Career Tracks: Women Banking Executives Talk About What It Takes

Bridget A. Macaskill didn't follow any of the typical guidelines for getting her current position.

She never set career goals-"I'm not sure how important they are." Nor does she consider herself someone who was born to lead.

But that didn't stop Ms. Macaskill, a former food marketer in her native England, from becoming chief executive officer of OppenheimerFunds, a leading mutual fund house. That makes her the only woman to head a sizable New York-based financial services firm.

Speaking last week before an audience of 1,500 female professionals at Bankers Trust's third annual Women on Wall Street Symposium, Ms. Macaskill said that the surest route to the top is to develop some skills that set you apart.

"Do the job as well as you possibly can and leadership will find you," she said.

Ms. Macaskill was among a handful of top female executives who gave advice about how women can obtain leadership roles in the workplace. The panel, which was moderated by Mary Cirillo, a Bankers Trust executive vice president and the bank's highest-ranking woman executive, included Elaine LaRoche, a managing director with Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter, Discover & Co.; Heidi Miller, senior vice president and chief financial officer at Travelers Group; and Karen Elliott House, the president of Dow Jones & Co.'s international group and a Pulitzer Prize-winning former reporter.

The hour-and-a-half discussion was organized by the Global Partnership Network for Women, a 750-member group designed to help Bankers Trust female employees develop their careers.

Ms. House said that women tend to have attributes that serve them well as leaders.

"Being a good listener is something that women do well," she said. "Women also are better at putting themselves in other people's shoes. They are also better at giving kindly, constructive feedback."

But several of the panel's speakers lamented that women, despite all these noble qualities, haven't attained many corner offices.

That's partly because today's top female executives, who are mostly in their 40s and early 50s, haven't been around as long as many of the men who occupy chief executive slots at large corporations, the audience was told.

Ms. Cirillo suggested that women who confront "walls" in their career advancement at large companies consider moving to smaller firms, where they stand a better chance of rising to the top.

Bankers Trust chairman Frank Newman, the only man given the mike at the event, offered his own advice about how to become a leader.

"You should try to think one or two levels up from where you are," he said.

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