“Success Is Having a Whole Life”

Achieving personal success and impacting the business world are not just about doing well in business, said Erin McInerney, ’81, former executive vice president and chief marketing officer for LaSalle Bank Corporation. “Success is having a whole life that includes all of the parts of you,” McInerney said during a keynote address at the annual fall conference of Chicago Women in Business at the Drake Hotel on October 17.

“That includes your intellect, creativity, ambition, relationships, values – everything you can bring to the table,” she said. “Any one element taken to an extreme will lead to diminished success.”

McInerney defines success in a career as waking up each day and loving what you do. “The only way to do that is to find something you are totally turned on by and engaged in,” she said. “If you do that, you’ve got time and energy, and this thing called flow happens where time passes quickly and you’re energized by what you’re doing. It will keep you sustained over the long haul.”

McInerney advised MBAs not to worry about which job earns the most money. “If you care about something like I described, the financial rewards will happen,” she said. “The time you spend will make you excel, because you care so much and you’re spending so much more time on it than other people. Somehow or another, the rewards will come. Money happens. You may not know it’s happening when you start, but it does.”

Banking provided a fortuitous career for McInerney, who discovered a “wonderful community of smart, principled people” who made great friends and coworkers, she said. Furthermore, her employers allowed her to try virtually every aspect of the industry, including commercial lending, management, capital markets, private business banking, and marketing, she said.

McInerney advised MBAs to “make lemonade out of lemons,” create their own personal brands, build as much social capital as possible, seek great opportunities, always maintain their own identities, and give back to their communities. “Interestingly, many studies show that women don’t give back as much money as men with the same amount of wealth,” she said. “I encourage you to right that, as well. It really can make a difference. You can make money and have a positive effect at the same time.”

As director of the LaSalle Bank Chicago Marathon, McInerney helped raise more than $9 million for hundreds of different charities and helped contribute $100 million to the Chicago economy, she said. “That’s huge,” McInerney said. “I feel more proud of doing that than of some of my professional achievements, to be honest.”

The student-led Chicago Women in Business invited McInerney to speak because she took her career “above the regression line” by “doing so many positive things,” said second-year student Julie Shin, co-chair of the group. “With such a tough economy right now, we thought, ‘Here’s somebody that people can relate to and who can inspire,’” Shin said. “The key takeaway for me was having enough personal strength to keep persevering and doing the right thing, and you’ll get to where you’re supposed to be.”

Phil Rockrohr