Corporate mantras for women

Margaret Keane, who is on Fortunes ‘Most Powerful Women’ list in 2015, and is named one of the American bankers, ‘Top 25 Most Powerful Women in Finance’ for nine consecutive years, discusses how women leaders can engage and expand their horizons.

She states that women leaders and entrepreneurs have helped her understand the business dynamics better in India. “At our company, we believe that women employees bring tremendous value to our business.

As an organisation, we strongly promote employment of women; this is evident by the fact that more than 44 per cent of our team members in India are women.

We are committed to and investing in, the empowerment of women and providing environments to facilitate women in leadership,” Margaret shared.

Margaret grew up in Queens, New York, with six siblings and two cousins. Most of her family members are in the New York City police. The trend started with her grandfather and they’re into the fourth generation now.

She is the only one in the family who didn’t really want to pursue a career in police department, and unlike her siblings she did not attend Catholic school.

She went to a public school instead, and her dad was sick for eight years before he died. Subsequently, her family faced financial problems and to cope with that she worked two jobs through college to pay her own fees, and in senior year, she started working at a third job also.

She took student loans and gave the money to her mother to pay off the debts she had on the house. Throwing light on the notion that women cannot make a perfect draft, she says, “We, the women, can do anything.

The only thing we need is to move with a perception. Women share different perspectives and that result into better solutions for clients and customers. There is no rule book for anyone the key goes with the learning experience.”

When asked about what are the points one should look at while working Margaret said: “The most important is job satisfaction; if you are not satisfied with your job then forget about continuing it.

The second thing is your salary, which pays for your valuable work. The third thing is ask yourself - Am I doing my best to this job? These are the key elements one should look at.”

“Remember women should have a balance in life, work and home too. If you are doing 100 per cent at your home then only you can do 100 per cent at your job. Try to take out time for family also.

Like, I used to drop my kids to school so that I can spend some time with them. We should give importance to both work and family,” she added.

‘Make your own future’ is Margaret’s mantra for success. “Planning is important for making our future productive ,” she said and added “I believe that women should move on, never step back in life; move forward quickly when you can.”

Her last but not the least career and life advice is: “Take all difficult tasks or projects, which other person will not take up and prove yourself. Never be a second best always be the first one to take up challenges.”

By:Askari Jaffer