Introduction

A Reckoning for Women

“When you feel tired, look back and see how far you have come. When you feel complacent, look ahead and see how much is left to do.”

—My mother, Etaba

Bongiwe Ntuli, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Executive Director of the South Africa-based fashion retailer The Foschini Group, has embraced being single and used the extra time to focus on building her career and thinking positively. Certainly this has made it easier for her to network with male colleagues and in most instances break into the inner sanctum of the boys’ club. As she grows older and reflects on her professional and financial success, she is happy with her accomplishments but regrets what she didn’t do. “I have had a full life,” Bongiwe says. “However, if I had been more realistic and more patient, I could have had a fuller life.”

Subha Barry was once a top wealth manager at Merrill Lynch& Co. When some prospective clients wanted to switch to “an advisor from the United States” after meeting with the Indian-born woman for the first time, Subha realized that living in the United States would require overcoming systemic discrimination. As she moved up the ladder at Merrill Lynch and other companies and began raising a family, Subha worked so hard to prove herself on the job, while ensuring that everything at home was perfect, that she often slept only three to four hours a night. She often wonders if this lack of sleep made it harder for her to fight off multiple bouts of cancer—first Hodgkin’s lymphoma and then breast cancer.

Raja Al Mazrouei, Executive Vice President of FinTech Hive, part of the Dubai International Financial Centre, has spent her life transcending the expectations of her family and her culture. Born in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), into a culture of arranged marriage, Raja overruled tradition and picked her own husband. She is also the only woman in her family to pursue a career. While she is justifiably proud of her accomplishments, she has told me she feels something is missing. “I try to be so many things: mother, daughter, spouse, leader,” she said. “And I lose sight of myself.”

I’ve heard many stories like these from women who’ve made it to the top ranks of business and industry—in places such as South Africa, India, UAE, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, France, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and the United States. They resonate with my own experiences as a woman of color. I was lucky to have a family that raised me to be confident, ambitious, and hardworking, and to have many great mentors and sponsors, both male and female.

I have experienced overt prejudice at work from time to time, which I often ignored. But the higher I moved up the ladder, the more of a target I became. I encountered subtle and not-so-subtle comments questioning how I got my position and whether I deserved it. When I confronted such commenters head-on, they became passive-aggressive and worked behind my back to make my life more difficult. While I eventually learned to deal with this, I didn’t always handle it very well, and as a result my relationships, sleep, and overall health sufferedat times.