(upbeat music)
Welcome Darlene and Shirley to the studio
as we celebrate Women's History Month.
Let's start off by talking about the strides
that women have made reaching senior roles
in corporate America.
The good news is that there's more female CEOs
of Fortune 500 companies than have ever been before.
Yet, as we all know, it's still only 33 out of 500.
So maybe you could just share with me a little bit about
the development and do you think we're on the right path
towards the future of closing the gender gap?
I would say that, while 33 of 500 is a move forward,
it still is under 7%.
I recently read a McKinsey study that highlighted
that women are most underrepresented across most
levels of organizations despite having more college degrees
than men for 30 years plus.
So what I think needs to happen to move forward is
that we do need organizations to recognize early
where we are and to take the moves to be able to give women
roles that they can have to prepare them to move up.
Because you can't turn the switch overnight
and take somebody who hasn't done a lot of
different experiences across the organization
and make them CEO.
Just using our own organization as an example.
We, as part of Mizuho,
I feel very proud to say that two out of our three
key divisions are headed by women.
And I completely agree with Darlene, who heads Equity,
that having organization focusing on finding talented women,
giving them opportunity to take a leadership role,
is really an important step for us to move this forward.
We can really see that happening,
especially here in Mizuho as you just mentioned.
What do you think about the financial industry in general
and how it's changed for women in the industry?
I still recall when I first started as an analyst.
People, at least my perception at the time
when I walk into the room, they just thought
junior women to be shy, introverted,
you're not gonna talk, so they didn't actually expect you
to say anything.
And that was actually very interesting.
I think nowadays, that perception really has
gone away, people really have much more appreciation
about women talent.
I guess I would add that I started in the mid-90s,
coming out of business school where I came from a class of
800 of which there were 20% women onto Wall Street,
so I think we did see a pickup of women 10 years ago.
Some of that has started to tail off again
as more women are attracted to other industries
like technology and Silicon Valley and other startups.
Having said that, I think that we still need to do what we
can do to attract and to educate people early.
Firms know that diversity pays and diversity is good
for business as you think about wanting
to look like your customers.
I was at one of the largest institutions earlier this week
and the last question they asked me was,
"What is Mizuho doing to improve diversity?"
And the reason they asked me about that was
they too are trying to improve diversity
on their trading desk
so that they can actually continue
and attract the right talent to grow the business.
So actually, you just brought up a really good point,
so, while we're on that topic of D&I
what do you think we as women, senior leaders,
can do to actually ensure that we're being inclusive
and also what can we do to contribute to the
broader D&I platform?
I personally as one of the co-heads of
one of the D&I network Asian-American Association.
I look at D&I and diversity very much as
one big initiative.
I believe if a firm gets it right
then it's just going to be focusing on
how do you attract the best talent,
how can we ensure that we take away the
bias that we inherently might have,
and be focusing on bringing the best talent,
cultivating the talent, and keeping them in the firm.
So I believe very much that diversity is something
not just specifically to gender or race
but very much holistically.
It's important to educate the managers,
so the managers that I'm bringing in,
the people I'm bringing in,
to build the culture across Equities
they all appreciate it and know that we want more diversity.
They know that it's good for business.
I wanna work around people that will teach me.
I don't wanna teach people everything,
and I need great people with great minds
who are of diverse backgrounds so I can change
and evolve the business.
What are some of the strategies that you've learned
that you think can help women achieve a more
prominent role in the organization?
I think advice to people starting out in their career,
early on, as you think about where you wanna be in 10
or 15 years, choose a supportive partner
as you think about long term.
How you're gonna manage, if you choose to manage
a family and a job.
I think about being prepared or over-prepared.
I don't think anyone ever failed a test
because they were over-prepared.
So I think it's really important to think about being
over-prepared and then the last thing is
think about getting a sponsor and aligning with people
and networking.
Shirley and I talked earlier about, really in my career,
I focused just on clients and driving my business
and driving revenues, and what I missed along the way was
not spending the necessary time to grab coffee with people
in other different divisions or other parts of the business
because I perceived that as taking time away
from my core job and you have to have strong results
to move up.
So it's not about just networking.
But that networking can help you get where you want
to go because you'll understand where the pucks going
ahead of where it goes as you're thinking about your career.
We need employees and our team members to be happy
with their life, so that they can actually bring their
best self to work.
So I just want women to believe that it is doable.
You can have a successful career and have a happy family.
Darlene, I actually heard you speak at a recent
women's network event, and you were talking a little bit
about positivity and how you always try to keep
a positive attitude regardless of what's going on.
Can you talk a little more about this and how
you're able to maintain that level of positivity
despite daily challenges.
Heavy workload, external pressure, stress, etc.
I think at the highest level, it's much more fun
to be positive than negative.
I am a strong believer that you need a positive team
that respect the organization and that buy in
and that wanna drive the business further.
I need people to drive the business who think
it's not what happens to me, it's how I react
to what happens to me.
I'm a big believer that we can do whatever we set
our minds to do and despite the challenges in the industry
that if we have a winning team and a team that has
that positive attitude, then we will be successful.
Thinking back to when you either first started
in your career or maybe five years in, maybe 10,
what advice would you give to your younger self?
Something that maybe you know now
that you wish you knew then.
I think it's important to tell your younger self
or others to take a step back, think about where you might
wanna be in five or 10 years, and think about the other
skillsets you might need to get there.
And maybe sometimes it's okay to take a step back
to move forward.
I recall one senior woman telling me that,
Shirley, this is really a marathon.
You sprint too hard.
And I want to tell my younger self
relax a little bit, remember that this is a marathon.
And you talk about loving your career
and enjoying the financial services world,
but if you weren't working in financial services,
what do you think you would wanna do?
Outside of work I do love to cook very much.
So I think I would be a very poor chef.
See and,
I'm much more capitalistic I guess,
where I would probably try to position myself
to be a CEO of a technology company.
Or another company or something that's entrepreneurial.
The one area of Mizuho I absolutely love is
the entrepreneurial part of it.
Shirley talked about growing products and
attracting teams and working across the organization with
so many great business partners,
that to me is almost like working at a startup
and building a business on your own and leading that.
And that to me is super attractive.
Great, well that's all the questions I have.
Thank you very much for having us.
Thank you
Thank you both.
(bright music)