Show Notes:
Have you ever thought that changing jobs “too quickly” or “too often” is seen as a red flag and must be avoided at all costs? Or, have you ever felt like you’re “cheating on” your employer for considering other jobs and interviewing at other companies? Have you ever struggled to negotiate for higher pay? This episode is for you! On today’s episode, you’ll hear from Cecilia Harvey, CEO of Hyve Dynamics, dish out some real-talk when it comes to creating options for yourself in your career!
Links Mentioned in the Episode:
Transcript:
Cecilia Harvey: But that was a lesson for me in that it’s go out there in the market, get that offer, and if you get countered, you make a decision: do I stay or do I go to that? But give yourself that opportunity. Don’t stay stuck waiting for somebody to tell you what you’re worth, not waiting for somebody to tell you what your options are. Go out there and create options for yourself.
Welcome to The Early Career Moves Podcast, the show that highlights remarkable young professionals of color killing it on their career journeys. I am your host Priscilla Esquivel-Weninger, Texas Latina, daughter of immigrants, and lover of breakfast tacos. Meet me for a coffee chat every Friday as we dive into a special guest story and hear all about their challenges, milestones and lessons learned. If you’re a young professional of color and you’re feeling lost in your career or just need a dose of inspiration, you’re in the right place. Let’s get started.
Hey everyone. Good morning. Well, it’s good morning for me. It might be any time for you, but yeah, so it’s hard to believe that we’re already in June of 2021. This year has been flying by, but it definitely has also felt like, I don’t know, like a soap opera, telenovela, like, there’s just been so many things going on everyday in the news, and yeah. Anyway, thanks for joining. today, we have Cecilia Harvey on the show. She is a Wellesley College alumna. She went to the same undergrad that I went to and she’s amazing. I have not had anyone on the show that is quite at her level. Typically, my guests are in their late twenties, early thirties. Cecilia has just so many amazing professional and personal experiences to share. Cecilia is the CEO of Hive Dynamics and she has over 20 years of experience in finance and tech. She started her career in Wall Street doing iBanking and worked her way up the banking industry, eventually becoming COO of Citi Group Markets and Securities. She also worked at Morgan Stanley, Barclays, and IBM,a nd she’s also the founder and chair of Tech Women Today, a professional organization focused on connecting and advancing women across various areas of technology. So, this is a Renaissance woman, Cecilia was such a joy to interview. What I loved about her is that even though her resume might sound a little intimidating if you’re in your early twenties or figuring out your career, she was very approachable, she was very down to earth, and she shared some really honest thoughts on compensation, on knowing your worth, on “work-life balance,” on what it’s like to figure out a career that is really aligned with what you want personally for yourself, and she also talked a little bit about job hopping which she did a lot of in her twenties and she said that people would look down on that, but we talk about how job hopping is actually a great tool to quickly increase your income. So, I loved that part of the conversation because I think we’re often shamed into wanting to switch jobs or there’s like this weird loyalty that we have towards a company when really, no one’s going to look after our interests, but ourselves.
So anyway, I don’t want to spill the beans too much, but definitely excited to have Cecilia, and a quick reminder, we’re five episodes out from the end of the first season. We will be ending season one at episode 30, which will air sometime in July, but yeah, thanks for being part of the ride and enjoy the show, bye.
Priscilla: Hi, Cecilia, welcome to the show.
Cecilia: Hi, Priscilla, I’m so excited.
Priscilla: Yeah, I’m so excited to have you here. So, for the audience that doesn’t know this Cecilia and I share our alma maters in common, we both went to Wellesley College. Cecilia is a little bit older than I am, but that’s also why I’m so excited to have her on the show because she is at a much higher level than most of my guests. She’s a CEO and has a lot of work experience, so I’m just really excited to have you, Cecilia, have you reflect on your various roles and experiences from a little bit of a different lens, and so yeah, just really appreciate you being here.
Let’s start off with talking a little bit about your college experience, so let’s rewind to Wellesley College when you were studying there, how did you end up choosing to go the finance route and starting intern in finance?
Cecilia: My first year at Wellesley, I was friends with, well, still my friend to this day, Tanya Ziglar, and so I remember Tanya, she was a senior and I was a first year and she was going on this trip called the Wall Street Trip, and usually, it was only open to seniors who needed a job, and so she said, “Why don’t you just come along?” and I thought, no, like, I’m just a first year, and she goes, “Well, just come on,” and I went on that trip, and we met with three different banks that day. It was JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch, and Goldman Sachs, and we met with all alumni from Wellesley and to be around that I thought, wow, that is, one, these incredible women went to a university, same university I went to, and then two, just the energy and the dynamic nature of the trading floor, I thought, okay, that’s what I want to do and I just spent the next four years doing every single internship I could that was aligned to banking, doing any bit of coursework I could, any sort of research I could to just learn more, and by the time I got to my senior year, I already had a job offer after graduation.
