Above The Median Newsletter: Your Personal Board of Directors
How to build deep relationships with people and get further in your career
For the final 2022 newsletter (eek hello 2023), we spotlight three incredible women (Carrie Schwab, Shannon Warren, and Sarah Francois-Poncet) who have demonstrably influenced global corporations such as Charles Schwab, JP Morgan, and Chanel.
Last month we dove into the importance of networking and ways to build a lattice of touch points throughout an organization. This month we learn how to deepen specific relationships. When you can have both a wide and deep network of relationships, you uniquely equip yourself to succeed.
*As a visual learner, I created a little diagram below in case it is helpful for you when thinking about network development…
Carrie, Shannon, and Sarah teach us how to gain a sponsor at an organization and how to build a personal board of directors. As a reader you might hear the term board of directors and immediately think about company governance. But this term can be extrapolated to your personal career journey as well.
Editorial note: [Going forward, I am making a concerted effort to condense the newsletters so that you can learn and read on a coffee break during a work day. Additionally - I will be playing with format so please provide feedback on what you like!]
Let’s dive in…
ABOVE THE MEDIAN SPOTLIGHT:
Sometimes people’s last names are misleading, however, in Carrie’s case it’s not. Carrie Schwab, is indeed the daughter of Charles Schwab and her family gene pool is responsible for building one of the largest financial brokerages in history, Charles Schwab. To contextualize what we mean by large…the Charles Schwab brokerage house manages approximately $7.13 trillion in assets.
Carrie’s life work has been committed to financial literacy for the world. She served two White House administrations on financial capability policy (appointed by both President Obama and George W. Bush), chaired the Board of Schwab Charitable, and served as both the Board Chair and President of the Charles Schwab Foundation. Additionally, she is the Chair for the Board of Governors for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America. She most recently was voted into the public board of Schwab.
Carrie is an inspiration for all women and I strongly encourage our readers to take time to read her publications online to learn more about personal budgeting, one’s relationship to money, and tips to save. [A quick fiduciary tactic from Carrie: SAVE 10-15% of your paycheck into your 401k or an IRA.]
Carrie’s journey to build her own career identity in parallel to her father was tedious and yet inevitably rewarding. Carrie ascribes her personal and professional ascent to the support system she built around her inclusive of her executive coach and her “personal board of directors.”
Tactic: Build a small cohort of women across industries
One of Carrie’s psychological shifts was from her experience with IWF’s (International Women’s Forum) Leadership Program. Carrie was in her late 30s when a female executive at Schwab took Carrie under her wing and recommended her for the program.
“I remember being so uncomfortable at the start. I started with my glass half full, I left with my glass filled to the top. I acquired a level of confidence I didn’t expect,” says Carrie.
The program was an invite only 1 year fellowship program that brought together women across sectors of society and job disciplines. “I felt like all the members were my mothers age,” jokes Carrie. She was placed in a group of 11 women and spent one week at Harvard, another at Cambridge, and participated in many classes while networking with the women.
Carrie notes that the IWF program taught her the power of networking. By building relationships with her cohort, Carrie gained her voice and her personal experience. ”I fed off my relationships with others. I learned to unleash who I truly am.”
Carrie built off of the IWF program and organized lunches with female executives in finance. They all became friends because even though they were competitors they were all in similar stages of life. “We could identify with the challenges of raising children, spouses and striving in our careers. BUT at the same time, we all had brought different ideas and perspectives to group conversations and provided mutual encouragement that opened our eyes to new opportunities.” Carrie advises women to maintain a cohort who can serve as advisors - a term we deem your personal board of directors.
Carrie still considers those women life long friends and goes to them through personal and professional challenges. “You can still have a coach, but there’s something extremely powerful about having people going through permutations of your own experience as your advisors,” says Carrie.
For example, when Carrie took over the Charles Schwab Foundation she asked specific people within her personal board of directors for advice on how to run foundations. That advice paid off. With Carrie’s leadership, The Charles Schwab Foundation has provided financial literacy programs to millions of children and allocated scholarships. Additionally, the Foundation collaborated with the Girl Scouts to nationally alter the “financial literacy” badge to include investing (and challenge the perpetuated stereotypes for women to just save/budget.) Recently, Charles Schwab was recognized as one of America's 50 most community-minded companies for the sixth year in a row by Points of Light. The Civic 50 honors companies for their commitment to strengthening, investing in, and working alongside communities. The work Carrie pioneered at the foundation contributed to Charles Schwab winning the award.
