Wall Street whining: Wall Street executives have been complaining to Alicia Glen, New York City’s deputy mayor in charge of housing and economic development (and a former Goldman Sachs executive). They don’t like a new law barring them from asking prospective employees about their previous salaries — and from going around those job candidates to try to find out themselves. The law, which takes effect in November, is intended to help equalize the pay of men and women. Women in New York State get paid about 87% of what men get paid, collectively earning about $20 billion a year less than men. New York City women get paid $6 billion less annually. The pay gap is perpetuated, the thinking goes, when employers ask about past pay, because they then learn that they can hire the female candidates for less. Wall Street execs argue that not being able to have the salary discussion will make it more difficult to recruit and pay the best talent. But Glen rejects that argument. “We have to break the cycle of pay discrimination,” Glen said. “Every firm is grappling with how to retain and promote more women into their senior leadership — this is part of the solution.”
Succession planning: The departure of JPMorgan Chase’s chief operating officer, Matt Zames, has prompted a lot of talk about the candidates to succeed Jamie Dimon as chief executive officer. Among the names being floated are Marianne Lake, the chief financial officer, and Mary Callahan Erdoes, CEO of the company’s asset management division. Meanwhile, KeyCorp promoted two male senior executives to vice chairmen this week, Christopher M. Gorman and Don Kimble. Both of them are seen as possible successors to Most Powerful hall-of-famer CEO Beth Mooney.
CEOs in action: More than 150 CEOs — including Synchrony’s Margaret Keane and Key’s Mooney — have joined an alliance to promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace. CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion, which launched Monday, pledges to tackle unconscious bias, encourage workplace dialogue and publicly share the effective (and the ineffective) actions their companies have taken on the group’s website. The CEOs of Ally Financial, Bank of America, the DTCC, Morgan Stanley, Northern Trust, State Street, TIAA and U.S. Bancorp also are participating, along with Fortune 500 stalwarts Cisco, Dow Chemical, HP, The Home Depot, Merck, Staples, Target and Wal-Mart.
Change from the inside out: True transformation comes from within… a bank. And that’s the whole purpose of the Citi FinTech unit led by CEO Yolande Piazza. In a retail banking environment that is more focused than ever on customer experience, relationships and trust, Citi is working on itself internally in order to better serve customers externally, Piazza said at American Banker’s Digital Banking conference this week in Austin. Citi FinTech delivered on two projects in 2016 and expects to triple that this year. It also formed six partnerships and expects that number to rise to 20 for 2017. “In fintech we talk a lot about disruption,” Piazza said, “but let’s be honest: if someone came up to you and said, ‘I want to disrupt your life,’ I don’t think that’s what most customers want.”
Marketing mission: Bank of New York Mellon prides itself on its history of firsts — it provided the first loan to the U.S. government, was the first stock to be traded on the New York Stock Exchange and became the first bank to create a mobile trading app for its clients. Chief Marketing Officer Aniko DeLaney says that “pioneering spirit” is deeply integrated into the bank’s culture as part of the legacy of its founder, Alexander Hamilton. It’s her job to carry on the legacy of the brand through storytelling, and she stresses innovation as a key theme. “We’ve kept these beautiful handwritten ledgers and we have account information from Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr, she said. “Back in the day, that was very advanced, to keep track of accounts and information.” Today the bank has nine innovation centers. DeLaney also talked about how digital has changed the brand’s story, how it’s told and where it’s told.
In case you missed it
Her big disappointment: When asked what societal issues have made the least progress over her 33-year career, Virgin Money CEO Jayne-Anne Gadhia mentioned people avoiding talk about mental health. “It is still quite a taboo subject,” she said. But even less progress has been made on gender equality, particularly in financial services, in her view. “We have talked about this throughout my career,” she said. And 33 years on, “we are still banging the table about there not being enough women at senior levels to make a difference.”
Beyond banking
Woman, interrupted: It’s often acknowledged (by women and academic studies) that when women are the minority in a group they're often interrupted, talked over, shut down or penalized for speaking by the men. This week, it became a big topic of conversation thanks to some attention-getting incidents, one in the Senate, another in the Uber boardroom. Kamala Harris, a California Democrat, got cut off as she aggressively questioned a witness during a Senate hearing. Many called it sexism and some suggested racial undertones. Harris is of Indian and Jamaican descent and is the only minority woman on the committee. At Uber, board member David Bonderman made a sexist joke at (not kidding) a meeting called to address the company’s rampant sexism. “There’s a lot of data that shows when there’s one woman on the board, it’s much more likely that there will be a second woman on the board,” Arianna Huffington is heard saying in leaked audio of the meeting. “Actually, what it shows is, it’s much likely there'll be more talking,” Bonderman quipped. Huffington replied: “Oh, come on, David.” He has since resigned.
Is she a future NFL player?: Becca Longo, 18, has become the first woman to earn a football scholarship at the Division II level or higher. She will become one of just a dozen women who have played college football, at any level. She’ll begin at Adams State in Alamosa, Colorado, in the fall. Her kicking career may go well beyond college, according to Longo’s coach, Alex Zendejas. “What separates you from everyone else is that you stuck with it, even in the hard times,” Zendejas told her. “Keep at it, and who knows? Maybe you’ll be the first female playing on Sundays.” "If you can play football and you have determination, I don't care what your gender is," said Timm Rosenbach, a former NFL quarterback and the head coach at Adams State. "And Becca can play, simple as that. She's got accuracy and she's got a powerful leg, which will only get stronger. We brought her to Adams State for a reason: to compete for a job and help us win football games."
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