"Sonia, you're being played." That was the assessment of Olivia Teixera, a longtime confidante of Sonia Millar, the chief information officer (CIO) at Glen Porter Wealth Management (GPWM), a financial services firm based in Menlo Park, California. Millar had just told Teixera about her dilemma involving their colleague Arnie Winthrop, group managing director for Brokerage Distribution and one of GPWM's most successful business heads. Winthrop had directed one of his staff members to negotiate personally with a vendor for new software. Teixera continued, "Arnie never would have pulled that stunt if you were a man. This is more than just predictable executive rivalry." Millar challenged her friend, "Aren't you being just a bit melodramatic? I doubt this is Arnie's bid to knock me out of the ruming for the CEO slot when Louis Mundell steps down. That would be too nave, given how much more I know about financial technology. It could just be his aggressiveness in pursuing his business goals. But then, we all know Arnie is not the most evolved guy in the firm." As CIO, Millar was responsible for the strategy, operations, and results of GPWM's large information and technology division. Information technology (IT) had long been the operational backbone of the financial services industry, but it had become increasingly central to the success of such firms in numerous other ways, including access to real-time market and risk data, investment algorithms based on artificial intelligence, and more recently, cybersecurity. The region's recent "fintech"1 startup activity had made IT a significant strategic concern for GPWM, although many within the company did not yet recognize the strategic threat and potential advantage of this area. Most, including Millar herself, had long viewed IT as the company's weakest link. They regarded this group as slow-moving, unuesponsive, and more concerned with process than it was with meeting business needs, not to mention leading strategic change. Because IT was a critical strategic resource and extremely expensive, GPWM had emphasized to its midlevel and senior managers that decisions about II solutions were to be centralized and approved by the company's IT group, even when portfolio managers felt their teams needed software that would not affect the rest of GPWM. To make this strategic priority clear to all, the company had drafted a policy the previous year that specified that all departments needed to obtain the IT group's advice and consent on any software purchase. Winthrop's action seemed to disregard this policy flagrantly because neither he nor anyone in his group had consulted with the IT group about this planned purchase. Millar had heard about this situation only when Andrea Foley, one of her direct reports, told her that one of her team members had received a question about system capacity from Winthrop himself. Disturbed by this development, Millar had asked Foley to wait to respond while she considered what to do next. After her conversation with Teixera, Millar took her regular morning run and contemplated her friend's comments. She wondered if Winthrop's move was intended to undermine her credibility. Her relationship with Winthrop was congenial, but they did not know each other well. Winthrop sat on the firm's leadership team and had always been very successful. He was also widely regarded as a strong contender to be GPWM's next CEO. She also knew that he had a reputation for ignoring processes that interfered with his agenda. More troubling, she had heard that Winthrop had recently become quite vocal in his complaints to his colleagues and the current CEO about the IT department. As she replayed her conversations with Teixera and Foley, Millar kept coming back to two questions. Was Teixera correct in her conclusions that Winthrop's move was politically motivated and gender biased? If so, how did that assessment change what she should do? When Millar returned to the office after her run, she decided to review the materials she had gotten at the workshop on implicit bias that all GPWM's executives had attended recently (see Exhibit 1). Looking over the materials might help her interpret Winthrop's behavior and guide her subsequent actions. Glen Porter Wealth Management (GPWM) GPWM 2 was formed in 1987 by Glen Porter and a colleague from Wells Fargo, two executives who recognized the growing opportunity to offer financial guidance to the new class of young, highnet-worth individuals working in Silicon Valley. Given the rise in technology-based startup activity in the valley, GPWM grew from \$20 million in assets under management in 1987 to $23 billion by 2017. Porter led GPWM for the first decade, drawing on his prior experience as a broker, private wealth adviser, portfolio manager, and managing director. As the company expanded, he felt it needed a new structure to allow for succession planning and development of his wealth managers. In 1996, he established the positions of CEO,CFO, chief investment officer, and several managing directors. Over the next two decades, three more CEOs followed Porter, leading the firm through both rapid growth and then retrenchment after the financial crisis of 2008. As the firm's assets grew, the corporate structure expanded to include expertise in risk management, , trust operations, and marketing (see Exhibit 2). Louis Mundell became CEO in 2015 after having quadrupled the size of GPWM's largest business group, Family Wealth Management. 