ABOVE THE MEDIAN SPOTLIGHT:
You can’t find Shannon on social media because she intentionally avoids it. “My whole family does, even my 16 year old son,” says Shannon. The irony is that while most people enjoy splashing their accomplishments on Linkedin or Instagram, Shannon has taken a more self-effacing approach in her current work advising fintech companies, having previously managed operational controls at one of the largest banks in the world, JPMorgan Chase, a company with a $397 Billion dollar market cap. As the Chief Control Officer for JPMorgan Chase, Shannon helped manage a firm that had grown from 15,000 people when she started to 260,000 people. “The firm changed so dramatically over my first ten years, it felt like I was constantly at a new company. It was a fantastic experience for a young leader - with new clients, products, locations, people and technology coming together, and being part of that cultural change,” says Shannon.
Shannon navigated multiple roles in finance, immersing herself in the most complicated financial instruments, including derivatives and structured products, at the beginning of her career, but she found her niche as a broader leader of risk and control functions. She doubled down as a subject matter expert in operational risk and leveraged this as a base of strength. However, being an expert in something was just step one. Becoming a leader, particularly when you manage thousands of people, requires emotional strength. “The EQ side of the equation becomes the driver of how successful you can truly become - and by success, I mean how much of a positive impact you can have not only on the business but on people. My experience is that you have to have some base of expertise, particularly in the earlier part of your career. From that base, you can develop into a true operator and leader over time. Emotional quotient takes over intelligence quotient.”
Tactic: Gain sponsorship through performance
Shannon has worked for some really talented and successful people over her years in banking. One of them was Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase. She recalls the early days after the JPMorgan Chase - Bank One merger and how quickly he raised the bar for performance. She remembers how she was always prepared, crazy prepared, for every meeting with him and established a good rapport with him as a result.
Once a month, Shannon would join key senior leaders, including the CEO, for a breakfast meeting. She was the most junior person in the room and there was not much breakfast being consumed. “It was a lightning round of questions,” says Shannon, “Any topic could get covered. You had to know your stuff cold - not only our operations, but also the competitive landscape, industry practice and current market events - and I always ensured I did. Perhaps equally important, you needed to be confident enough to not guess. Acknowledge when you don't have the answer and quickly follow up to get it. And by quickly, I mean now.” Shannon became memorable as a result and when Shannon was put up for promotions, she had support from the highest levels.
In addition to strong performance, Shannon prioritized being a trusted partner, advisor and team player across the company. She emphasized, "Reputation is everything, become known as a trustworthy person." Many people pushed from the bottom and pulled from the top for her ascent as a result.
Tactic: Build a community outside of the office
Shannon advises young leaders to be part of an environment where you can both expand your own skills and analyze career options without a power structure. For Shannon, she spent quite a bit of time in banking and securities associations and expanded her personal board of individuals beyond the JP Morgan walls. “Inside your organization, there is always a clear hierarchy and a boss as the decision maker,” says Shannon, “Get outside your organization and into an environment with a level playing field where you need to more heavily rely on your influencing and negotiating skills to reach a consensus. You will become so much more effective in your primary job, but also develop strong relationships and connections outside your company that may lead to additional opportunities, or at least new perspectives and ideas.”
An external network can also help you discuss influence/negotiation/compensation in a way that doesn’t feel awkward. Shannon notes that it can be an industry community or even non-profit boards to offer a broad-based diverse network. She points out that you have to prioritize and put real effort into building and maintaining your network - but the investment is worth it. Over a long career, your network will pay dividends over and over.
“Relationships matter. Build your network intentionally. Do not not make your whole network, or your professional identity for that matter, dependent on your current company/employer.”
- Shannon Warren
ABOVE THE MEDIAN SPOTLIGHT:
Sarah jokes, “I am not a good example of having a plan…if I could write my life story in 6 words it would be ‘No plan. Only makes sense backwards.’ ” That lack of plan appears to have served Sarah quite well. She worked the majority of her career as a litigator at what is now the largest law firm in the world, and at one of the poshest global institutions, Chanel. As Chanel’s global general counsel, she managed a team of over 150 legal professionals in 15+ countries and was a member of the senior leadership team. Sarah was also awarded the Legion of Honour, the highest French honor. Three years ago she went back to school to get two degrees in order to follow her passion for people and set herself up as an executive coach. Sarah inspires us all to take a deep breath: if she didn’t have a plan and was that successful, we should all be OK.
The absence of a clear-cut game plan didn’t mean the absence of some driving principles and tools Sarah adopted to succeed across all facets of her life.
