectively.
I'll just also say that our women's group is not only for women—we have a concerted effort to draw men into leadership roles within the governance structure of our WIN organization—deliberately—we think that's really important. Our Executive Sponsor is a man on the Executive Committee, so very senior, and he has been a terrific advocate and supporter for what we are doing.