Priscilla: That’s amazing, how one little conversation, one event, one trip led to you being exposed to this industry, this career path, and it changed a lot for you, right?
Cecilia: Definitely, and that’s, I think, the amazing thing, it’s always open yourself up to different opportunities. You never know who you’re gonna meet, the impact that you’re going to make, I remember one of the key things was for me on that trip and that experience was that I met another black female alumna who went to Wellesley and she was pretty much the lead for the Merrill Lynch team, and when you see someone that looks like you and when you see someone that has a similar background and experience as you, that representation means so much, and right then, I knew, okay, this is something that’s possible for me, because I didn’t grow up with an exposure to banking careers and really understanding that can even be a possibility for me. But when you see that, somebody that has that similarity to you, it’s so powerful, and it definitely was for me.
Priscilla: Totally agree. So, let’s talk about those first few years out of college when you were in finance and banking. It’s an industry that’s notorious for just being really tough given that there’s not a lot of women and there’s definitely not a lot of women of color, black women, so how did you handle that part of it, that piece of getting adjusted to that industry and the pace?
Cecilia: Yeah, I think one of the first things was, yeah, the pace, it’s, oh, my goodness, like when you go from university to proper job and the hours, it was like, oh, my goodness, like this is tough, but then, when you get over sort of the physical adjustment, I think, definitely, yeah, the mindset has to be there. I think the first thing that you have to realize is that you are no different from anyone else and getting out of the mindset that you are different from anyone else. Yes., it’s male dominated. Yes, there aren’t many, especially when I first started, many women of color, especially on a trading floor, so the second it gets in your head that you’re different from anyone else, that’s the first step to defeat and you really need to step into your power and really have a firm sense of identity and who you are, because no matter what the situation, whether you’re male, female, whatever, you’re going to be challenged on that every single day in terms of, do you belong here? Do you have what it takes even getting in your own head? So, you really need to be quite firm. And understand who you are as a person and not let anything shake that, so so much of it is just having a strong mindset.
Priscilla: Yeah, and I think that self-talk that we engage in every day is such a big part of that because when you’re doing something new, you’re a beginner and you’re learning, and at some point you’re going to maybe feel behind other people or feel like you’re not enough, but I think the way we speak to ourselves in those moments can make such a big difference. Was that something that you practiced, was like the way that you talked to yourself about what you were doing or did you seek out mentors that also helped you with that?
Cecilia: A key part of it was definitely, and to this day, it’s being very careful with your environment, who you surround yourself with. I think that you need to make sure that you are surrounding yourself with people who want to understand where you want to go and who’ve probably done it themselves and have the experience that they can share with you in terms of how to handle certain situations, I think that’s very important. I think also you need to surround yourself with people that have a realistic view of what it takes to get to where you want to go. I think that I’ve definitely surrounded myself with people who were going to be honest and who were going to check me when it was necessary and say, “No, Cecilia, you need to grow up, this is what you need to do.” You don’t need somebody who is just going to tell you what you want to hear all the time. I think also, it’s important that we protect our environment. Sometimes, people that you used to be around, those relationships don’t serve you any more in terms of, they’re probably not a positive influence. You’re probably going in different directions and you need to make sure that you’re surrounding yourself with people where it’s going to be a positive, supportive environment for you, and then that’s tough sometimes, but it’s something that really needs to be done.
Priscilla: So tell us about how you navigated deciding when to leave a company and when to seek another opportunity. Sometimes, there’s a lot of pressure to “show your loyalty” and stay at a place for a long time, and then I think with younger people these days, you’re seeing less and less of that, and people are being more willing to move around. How did you think through making those early career moves and changing roles or changing companies?
