4 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Friday6 March 2020

Women in Business

As the first woman to lead a top

investment bank in the City of London

and a mother of three, Morgan Stanley’s

Clare Woodman could easily paint

herself as the kind of high-flying

superwoman who proves girls can grow

up to have it all.

Instead, she is candidabout

challenges faced,decisions made, and

strokes of good fortune that allowed her

to progress in the male-dominated

world of Wall Street banks and the City.

Role models

Now Morgan Stanley’s chief executive of

Europe, the Middle East and Africa,

British-born Ms Woodman did not

consider finance as a career choice until

she was well past 30. At university hes

was ambitious but “law school was

always my planned destination”.

This makes her think about how role

models are critical, says the 53-year-old.

“In my early career the only [female]

role models that I could immediately

see were in the law profession — senior

female judges.”

At the time, the FTSE 100 had a single

female chief executive, Pearson boss

Marjorie Scardino, and there were no

female bank bosses. Their absence

helped leadwomen of her generation

into law and accountancy, she believes.

“It might have encouraged me to go into

banking out of university if there had

been moreAlison Rosesback then,” she

says, pointing to the recent

appointment of a woman to the top job

at one of the UK’s biggest banks, Royal

Bank of Scotland.

From law firm to bank

The switch to an in-house legal role in

banking at Morgan Stanleywasinitially

triggered by desire for better work-life

balance after the birth of her first son.

As a lawyer specialising in banking and

capital markets t London law firma

Clifford Chance, she was at the beck and

call of clients. The problem was not the

number of hours, she says, but the need

to have more control over them.

She is also grateful for an unusual et-s

up, whereby her mother lived with the

family.“While she wasn’t full time care,

it always felt like a third parent for my

children,” she says.

Four years ago, when her mother

passed away, Ms Woodman had a true

“reality check of what life is like when

you are totally dependent on your

partner and childcare providers. And

you just have to be grateful for all the

help you can get, not be proud.”

At Morgan Stanley, her career

progressed quickly, leading to the move

in 2006 out of legal and compliance to

become risk officer for Morgan Stanley’s

investment bank.

The big switch

Moving to the front office — where risks

are taken and money is made — is a key

moment for any finance professional

who starts out in an operational or

support services role. Ms Woodman

says it wasadvising the capital markets

business that whetted her appetite for

“more of a hands-on role within the

business”.

The switch came two months before

she was due to go on maternity leave

with her third son.

She admits she wasapprehensive:

“Any transition [that] anyone makes in

a career is always a risky point in

time... You need to make surethese

are smooth and seamless. And wasI

nervous about moving to a new role at

that point of time and knowing I would

be out for a period.”

She calmed those nerves by

developing a support network of

colleagues and people outside Morgan

Stanley. It was also about being very“

self-aware with the team that I had

inherited, that they got to know me and

there was a good delegation model [for

when I was out].”

The final piece of the strategy as tow

spend some of her maternity leave

learning about asset classes that were

“not my natural area of expertise” so

she would be better prepared on her

return four months later.

In her current role as Emea chief

executive, Ms Woodman hasbacked

policies that give women and men a

choice about how much contact they

want to have with their teams while on

parental leave, and other work-life

balance initiatives the firm has

developed. These include back-up child

and elder care, six months of maternity/

adoption leave at full pay across the

region, new-father and maternity

coaching programmes and an initiative

called WorkSmart, which is designed to

make flexible workingaccessible,

acceptable and visible.

She sees such work on diversityas

core to making the bank run well.

Taking the top job also made her much

more conscious, she says, of her

“responsibility to pull women up

through the organisation” and to help

other under-represented groups.

She says she cannot think of a single

occasion where shefelt as thoughshe

“had to hide the fact that I needed to

leave for a medical appointment or a

child’s medical or a child’s sickness” —

which she attributes to her direct

managers.

“Not every person working has that

kind of experience with their line

managers,” she says, outlining Morgan

Stanley’s focus on institutionalising the

kind of support she enjoyed.

As for advice to other, younger,

ambitious women, Ms Woodman says

the first move is to “determine

priorities professionally and

personally”. She also urges women to:

always give back, build a “dynamic

network” that “creates opportunities

and diversifies knowledge and

understanding”; and to find mentors

but also act as a mentor for others.

Her final advice is more

philosophical. She urges women to “act,

then think”, invoking the “terrific

advice” of Herminia Ibarra, a professor

of organisational behaviour at London

Business School, who encourages

women to “test and learn as you go

along”.

How I got here:

career-shaping

choices in the male

world of City banking

Interview ClareWoodman

Morgan Stanley’s head of

Emea talks toLaura Noonan

about ambition, strategy and

help from a ‘third parent’

‘Test and learn as you go along’: Clare Woodman, the first woman to head a

leading City of London investment bank —Charlie Bibby for the FT

The first exercise was a surprise,

writesKate Hodge. I was looking at a

circle diagram split into eight sections,

with concentric circles and numbers,

covering everything from relationships

and fun to work and health. The task

set by my career coach was to score

my satisfaction in every category.