First, Sarah highlights the importance of embracing adventure. Had she not done this, she never would have moved over to the job at Chanel from her law firm or shifted into coaching.
Second, while she attributes a lot of her success to hard work, she emphasizes the importance of identifying and leveraging one’s character strengths. In her case, these included what sound like amorphous qualities like perspective and social intelligence. Her take on perspective: “Be aware of being a *good girl*”, says Sarah. “After years of being the person who stayed behind to proofread the brief one more time, I realized the importance of generating meaningful relationships with the clients and my partners. Failing to develop those connections wasn’t worth the cost of catching one typo!” She added with respect to social intelligence, “Ultimately the people we admire in our lives are the ones who have an ability to connect with other people. There is nothing more important than emotional exchange.” Sarah emphasizes that deepening relationships with people is a key differentiator for success.
Although this specific newsletter is not tailored towards motherhood, Sarah had some great mom life hacks that I would be remiss to pass over. A few tactical nuggets:
Try to always respect meal time. Show up for two hours if possible (her 30 years in Paris made her particularly insistent on saving space - and time - for those gatherings).
Put your phone in a different room when you are with your children and when you go to bed, and use an analog alarm clock.
Get home from work and reset by physically changing into clothes that make you feel comfortable.
Subcontract out the small “to-do’s” as a mom so you can show up and spend quality time with your kids. No one cares who wraps christmas presents, if you ordered 10 identical gifts to have ready for birthday parties, or who did the grocery shopping. If possible, delegate the unessential stuff!
Create early-morning time for yourself, whether it be to work-out, meditate, tackle some of the items on your personal to-do list, journal or just enjoy a quiet cup of coffee.
Nurture your friendships and your health.
Tactic: Nourish mentorship in both directions
Sarah believes that a lot of her success came from mentorship, both the mentorship she was fortunate to receive as a lawyer, and then the mentorship she gave to members of her teams and other executives.
Early in Sarah’s career she did not have access to female mentors. “There just weren't that many women around me,” says Sarah. Around age 30 is when she said she was lucky enough to unearth a mentor in her firm, who also acted as a sponsor, someone who was in a position of power in their areas that could help her. More emerged in the ensuing years. “Some of it was a function of their age and position like when they would give me credit for a client when in fact it was theirs. Others supported me in taking on new challenges. This was pure professional generosity, for which I am so grateful.”
Sarah has tried to give back on the mentorship front, acting as a mentor to both young women and men as they navigate their own careers, and today, in her coaching work. In all events, Sarah encourages young women to find advocates both in their line of work because it can enhance visibility and credibility.
Conclusion:
Carrie, Shannon, and Sarah’s stories encourage us to form support networks internally within and externally from the company we work at. If you leave with any best practice from this newsletter, it is my hope that you learn to create your own Personal Board of Directors of both women & men that can provide insights and support you on your career journey. Additionally, I personally have anxiety about personal finances as I know many aspiring leaders do so please check out the complimentary educational materials from the Schwab Foundation.
Books To Read:
Carrie’s recommendation: “Team of Rivals”' by Doris Kerns Goodwin (The book is about Lincoln’s life and how his extraordinary leadership style brought political adversaries together on behalf of the country. “It’s how I try to lead- being inclusive and listening to all sides- before making a decision,” says Carrie.)
Shannon’s recommendation: The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson
Sarah’s recommendation: How Women Rise - Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back by Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith & Flourish by Martin Seligman
What’s been inspiring me lately…
The Japanese term: Ikigai
How to identify your productivity levels: Forcing Function Assessment
Living a Life of Excellence podcast episode on All the Hacks
2022 Social Rules on Linkedin (example on the list: #5. Always open the door for the person coming behind you. It doesn’t matter if it is a guy or a girl, senior or junior. You don’t grow small by treating someone well in public)
The Bezos Blueprint for Success, Article by the WSJ
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QUESTION FOR YOU AS A READER…
Who would you like to learn from and what topic are you most interested in getting advice on? I am looking for 2023 Above The Median interviews and would love ideas! Shoot me an email: awarson22@gmail.com
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See you all next month!
Special thanks to…
Kendall Warson for all of her design advice that helps breathe life into visions
Jocelyn Teece for deep diving and contributing to the project (all while simultaneously attending Tuck Business School and navigating the pandemic)
All the amazing women who were interviewed and who opened up to share their stories
Everyone who participated in a focus group that inspired the questions for the interviews