Cecilia: Yeah, no, it’s an excellent question because I remember everybody thought I was crazy when I wanted to leave a role and go somewhere different and people said, “Oh, you don’t want to be accused of being like a puddle jumper and jumping from one thing to another,” and for me, when I got to a point, and actually, it’s great advice I got from my mom, when I saw that I wasn’t going to be compensated in the way that I knew my peers were and what I deserved, where I knew that I wasn’t going to have the sponsorship in an organization in order to get promoted to higher levels, I sought that out at other places and I wasn’t afraid to make that move, and because of that, I think my career definitely took a trajectory where I wasn’t stuck and I kept things moving at a speed where I was comfortable and I knew where I deserve to go, I earned it; there was no imposter syndrome. So, I think that was very important, that I wasn’t afraid to make a move, and if somebody, if another company was going to give me that opportunity, why wouldn’t I take it? What did I have to lose? And I wasn’t going to be held back by somebody else’s judgment of, oh, you know, what if you’re going to be considered a puddle jumper?
Priscilla: I love that because it is so true. I mean, there are studies that are done on people who are willing to change jobs versus people who stay at a company, and the compensation increases are so significant, and it’s unfortunate that it is that way because you would think companies would want to keep their talent and really be more aggressive with the compensation offered and the raises, but it’s just not set up that way, and so I’m sure you probably saw that firsthand, just the raises that you got changing roles as opposed to if you stayed in one place.
Cecilia: Absolutely. I remember I even had a boss. He was one of the best bosses I’ve ever had and I went to him and I said, “You know what, I’ve been here a couple of years. I definitely think that I deserve a promotion and a raise.” I remember, I think I got the promotion by didn’t get the raise, and so he said to me, he goes, “Okay, you want a raise?” He goes, “Go get another job offer and we’ll match you,” and I thought, what? Why would I have to do that? And I took his advice: I went out there, I got another job offer, and I said, when I got this offer, “I don’t want to leave but this is what it is,” and not only did he match me in terms of that offer, he beat that offer, and he said, “You know what? I just want you to make sure that you stay in the company at least for the next couple of years and really do your best,” and I said, “Absolutely,” but that was a lesson for me in that go out there, it’s go out there in the market, get that offer, and if you get countered, you make a decision: do I stay or do I go to that? But give yourself that opportunity. Don’t stay stuck waiting for somebody to tell you what you’re worth. That’s so important, I mean, in terms of recognizing your power and not waiting for somebody to tell you what your options are, go out there and create options for yourself.
Priscilla: I love that, yeah. So, what was the first role for you where you felt like, wow, I have made it, or I have made it to a level where there’s just not a lot of people who look like me with my background, what was that first kind of big promotion for you?
Cecilia: I think it’s almost every role. I think in some ways, I think even from my first job, because I was graduating from Wellesley, starting a role at an investment bank, and this is something where definitely nobody in my family had gone into that career, going into a role in an environment where, yeah, there weren’t many people that looked like me, and I always was so, there’s different ways in which you can receive that, and I think for me, when I walked into a room and if I’m the only woman there, if I’m the only black woman, I embrace it, I love it because I know I deserve to be there, and I think that’s how we should all feel. I know that I worked hard. I know I deserve to be here and because probably before you, there were none, so you need to celebrate that. And it’s given me perspective and I’m so grateful and I feel so blessed and it’s something that I just don’t take for granted.
Priscilla: How have you learned to brand yourself in your roles, different companies? Have you given a lot of thought to self-branding? And I ask that because I do feel like people who get ahead are often people who are very self-aware about what is their brand and how do they talk about their own accomplishments, and a little bit of self-promotion that I think can be seen negatively for women, but it is part of what you have to do to get ahead. How have you thought through that?
Priscilla: When I think of your brand, I think that it’s so important to, especially as you becoming more and more of a leader in organizations, you need to be the type of leader you need to be the type of person that people want to follow, that people have trust in, that people put belief in. I think that’s the most important part to your brand, it’s what people say about you when you’re not in the room. For me, I’ve always wanted people to say, no matter whether they liked me or not, this is somebody who has integrity. This is somebody who we can trust. I think that’s just paramount for me, and this is somebody who, when she says she’s going to do something, she’s going to do it. I think that’s key in terms of you’re putting out the behaviors and the actions that give a sense of you’re somebody of integrity, you’re somebody that we can trust. I think that’s paramount for any type of brand. So, no matter what you’re putting on social media, no matter what you’re trying to portray in terms of lifestyle or who you are or what you do, I think that’s the most important thing and that’s the most foundational thing of any brand integrity. Trustworthiness, transparency.
