Authenticity Is the Key to Women’s Career Momentum

By Katrina Kurnit (’17)

Anderson’s Women’s Business Connection recently hosted the WBC Career Afternoon and Mixer, presented by global science and technology innovator Danaher. The event brought together more than 150 women across the greater Anderson community, including alumni, current full-time MBA and FEMBA students, as well as recruiters and business leaders from some of the nation’s top companies.

WBC President Britney Sussman (’16) said, “The various professional clubs at Anderson all offer opportunities to meet recruiters, but the Career Afternoon and Mixer was a special occasion for women to connect on a different, deeper level. The workshops provided an environment to explore careers in the context of personal brand and leading with one’s strengths.”

Sasha Strauss, founder and managing partner at Innovation Protocol and executive-in-residence at UCLA Anderson, opened the event by leading a personal branding workshop. He kicked it off with a discussion of authenticity, addressing the importance of understanding and celebrating what makes each person unique in the job market as much as in our personal lives. As a brand advisor for startups and Fortune 100 companies alike, Strauss has applied his 20 years of marketing and communications expertise to the process of individual brand development. He encouraged audience members to develop their own rubric for measuring success, citing examples from his own professional journey and imploring us to cease trying to be all things to all people and instead to identify our true value and best fit.

Melissa Aquino, president of McCrometer (a Danaher company), delivered the keynote address. With a background in engineering, she ascended to the top by moving through product management, R&D, HR, marketing and more. She not only discussed her professional journey, but also explained how she wove in her personal choices, including the birth of her five children and relocation to positions overseas. Her secret to thriving in a male-dominated industry while managing to keep her family a top priority was rooted in her ability to stay in tune with her own needs. As Christine Duffy (’17) noted, “Melissa spoke to us about owning our careers, listening to our intuition about what is right instead of following what other people say we should do. As I pursue my MBA, her advice has inspired me to seek opportunities that will allow me to develop the skills I need in order to design my ideal career path.”

The final session of the day was led by Susan Shald, director of talent sourcing at Gallup, and focused on skill identification and encouraging the women in the audience to seek out work that plays to their strengths. She spoke to the importance of finding a role that honors one’s individual talent and allows each woman to grow to her fullest potential. Through interactive activities based on Gallup’s StrengthsFinder assessment, she lent insight into how to identify what makes you tick, and the value of embracing your skills to not only find a career you love but to find a career in which you truly excel. Margaux LaPointe (’17) said, “As women shared their personal strengths, it was surprising to realize how comfortable I felt with some strengths and how unnatural I felt with others. These strengths are such an innate part of you that it’s easy to view them as quirks. The workshop was a great reminder that they are more than quirks; they are an advantage that can be used to lead and form a cohesive team.”

A networking reception concluded the event, with representatives from Adobe, Amazon, AT&T, Barclays, BCBG, Danaher, Deloitte, Disney, EY, Farmer’s Insurance, Gallup, Hulu, International Game Technology, LEK, Mattel, McKinsey, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, NBCUniversal, PwC, Tata Consultancy Services, TrueCar, ZS Associates and many more.

Each woman at the event not only had the opportunity to engage with her classmates, alumni, and key company representatives, but each was empowered and equipped to do so in a new way: with authenticity and purpose unique to her individual talents and goals.