International Women’s Day: How women at BlackRock Choose To Challenge bias & discrimination
As we prepare for International Women’s Day on March 8, I had the incredible opportunity to engage with three senior BlackRock leaders – all women – on the day’s theme #choosetochallenge. Here are their interesting answers to my questions along with empathy and lessons for us all.
Question #1:
Choose To Challenge is a call to confront bias, discrimination, and stereotyping. How have you chosen to challenge and called out situations in the past? What are you doing to create a better environment and a better future?
“Choose to challenge is first and foremost about the everyday moments. It’s about being present, alert and questioning when something could be better. This can be smaller things like reviewing the proposed speaker line-up for an event. It’s being conscious of whether the panel is diverse – and challenging it if it’s not. The same holds true for meetings: looking at participants and questioning whether others should be added to provide diversity of perspective and thought.”
– Sarah Melvin, Managing Director and Head of BlackRock’s UK Business
“I have been actively challenging bias my entire life. As an Arab woman, there are countless stereotypical expectations that I have continuously confronted over the years – from attending MIT (“Why would you go to MIT? That institution is not for women.”), to a career in investment banking and eventually heading investment banking in the Middle East at Morgan Stanley (“You can’t go into investment management. That industry is for men…and particularly not the Middle East!”), to balancing my rigorous job and raising a family of four boys (“Surely you will resign or take on a part time role now that you have children.”). The way that I have chosen to challenge each of these situations is by fighting them through my actions and demonstrating that I am capable of not only achieving these goals but also excelling at them.”
– May Nasrallah, Non-Executive Chairman and Senior Advisor for the Middle East
“In the data and technology space, I am often in meetings with all men. Once, as we were talking about a conference, a male colleague referenced an ‘extremely thought-provoking’ presentation given by ‘quite a witty girl.’ (Mind you, she is an award-winning data scientist.) I said simply, “You mean quite a witty woman, not girl.” He corrected himself immediately, and we went on with the discussion. He called me afterwards to apologize and explain that he did not mean any insult. I explained to him how referring to a woman as a girl may seem innocent enough but is a micro-aggression that negatively impacts perceptions of women. I also asked him if he would ever refer to a male award-winning data scientist as a ‘boy,’ and he could not fathom it. So, I think we both learned good lessons that day. Mine was to speak up in the moment. And his was that he should never refer to an adult woman as a girl! Ever!”
– Tiffany Perkins-Munn, Managing Director and Head of the Research, Analytics, and Data team for Global Marketing
Question #2:
It’s important to really dig deep into the opportunities side of this topic as well. How have mentors and sponsors at BlackRock helped you identify and pursue opportunities?
… Being in tune to the benefits of receiving, as well as giving sponsorship, mentorship, and followership can prove to enrich opportunities and play a key role in career development and advancement…Sponsorship tends to come from an influential person who sees the potential in an employee and can be an advocate in helping to attain your career goal. Mentorship tends to be more of a trusted adviser who helps with career development and preparing you for reaching career goals. Followership is more self-driven: it is both an active decision in choosing someone to follow and is also a reflection of who you are as a colleague and leader by compelling others to choose to follow you.
I wouldn’t be at BlackRock today had it not been for one marvelous leader and sponsor whom I respect tremendously. We all seek to surround ourselves with people we look up to, respect, and feel enriched by, and I had that in droves throughout my career…I highly encourage any aspiring professional to set up their own network of mentors and work on maintaining and growing it.– May Nasrallah
I read a Harvard Business Review article earlier this year that quite perfectly articulated the way I see mentors and sponsors, ’While a mentor is someone who has knowledge and will share it with you, a sponsor is a person who has power and will use it for you.’ Clearly, it is important to have both…To have mentors across levels is extremely important to stay ahead of emerging trends, to understand what peers are doing, and to get insight into more enterprise-level initiatives. On the other hand, to find a sponsor for your work is more of a personal activity, meaning, senior leaders should be on the lookout for people whom they want to champion. For your part, you must excel in your work. Performance is critical because the sponsor will use their “status chips” on your behalf. And you don’t just need one mentor and sponsor. Stretching your network of mentors and sponsors is crucial to career development.— Tiffany Perkins-Munn
How will you #choosetochallenge?
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