Priscilla: Yeah, yeah. When you became a COO at Citi, I’m sure that was a huge accomplishment, what were some of the biggest challenges you faced at that level? I think, yeah, when you get, as you move further on in your career, a lot of people will think that certain jobs are the dream job, but I think it’s making sure that it’s aligned to ultimately where you want your life to go. I remember when I got promoted into Citi and of course, it was a great accomplishment in itself, but then also at that time, I really wanted, I took a think about, okay, well, what do I really want to do next within my career? And many times, we get caught up where we’re on this hamster wheel and we can get so caught up in terms of here’s a job title, here’s the salary, here’s the company, but ultimately, making sure that you have that alignment between personally and professionally what you want to do is quite key, not necessarily balanced, but I think definitely alignment in terms of who you are as a person, the job that you’re walking into every day, the environment that you’re walking into every day, is that an environment that you feel is nurturing and ultimately where you want to go within your career? So, for me at that point, it was a turning point in that you definitely reach a certain pinnacle in your career but also, you want to ask yourself, okay, what’s next? Like, where do I go next? And do I have that alignment between not only the career that I want to have but the life that I want to have.
Priscilla: Yeah, and so I think we probably get to a point where you’re like this checks the box in terms of maybe compensation, maybe fulfilling exciting projects, influence, but then, I’m sure that it, what you look for in a job changes over time. So, at what point were you like, okay, I think I’ve gotten what I need to get out of this experience, and decided to leave that role, which I’m sure people would probably stay in that for a while.
Cecilia: Yeah, I think that we all evolve as people in our values, what we want in life, what matters to us, what doesn’t really matter to us, we mature, and for me it wasn’t about corporate title anymore. It wasn’t about the name of the company. It was about, am I happy each day waking up and going into work? Do I feel like I’m learning? Do I feel like I’m in an environment where I enjoy coming into every single day? And I think that also in terms of what I wanted to do, I love technology. I loved the idea of essentially working towards creating a company and a culture within that company, that really was something that I completely believed in, and I knew that I had to eventually get on that track if I was going to start working towards that goal. I knew that I wanted to be somebody who was a leader, not only within a company, but within the broader technology industry. I knew that I wanted to be someone similar to what I had when I was at that first Wellesley on Wall Street event and saw somebody that looked like me, I wanted to be someone that could be a role model of where people can look at and say, “Wow, if she did that, maybe that’s something that’s possible for me,” so I had to be honest with myself about wanting to pursue that dream and start getting on that track and not looking back.
Priscilla: Yeah. So, tell us about Tech Women Today: how did this idea come to be? What is it? Yeah, just tell us about it.
Cecilia: Yeah, Tech Women Today started, I’ve been involved in so many companies and initiatives that focused on diversity inclusion and definitely being in the tech industry, wanting to encourage more women to join the industry because I absolutely loved it, and I thought, wow, this is a great career path for so many women. Of course you see that the numbers aren’t very high when you look at new terms of women in tech. So, I started Tech Women Today because one, I wanted to really broaden the definition of what it meant to be a woman working in technology. You don’t have to have a STEM background; I was a political science major at Wellesley, you don’t have to be a programmer or a hardcore engineer or some developer, you could be a project manager, you could be a business analyst. You don’t have to work at a technology company per se, you could work in fashion and have a tech career. You can work in art and have a digital career, you can work in healthcare, all of these different sectors because tech just penetrates all of these different areas, of course, all these different industries. So, I really wanted to expand the definition of what it means to be somebody in tech and give visibility to what those different career opportunities are, and then also I want it Tech Women Today to be a resource for nontechnical female entrepreneurs and female founders that really need to understand how they needed to use technology in order to grow and scale their businesses and connect them with the various resources that can do that, and recently, one of the things that Tech Women Today has been doing is helping companies with their diversity and inclusion plans and strategies. So, in order to create and cultivate a pipeline of strong, diverse talent that grows within that organization and ultimately prepares people for successful opportunities and leadership within that organization, so that’s so exciting for me because it’s something where one, anybody’s going to agree that diversity in any organization is going to create the best technology, the best services, and ultimately serve clients in the best way, but really, to help organizations strategically create that is so exciting and being able to leverage all the experiences that I’ve had over the years in order to advise on that is an exciting opportunity.
Priscilla: Yeah, that’s really cool and I love that you’re doing this on the side of your full-time job and that you’re able to balance your passions and your impact in different ways. I think sometimes, people think that their full-time job has to check all of the boxes for them when in reality, there’s different ways to find fulfillment in different, it doesn’t just have to be your full-time job.
Cecilia: No, definitely, and when I think of so many impressive women that I look at as role models, when you look at Serena Williams, amazing tennis champion, but there’s so many other things that she does. There’s so many other businesses that she has, but she’s still on top of her game. When you look at a Sheryl Sandberg at Facebook, there’s so many other initiatives that she does that focuses on female empowerment and other activities. So, I think it’s so important for me in terms of being a leader and an authentic leader is not only just focusing on my day job in terms of the technical aspects of that, but also being a good leader to my organization within the tech industry and leveraging my skillset and my experience in order to bring broader impact the tech overall.
