I came to Booth to shift my career into investment banking. But the course that rocked my world was Organizational Behavior. Those concepts, of how people and teams are organized, of what drives an organization to make and embrace change, have made for a whole bunch of aha moments in my career. Study groups with a mix of people in finance, marketing, and engineering enabled me to understand the value of having a diversity of experiences on a team. While my finance and accounting courses helped me start my investment banking career, my organizational behavior, strategy, negotiations, and leadership classes propelled me forward.
Multiple mentors championed me. I found them, or they found me. At Chase Manhattan Bank, a department head helped me think about other paths and wrote my business school recommendation. Another, former Baird chairman and CEO Paul Purcell, ’71, took an interest in my career. I was a second-year associate, and it just so happened that his office was next to mine—yes, the CEO’s office—and we’d chat. Paul had a tremendous impact on me, both personally and professionally. He advocated for me, mentored me—scolded me when I may have argued with or unintentionally upset others. He believed I would succeed if given the chance.
Paul died suddenly in February, and it was a great loss for me and others who knew him. I think about and use the many valuable lessons he taught me. You do not get anywhere without the help of others, and I try to pay that forward. I spend many a late night taking calls to give advice or direction.
I learned a valuable lesson from a failure that occurred when I was working for Baird in London. I was handling the day-to-day execution of a large M&A deal. At the signing I could not figure out a complicated shareholder table to allocate the deal’s value. I shut down and didn’t ask anyone to help me. I was afraid to be seen as the Black person who couldn’t figure it out. My stomach still turns at how simple it could have been to ask for help and how stupid I was for not asking. The lesson I learned? When you’re in trouble, set your ego aside and ask for help.
Charitable board work in Chicago, where I live, opened my eyes and my heart. I am the board chair for the Foundation for Homan Square, and I am a board member and former board chair of IFF. Both of these nonprofits are constantly educating me. We help charter schools, childcare, and federally qualified health-care operators build or improve their facilities. We conduct policy research. We partner with community organizations to develop affordable housing. It’s just a great honor to learn from and lend my experience to what these nonprofits do incredibly well, which is to positively impact communities and human lives.
My husband, Maurice, is the better part of me. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration. We’ve been together 30 years and married in 2014. We had a courthouse wedding, no guests. When colleagues found out, boy, did I hear about it. I realized that my colleagues wanted to be in my life in a way I had not appreciated. We tend to build walls to protect ourselves. I’ve found that the more authentic I’ve been, the more success I’ve had.