3 Part of his success was due to his effort to add new customer segments by recruiting and developing a diverse set of wealth managers. He was regarded as the most visionary and charismatic CEO to lead GPWM, and experienced professionals from inside and outside the firm campaigned to work for him. By January 2017, Mundell had already established his imprint on GPWM. He had initiated major reviews of the company's business and support areas and had established strong succession planning and development throughout the firm. Mundell felt that his cadre of financial professionals had deep industry knowledge and client relationship expertise - and many career options. He believed GPWM would need to differentiate itself in the pool for its talent to contimue growing rapidly. Sonia Millar Sonia Millar started her career in 1995 in the Private Banking Group at Chase Manhattan in New York. Over the next eight years there, Millar built her portfolio of clients as she became an expert in financial planning, family wealth advising, and charitable foundation management. Mundell hired her at GPWM in 2003 as a managing director and took an active interest in her career. Like him, she had proven adept in acquiring new and expanding existing client business. She had also shown strong leadership potential in managing her team. When he was named CEO, Mundell altered the structure of the client-facing part of the firm to fill a vacancy in Brokerage, one of the four groups at GPWM, and to address growth in the industry and the firm. He divided this talent into four groups: Brokerage, Family Office, Portfolio Management, and Wealth Management/Trusts and Estates (see Exhibit 3). He also created a new advisory panel of the leaders of these client-facing groups, separating them from the C-suite executives. Millar was promoted to the new role of group managing director of Wealth Management/Trusts and Estates, the largest of the four groups, but without family office functions or portfolio management, that role was considerably smaller than when Mundell held it. Millar was surprised and deeply disappointed at not being named as Mundell's sole successor. Succeeding him as the group managing director of family wealth management would have elevated her to the C-suite in the old structure. This change was even more puzzling because she knew that the firm was sensitive to the view that Silicon Valley firms tended to exclude women from leadership roles, When Millar pushed back on this reorganization in her first conversation with Mundell after these changes, he explained, "I want to see more integration across the client-facing groups." Pulling these group heads into a special advisory group would provide him this window into opportunities for enhanced performance and growth. He reassured her that she would be considered part of his leadership team and reminded her that her new position would give her more executive leadership experience. Despite the reservations expressed by a number of her women friends about Mundell's changes and assurances, Millar decided to take this promotion as a sign of Mundell's belief that she could follow him into the CEO role. As group managing director, Millar was responsible for sales, client service, operations, strategic planuing, and administrative management of the wealth management business. She also retained a portfolio of her own private wealth clients, which grew in her assets by almost 30% over the next year. Under her watch, sales, client satisfaction, and return on investment (ROI) on operations of all wealth management improved. Her top producers supported her initiatives, and most of her staff members had also grown their portfolios substantially. She believed-as did the other business heads - that the only limit to her division's growth was the IT group. Millar Agrees to Become the CIO In January 2018, Mundell invited Millar to join him on a business trip to meet with investors. During the trip, Mundell asked her to become CIO. He told Millar that her familiarity with financial techoology, success in establishing sales support operations, and work on various IT task forces made her an obvious choice. Also, he believed her strong financial background would help her make a strong business case for any new technological initiatives. Millar was stunned by the request. She did not understand why Mundell would ask her to take this on, especially given that he had become her mentor and her friend. Although this role would give her a chair in the C-suite, it was a staff position, unlike the line jobs that she had long occupied. In those roles, she had profit and loss responsibility and had enjoyed autonomy, tangible accomplishments, and rapid career progression. As CIO, her accomplishments would be hard-won and likely viewed in metrics that would be equal parts subjective and objective. As a task force member on GPWM's recent IT initiatives, she had observed the dilemmas faced by GPWM's past CIOs, who lacked the resources and clout to meet the business units' ever-increasing demands for service. Most important, she was concerned that accepting this role could keep her from becoming GPWM's next CEO. At GPWM, the CEO appointment had typically gone to a powerful business head. "Louis, how much have we used the rubric of 'the best use of X's time and talents' to assess developmental opportunities for our employees at GPWM? I can't believe that you feel this role fits that criterion for me! It will make it almost impossible for me to succeed you as CEO." Mundell acknowledged her opinion: "I hear you, but we both know that IT is a strategic resource on which the company's future depends. No one else in this firm can turn this around but you, and not even the best outsider could do what you and I both know you can do. For the good of the company, please say yes. I'm not stepping down soon; you have time to work this miracle, resume your producing manager leadership role, and still get the top job." Millar took a week, which involved multiple sleepless nights. She calculated that it would take two years to fix the IT organization to the point where a new executive could be brought into the firm. Before telling Mundell she would take the role for two years, she proposed a set of critical criteria that would constitute a turnaround in the function and invited him to add to this list, but he demurred. In exchange, she expected complete autonomy in IT personnel decisions, assurances that Mundell would deliver any talent she needed to borrow from the business units, and his commitment to initiate a search for the new CIO within 12 to 15 months. She also wanted final hiring authority for her successor. As Mundell was agreeing to her terms, Millar added one final requirement. "We both know that you will be stepping down in a few years. We also both know that taking this job is a major detour for me in advancing here." She waited for Mundell's nod and continued, "I will take on this role only if you guarantee that you will use your influence to ensure that I will be taken seriously in the competition for CEO." She felt this guarantee was essential because the competition for the CEO spot would be tough. Mundell agreed to