Priscilla: Yeah, so you bring me now to this next question that I have around “work-life balance.” Do you believe in work-life balance? Yeah, I’m definitely a realist and I don’t believe in balance. I think that you’re not going to have, especially if you have very ambitious goals and you want to do so much, you’re not going to have everything all at once perfectly balanced at the same time or even for a few weeks here and there. I do what I call, I fiercely prioritize, so there might be a situation where I am very full-on with work at Hive and there’s a particular project or a client opportunity where it requires me to have absolute tunnel vision on that and be very focused on that. That’s my duty and that’s my responsibility to my team, is to be at my best for that particular initiative. So, there will be no distractions. I’ll say to friends, “You know what, nope, have time for that dinner. You’re not going to see me for two weeks,” and then I know that once that passes yeah, of course, I’ll make time. Nope, not going to be able to go on holiday for the next couple of months, but I make sure that okay, in a couple of months, once things calm down a bit, absolutely, I’m going to take that two-week holiday. So, I think it’s about fiercely prioritizing and realizing that you know what, no, everything’s not going to get done. No, you can’t multitask all over the place. A lot of times, you do need to have laser focus on things and it just is what it is, and I think that you will have those people in your life that will understand that, you will have that support system that will be able to get you through and encourage you. That’s so important because balance is a myth, in my opinion.
Priscilla: Yeah, totally, agreed, especially as women and especially people who are balancing child-rearing and family obligations, life, like you were saying, we evolve over time and all of those things shift, and it’s not going to be the same every year.
Cecilia: Exactly.
Priscilla: Our priorities shift, right?
Cecilia: It’s true, and I think you need to really prioritize your mental health, you need to really prioritize yourself because you can’t pour from an empty cup and you need to make sure that you’re doing the things necessary so that you are not completely depleted. I think that’s so important to do, to really make sure that you’re focusing on those things where ultimately, you’re not juggling too many things. I think that we need to stop trying to glorify multitasking all over the place, burning ourselves out. To what purpose? It’s not necessary, and I think that’s why I’m really about focusing on those key priorities that you really need to focus on. Other things, okay, it’s going to be pushed to the side for a bit. It doesn’t mean that it’s not as important. It doesn’t mean that you’re never going to get to it, but we’re only human and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Priscilla: Totally. Awesome. So, my last question for you is, what do you think is something you wish you had known about your career years when you first embarked on your first job ?
Cecilia: My goodness. Yeah, if I could go back and do things differently, I guess, I think one thing I would do is have more fun. I think that I was so serious about everything and I was just trying to be so professional, and I think, I wish I would have spent more time hanging out with my coworkers, having fun just in life, hanging out with my friends a bit more because ultimately, we’re not going to get a second chance at this thing called life, and I think I could have really learned a lot from people on just different aspects of just life and living, and also career, so I wish I would have just took more time and just been less serious and just had more fun, and I think people could have also gotten to know the real me a lot sooner also. So, that’s definitely one thing, and I think the other thing is that I learned over time was create options for yourself. Don’t wait for somebody to tell you what your options are. I remember so many situations, and I see it now, even where people are like, “Oh, well, I’ll wait to see what happens at year end,” and then they’re disappointed once year end comes and they have that performance review and they get in that room and they don’t get told what they were expecting to be told and they don’t hear that number that they were expecting to hear, and it doesn’t have to reach that point where you’re just going to explode. Constantly explore your options, interview even when you absolutely love your job, understand what’s out there, keep in contact with at least two executive recruiters that will constantly tell you what the going rates are for people in your industry with your years of experience in terms of salary and compensation. I think that’s so important. You owe it to yourself, and I think sponsorship is so key also. If you don’t have the right sponsorship in your organization, so those people that are going to champion you for promotion in different opportunities for you to really showcase what you can do, then I think it’s one of the things where you need to start exploring your options.
Priscilla: Awesome. Thank you so much, Cecilia, for being with us today, you dropped so many gems and I can’t wait for people to hear your story.
Cecilia: Brilliant. Thank you so much, Priscilla, it’s been great.
Thanks for tuning in to The Early Career Moves Podcast. Be sure to visit ECMpodcast.com to join the conversation, access the show notes, and become a part of our newsletter community, and if you loved this episode, head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate, and leave a review. Talk to you next week.