It started to be a fun game to analyze and categorize what I’ve seen and gradually it has become my instinct. Recent years I used this trick to figure out my career fit. Of course it scared me when I found out my personal traits varied and contradicted so much to other ladies in private equity. Cold is the first word that came into my mind when I thought of a lady in the acquisition or portfolio management function of PE. It made sense when their job was super analytical and predicable — you wrote a formula in Excel and the number it came back was definite. I always had this thought that I didn’t belong there at my last job. A colleague tried to boost my confidence and told me if the team wanted another Monkey A, they wouldn’t bother to hire Monkey B (me) — I had my own unique and irreplaceable contribution. We both left within a year.
We need to read signals from the outside world. And stereotypes could be the shortcut for us to screen the field.
So the first time I met Linlin I thought she was another Ice Queen — Asian, young, conserved facial expression and senior position in PE. I could just pass her off at a different timing. Yet I was unemployed and had so much free time, I still asked for a coffee with her. I was glad I did. She was not an executional type of employee. She got her game plans clearly mapped. She was open-minded, curious and warm. Something different from the stereotype. I asked her bluntly why she was so different from my impression of the industry. She did acknowledge my observation and said, “My senior also noticed that and offered a more senior position in fund raising. I didn’t think I was less competitive than any peer in the acquisition team, but I did believe my personal traits have opened one more door for me.”
I met Aurore around the same time. Before introducing her, I will share my one more stereotype woman character in the industry. We’ve seen men balancing career and families, by which I mean their wives did all the work looking after the family. Very rarely, we see a woman progressing in a core function of a firm while raising a big family. People’s energy is limited and you need to choose how you want to spend your time. I have seen a man has great passion for his career and hobbies but has zero interest to entertain his lady yet he can still find his partner; all else equal but for a woman, I’ve yet seen one in reality. In Hong Kong, there are so many successful and single women in their 40s or 50s. usually, they are extremely difficult to deal with and I for sure don’t ever want to work with them.
The first thing Aurore told me was “of course you can have everything!” I was shaken from this bold and different from everybody said before announcement, “if you are organized.” I liked her immediately. Aurore was a beautiful French lady, very slim. You would feel amazed how could such a small figure have so much energy. She barely wore any makeup, but her pick on dress and shoes was meticulous. Her career goal was to become CEO of her firm and she had four beautiful kids. She was everything but the stereotype. Another rare quality of this ambitious lady was her patience. Down the road I once asked her opinion about bringing up my promotion with my manager. She asked what’s my reason. I told her I wanted to move up as fast as possible. At first I thought she might sympathize with my ambition, just like hers, but she said calmly moving up as fast as possible won’t lead to a good career.
Both Linlin and Aurore have become my mentors. I think the most important thing I learned from them was to feel comfortable in my own skin. It’s far more effective to add on your strengths rather than to replace them.