Wolverines and Swans

Last month, London Business School’s Women in Business club had its flagship event: the all-day Women in Business Conference held at the Bloomberg auditorium. As a committee, we had been preparing since last autumn, lining up speakers, their topics of discussion, the venue, the food, the attendees, the advertising (including a complete overhaul of the website). Conforming to the MBA stereotype, we even printed out a minute-by-minute Excel table which outlined where each coordinator should be at any given time during the day. The table included checking on caterers, walking speakers out of the hall and making announcements. It's perhaps even more stereotypical for me to be proud that we adhered to that table and finished right on time!

Last month, London Business School’s Women in Business club had its flagship event: the all-day Women in Business Conference held at the Bloomberg auditorium. As a committee, we had been preparing since last autumn, lining up speakers, their topics of discussion, the venue, the food, the attendees, the advertising (including a complete overhaul of the website). Conforming to the MBA stereotype, we even printed out a minute-by-minute Excel table which outlined where each coordinator should be at any given time during the day. The table included checking on caterers, walking speakers out of the hall and making announcements. It's perhaps even more stereotypical for me to be proud that we adhered to that table and finished right on time!

Type-A planning skills aside, I wanted to share a few topics that resonated with our audience. After all, our speakers included the perfumer Jo Malone, the CEO of Unilever UK and Ireland, the Second Permanent Secretary of HM Treasury, the first woman ever to be on the cover of Fortune Magazine and others whose names I shall leave out for fear of sounding like a Who’s Who. The speakers were incredibly, incredibly funny, heart-warming, and simply gave great advice. (please, check out the speakers here: http://www.lbswibconference.com/speakers/)

Pour me some tea

A man and a woman walk into a conference room, the man turns to the woman and says, "Could you pour us some tea?" She pours. More men filter in, she pours them tea too. When they're all settled, she sits down, takes out her notes and says "So, I'm from head office, let's talk about your poor performance this year".

All our panellists had been pigeonholed or stereotyped for being women at some point in their careers, some as recently as 2013. Some dealt with it humorously, some by simply just not playing into it, and some, like the tea lady, just rolled with the jam-rolls. None suggested anger as an appropriate response, which makes sense because that is a decidedly unfeminine trait.

The reality is, the business world throws everyone some unfair curve-balls: wrong gender, wrong race, wrong school, wrong weight and so on. All of our speakers faced one or two significant disadvantages that had nothing to do with their gender. Yet they had all made it to the very top of their respective games by taking what was thrown at them in their stride, including gender-related stereotyping, and sticking with it.

Negotiate negotiate negotiate

...your salary. Some of our speakers never knew they should have been negotiating their bonus eight months in advance until they were the boss, fielding off men in April for the December raise and bonus.

Not to say that men always negotiate - I am sure that many do not, and I am surrounded by women at LBS whose greatest skill is, in fact, negotiation. Negotiation is just good business - whether you're doing it for the company's sales pitch, or for yourself. Bottom line is come prepared, make a business case for yourself, and speak up.

B is for Business, and also for Baby

There was a decidedly mixed bag on how hard it can be to balance baby with business - Some of our speakers and attendees clearly felt that being able to balance both the boss and an infant was difficult and almost impossible. A lot of the questions in the audience suggested a real fear of being left behind as they became mothers, so much so that one speaker had to remind us all that having a baby is a good thing and one of life's greatest joys. Despite all the concerns, most of our speakers had in fact worked part-time when their children were young and are still in the position they hold today.

There is no rule here. There was some talk about legislation helping in this area, but until pregnant women have to take more time off than men, and there is no equality at home, the consensus was that this will continue to be a difficult issue.

I suppose you have to take it as it comes. And also, pick a good partner and husband. Though as one attendee said, "I cannot add finding a man to my list as well!" The advice was quickly clarified to: find good support system, in terms of family, friends, or partner.

The sweet smell of success

Jo Malone's talk was one of the highlights for many of our attendees. From early attempts at making sweet smelling soaps in her kitchen to building a multi-million pound business, subsequently selling it and starting again, her story makes sense as a whole. She is a moving speaker when she talks about her personal life: motherhood, cancer and being a business woman and wife. Go listen to her speak whenever you can so you can be inspired, make your idea tangible, live with integrity and instinct.

Wolverines and swans

I'm ending on an issue that's hard to define, but that resonated with many women in the audience. How are we supposed to calibrate our behaviour? Be assertive when negotiating but still use a lighter touch and pour some tea? Well, for our speakers, it did not seem to matter.

My personal favourite for the day, Darla Moore, embodied that fierce yet gentle leadership. She was the first woman to be on the front cover of Fortune Magazine, fully embracing all she stood for. She acknowledged that people did not always perceive her the way she would have liked. She was even once described in print as "A wolverine who pisses on anything she cannot eat". While she said that having her mother read the comment pained her, she moved on. She left us with these lessons for success:

• Get business sense. If you are a concert pianist, you’ve got to know how the world works.
• Be judicious. Select carefully the battles worth fighting, and fight them to death.
• Change careers, if needed. Have the courage, be smart, and if the horse is dead, dismount.
• Be confident. If you are not, fake it and successes will bring confidence.
• When you lose, and you are going to lose, don’t lose the lesson and don’t take it personally.
• Know you are unique. Every one of you. You are on a difficult and sometimes treacherous path, but know that you cannot quit. The health of our society depends on y’all staying on the field.

Nisha is a first-year MBA student at London Business School. Prior to LBS, Nisha was a Vice President at Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco. From 2011-2013, she was the Asia Business Execution manager for the Global Expansion Team. In this role she was responsible for licensing, product expansion, and executing other revenue growth strategies in the Asia Pacific offices. From 2007-2013, she was a Relationship Manager in Commercial Banking, managing a portfolio of industry agnostic clients, responsible for annual revenue generation of up to $1.2Mn. Nisha was raised in Mumbai, India, and has a BA degree in International Studies and French Literature from the University of California San Diego.