I mean, I can cite examples in almost every industry that I’ve been in, whether it was now being the youngest sales executive in the private bank at JP Morgan in the 90s, and, you know, managing a full team of white men who worked for me, and having to prove myself and handling that and coming out on the top of that being having the highest sales level ever in the history of that private bank organization.
I think so much of being able to handle those challenges has to do with what my grandmother used to refer to as courageous leadership, fearless leadership. And I learned that from my grandmother, who was the first Black woman to graduate from Harvard in 1939 in their Ph.D. program. And I would always say that if she could endure what she endured, this is, tiddlywinks.
She always believed that the way that you change people’s perceptions is by doing the work. She said, “Don’t get preoccupied with worrying about them, not thinking you should be there. Be there. Stand in being there and show them why, why you are there.” And she called that fearless leadership. I have tried to model that, and I have handled many of the obstacles in my career because of that.
