The Stern Opportunity

How have you relied on the resources available to women at Citi throughout your career?

Throughout my 15 year tenure with Citi, I have been responsible for the development and integration of Citi's workforce diversity strategy. Since a Global Women's Summit launched in 2000, Citi has been focused on building its female leadership pipeline throughout the global organization. As a myriad of office initiatives and women's networks have grown from the support of local leaders, my current objective is to create a collective women's initiative, aligning the Citi organization under one, unified female career development strategy. Additionally, Citi has also recently concentrated on successfully carrying female-focused initiatives into the extended community, exemplified by the strong footprint of Citi's Women & Co. Division.

I applaud the wealth of resources available to female Citigroup employees today across the globe. From formal practices embedded within Citi's Leadership Development Programs and webcasts of interviews with female executives available on the intranet, to a long list of dedicated female groups, Citi continues to proactively support initiatives to increase female senior leadership within the organization. I, however, recognize there is always progress to be made. Determined to globally scale these initiatives through the use of social networking tools, I look forward to a greater ability to connect and collaborate within the organization utilizing their new social networking tool, Citi 2.0.

What advice do you have for MBA women about to graduate in today's changing environment?

My overarching advice to female MBAs about to graduate in today's changing environment is to be proactively strategic about creating a network of advocates to help in your career progression. As research suggests, females must not only focus on building their technical expertise, but also on building advocacy networks. I recommend that this practice should not be seen as "managing up", but rather as an integral requirement for building a successful career in today's work environment.

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