The end result looked like a spider

had got drunk and spun a web, but the

test had laid bare my problem: while

family and relationships were soaring,

personal growth and work were in the

doldrums.

I was unapologeticabout the mess

of lines and numbers. For starters, I

figured a career coach was for old men

who, after earning their millions, did

not know where to turn next. I was not

sure it would help me, a 30-year old

woman, who had sidestepped out of

journalism into editorial roles in

smaller companies outside the media

and had a nagging feeling it was the

wrong move.

Moreover, I had chosen to prioritise

relationships. I was focused on making

sure the people who got the best of

me were the ones I loved the most — a

stance that seemed very much at odds

with what I assumed a career coach

would endorse.

Lesson one had foolishlyI

underestimated my coach, Harriet

Minter, a friend who had spotted my

professional predicament and offered

her coaching expertise.

Blunt honesty followed: sure, family

and friends will be the ones crying at

your funeral, but given that work is

around 40 hours of your week,

fulfilment in professional life is

important. It’s OK for it to be that way,

which led me the second lesson.

Lesson two Work-life is not either/or:

challenge at the office does not have

to mean you are so stressed you

cannot give loved ones enough time

and attention. What it means is that

you get up every day feeling

energised, you come home feeling

accomplished and you want to

regale your other half about

it because you are proud

of what you achieved.

It turned out I had

spent three years

making career

decisions when my

judging criteria were

totally out of balance.

Trying to make sure

everyone knew they were

important to me meant missing

areas where I needed fulfilment.

Lesson threeYou do not have to do

only what you are good at.

A few factors had contributed to my

tendency to play it safe. Out of

journalism, job hunting had relied on

kind colleagues working on interesting

projects putting me forward for jobs

they knew I would do well. By default, I

played to my strengths, but failed to

ask if it was something I actually

wanted to do.

Also, I had graduated from

university in the aftermath of the

financial crisis. Friends two years

ahead of me had walked into jobs in

investment banks, top law firms and

management consultancies. But my

cohort had to hustle and the idea of

being choosy had become alien.

Lesson four e braver. My careerB

coach had another diagram. Thisone

was a quadrangle with labels: “Things I

am good at and love”, “Things I am

good at and hate”, “Things I am shit at

but love” and “Things I am shit at and

hate”. My job was veering too much in

the direction of things that I could do

well but were not motivating.

This lesson came with caveats: there

are elements to hate in every job. But

the overall balance had to be more in

favour of the things I loved — even if I

was not (yet) an expert. For that to

happen, I needed the confidence to

say “thanks, but no thanks” when

great jobs were on the table if they

were not right for me.

I also had to apply for roles for

which I did not tick every box (men do

that more, apparently) to make sure

there was a challenge in every role.

Lesson five Have a vision. Looking

back to my first job hunts post 2008,

traditional career paths appeared less

rosy so people went further afield.

Working for a start-up, for example,

was no longer second fiddle to the big

corporate. Therewere fewer jobs, but

it felt like there were more options.

With plenty of paths opening up

ahead, but no clear signs, it is

important to picture where you want

to go in order to play the game of

career chess more effectively.

The plans do not need to be fixed —

no need to combust if you are not

earning six figures before you are 35.

It is more of a broad vision of what

your life will look like, what

values are important to

you, and whether you

want a dog (I do —

desperately).

With a new-found

confidence —

which, let’s be

honest, women often

really need — and a

feeling of contentment

about being driven, I was

heading back into journalism.

The coach’s lessons were

empowering and I suspect they will

have been far more beneficial at

30 and early in my career than,

say, 30 years in.

After experiencing a career quandary,

the writer is now a committed

freelance journalist and editor

Why I changed my mind about career coaches

1992 lifford Chance: lawyerC

specialising in banking and capital

markets

2002 Morgan Stanley: legal and

compliance department

2006 Risk officer, global capital

markets and investment banking

2009 hief operating officer, Emea,C

2012 Global chief operating officer,

Institutional Securities

2018 hief executive, EmeaC

Milestone dates

A

restaurant career eats time.

Leaving for work at first

light and returning at mid-

night is not uncommon.

For some female chefs,

parenthood cuts like a knife through

their ability to work. At the highest

kitchen ranks — sous chef or head chef

— it is men who continue to dominate.

ButAsma Khan, chef-owner of Dar-

jeeling Express in central London, is

adamant that a career in hospitality can

be compatible with family life. Almost

all her 25 staffare female, including sin-

gle women without children and two

grandmothers. “Women are invariably

the carers of children, and once we have

children, we struggle. I want to be a chef,

and I want to be a mother,” she says.

Her solution is the “golden hour”, a

gap between separate lunch and dinner

shifts. In between, parents can attend to

children. “Feed them, settle them — and

then staff are welcome to come back for

the evening to do a double shift if they

want to,” she says.

Ms Khan sees the golden hour as a log-

ical and practical answer to balancing a

chef’s long, late hours with other com-

mitments.

“It’s not like brain surgery, when

someone has to do [the work] for 16

hours straight — it’s peeling potatoes or

doing prep, chopping, boiling,” she says.

