Despite gains of the past few years, women are largely still missing from corporate leadership roles. What’s worse, the ascension of women into leadership roles may have stalled recently as the number of women corporate CEOs, according 2018 Pew Research, fell in 2018. That’s why it’s important to hear from female corporate leaders, particularly those in finance and treasury, about their journeys to the top.
One of those leaders, Martina Hund-Mejean, CFO at Mastercard, recently shared the specifics of her journey at NeuGroup’s Women in NeuGroup (WiNG) roundtable event hosted by Mastercard at its New York City offices. Here are four key takeaways from her talk:
Make a five- and 10-year plan for both your professional and personal life. Early in their careers, Ms. Hund-Mejean and her banker husband mapped out plans for what they wanted to achieve in their personal and professional lives in 5 and ten years. They reviewed the plan every year. This allowed them to judge job offers and make strategic career choices by asking a simple question: What decision best contributes to meeting the plan’s goals within the time frame?
Go for rotations and challenging jobs. Step up for new and difficult challenges and think of them as developmental opportunities. In other words, don’t go the easy route. Ms. Hund-Mejean told a story of how she took a job that involved a lot of HR-related work and negotiations. That came in handy later in her career because as one moves higher up the management track, the more it becomes about people versus a particular finance skill. She also noted – particularly with millennial attitudes about work and life in mind – that sometimes you must trust that your boss is giving you a challenge or a rotation for a good reason.
Put your hand up for extra projects. Here she noted that men often raise their hands quickly to volunteer while many women hesitate as they want to take stock of their skills or the time commitment first. Recognizing this now as a leader, Ms. Hund-Mejean gives her team time to come back to her about accepting a challenging project (instead of handing it to the first person to raise a hand). However, this does argue for women not to be afraid to raise their hands. They can work out conflicts later.
Think strategically, act tactically. The higher you rise in an organization, the more your focus should be on big-picture strategic items, but to lead your teams, you need to be able to ask the right questions about execution.
The next Women in NeuGroup (WiNG) networking event will be on May 1, 2019 in San Francisco, hosted by Salesforce. For more information email [email protected].