“There is a culture of macho testo-

sterone in restaurants, where endur-

ance is applauded. A lot of the bullying

that happens in kitchens is because

[overworked] men are close to being

psychotic.”

Natalia Ribbe, a front of house man-

ager, set upLadies of Restaurants, a net-

working group, which later this month

will host a women-only festival in Lon-

don, called In Service, for chefs and

industry experts. The group has also

held events inthe north-west of Eng-

land, and in Edinburgh.

“The hospitality industry needs to be

more hospitable — in the same way that

we give leniency to guests being late,”

she says. “Trust can be misused, but we

do need to shift the industry.”

Being in charge helps. Chef Shuko

Oda, co-owner ofKoya noodlebars in

London, tries to create a rota that is

friendlier to the needs of parents. “I’m

lucky that I’m in control at work and I

have a flexible, understanding partner

at home,” says Ms Oda, who has a young

daughter. “The key is to have a flexible

environment, and I try to accommodate

everyone’s life outside work.”

But she says too many experienced

chefs “can’t find work for the hours they

want. There are people who for exam-

ple just want to work evenings.” She

would like technology to provide an

answer: “There could be an app where

you look for certain amounts of hours,

that could be a really good way to get

back into cheffing.”

Experiments inattracting parents

back into the industry can have mixed

results. Corbin & King, which operates

high-end European-style London res-

taurants such as The Wolseley, The

Delaunay and Brasserie Zédel, has tried

various approaches. Four years ago, it

offered fixed days off. It also introduced

the option of a “four days on, three days

off” shift pattern, for greater flexibility.

A drive two years ago to bring more

women into the workforce led it to post

notices on Mumsnet, the parent mes-

saging site, for part-time, pro-rata roles,

with family-friendly shifts such as 10am

to 2.30pm.

Zuleika Fennell, managing director of

Corbin & King, says that we try to push“

women up into management”. Half the

group’s management roles are occupied

by women. However, the drive to bring

more women into kitchens had “a good

response but very little uptake, it just

didn’t seem to get the traction”, she says.

More successful was the introduction of

overnight production kitchens for the

Wolseley and Zédel. “We’ve tended to

get fathers who have looked after chil-

dren for the early part of the day.”

The group has one female head chef,

at Fischer’s. “The reality of businesses

that do 1,000 covers a day is hard and

fast. [Many] women go through Cordon

Bleu [the professional cookery school]

but they do not make it into the indus-

try, the cut and thrust puts them off,”

says Ms Fennell. “There’s a big piece of

work we need to do to get them match

fit.”

Meanwhile, for chefs accustomed to

the sociable bustle of restaurants, caring

for young children may feel lonely.

Emily Acra Derrington, a marketing

and wine list specialist, recently set up

Parents in Hospitality as a monthly

meeting for parents to swap industry

notes. “Hospitality is a huge network

across London and the world, but as

soon as you have a child, it’s isolating.”

She notes that one in five people in the

UK hospitality sector suffers from work-

related mental health problems, accord-

ing to theRoyal Society of Public Health.

By meeting with peers who understand

the industry, some of the pressure can

be shared, or “we can connect you with

someone in the area”.

For another top chef,Ana Roš, how

runsHisa Franko in north-west Slove-

nia and has two young children, the dual

demands of work and parenthood can

create a “bad conscience” on both

fronts. “When you do the work of a chef

you need to dedicate yourself complete-

ly, not just in time but concentration,”

she says. “When I am not with my chil-

dren, I am at work with my team, but a

lot of people can and do insinuate I’m

not a fully dedicated mother... I have

to defend myself.”

Ms Rošcompares the relatively short

maternity leave taken in some coun-

tries, such as the US, withSlovenia,

where a new mother would typically

take 12 months off. “It’s almost unthink-

able [here] that a woman would shorten

that time. Whereas if you’re thriving [in

the kitchen] and then you’re out of work

for 12 months, that would be insane.”

Although the familyused to live over

the restaurant, the proximity did not

always help. “It’s ifficult when the res-d

taurant is packed to suddenly change

role to be a mother, if a child comes

downstairs with a fever or they don’t

understand their maths homework.”

Reflecting on restaurant staffing gen-

erally, she says the drop-off in both male

and female kitchen staff over the age of

35 is a global problem”. However, she“

says, “it’s important that girls don’t give

up... he girls are covering the bestT

positions [at Hisa Franko], my sous chef

is a 42-year-old woman. We can do it, if

we believe we have the strength.”

Home front

Small changes promise

big differences to chefs

who become mothers,

findsNatalie Whittle

‘A lot of the bullying that

happens in kitchens is

because [overworked]

men are close to being

psychotic’

Restaurant kitchens tackle macho hours

Use your noodle: Shuko Oda, left, would like an app to match restaurants and chefs on shifts. Asma Khan has created a ‘golden hour’ to ease pressure

MARCH 6 2020 Section:Reports Time: 3/3/2020- 18:04 User:harriet.arnold Page Name:WAB4, Part,Page,Edition:WAB, 4, 1