all of her conditions, and commented, "I'll be here for at least four more years, so you will have plenty of time back in the line. You can significantly enhance your track record by making this tumaround." Millar as CIO In her first year as CIO, Millar accomplished a great deal. She created a small steering committee of business leaders to provide strategic input on her needs assessment of the IT function and her planned changes. She then led a major internal review of the IT group's operations. She also benchmarked the group's performance externally and evaluated all the division's personnel Although the recommendations that came out of this work would take time to implement, the early signs of improvement were promising: Among her direct reports, Millar had four senior leaders with considerable experience at the firm. While all had been given high scores on their performance reviews over the last five years, the benchmarking study indicated that one was in a role that was no longer strategically important for GPWM. This would lead to some significant reduction in headcount, and Millar was developing a plan to mitigate any effects of layoffs on other units in the company. Another of Millar's direct reports was seen by many of Millar's executive colleagues, herself included, as unresponsive to the needs of the business. This leader oversaw the business applications committee, which was critical to integrating the business with techology. While he was an effective manager and well regarded within the group, Millar decided that she needed to move him out of this role. She met with him to discuss her concerns and hear his perspective, which was that the business groups had become too impatient for new technological solutions. As she probed more, he acknowledged that he had grown weary of fighting with them and often used policy to justify his decisions. After several conversations, they mutually agreed to a phased plan for his retirement. Millar also began to develop drafts of succession plans for her critical personnel, including those who reported to her own staff. In the past, she had done this work in collaboration with her direct reports. Because she was learning about her employees and had a tight timeline for implementing change, however, she decided to draft these plans and then compare her assessments with her staff members' views of their potential successors. This process led to many areas of agreement-and to some disagreements. For example, Millar felt that Andrea Foley, assistant director of technology advancement, had the knowledge and outside connections to be the firm's leader in this area, but Foley's direct manager had decided she needed more development before promoting her. Millar invited both to meet with her and three consultants to learn about advanced technologies. Based on her own observations of Foley and her manager, as well as the views of the consultants, she decided to promote Foley and terminate her boss. These conversations led Millar to reach out to several of her clients in the financial technology sector and in venture capital to learn more about new developments in artificial intelligence, blockchain, and regulatory technologies that would influence the wealth management industry and the firm. The more she learned, the more she realized that her strategic focus needed to be more extemal and that she would have to guide her steering committee and the rest of the business leaders to develop these insights as well. Although her clients pointed out that these trends were accelerating, Millar understood that she would need to take the time to develop a multifaceted plan that would educate and influence her peers and allow for the staged development of the IT function from adequate through improved to mission central. Quietly, with Foley's assistance and the guidance of two clients, Millar set up a pilot of data-analytic software to test its applicability to GPWM. In the meantime, in monthly meetings of the client-facing directors and in a major presentation to the C-suite executives, Millar presented her analyses, recommendations, and plans for near-term change. The responses from her colleagues were very positive. In her regular meetings with Mundell, he often shared compliments he had heard from her colleagues about her accomplishments. Generally, she felt appreciated by her executive colleagues, despite the warnings from friends both inside and outside the firm that the competitors for the C-suite often operated with adversarial intentions, if not downright malice. In one conversation, a friend who served as chief investment officer at another firm warned her: "In the toumament for the top job, it is either hand-to-hand combat or sly Machiavellian maneuvers, all to 'keep what's mine and grab what's yours." 'This account startled Millar, who had seen much competitive jockeying at Chase Manhattan but had not found the dynamics among GPWM's leaders to be that different from her experience as part of Mundell's leadership team, where relations were more than cordial and typically collaborative. The biggest difference was that now, she was one of just two women executives among the senior leadership of the firm, the other being the firm's general counsel. Some interactions with her executive colleagues had given her reason to speculate about their willingness to see women as equals, but these had been passing impressions. Despite their joking during the implicit bias workshop, most had been willing participants and even Winthrop, whose group had no women, had seemed concerned about the topic. Still in the office after her run, Millar contemplated Teixera's comments about Winthrop's behavior. Was Teixera right that this tactic was a ploy in the competition for CEO? Was Winthrop setting up the potential for a visible conflict that would cast her in the role of petty bureaucrat? Millar had a nagging feeling that this speculation was correct, but she knew that occasionally some of her own more aggressive wealth advisers had pushed the boundaries of firm-wide guidance. But why would Winthrop not just come to her directly if this was a critical strategic issue for his group? He had to know she would understand his concerns given her own line experience. He should also realize that there were plenty of good reasons for the policy of consulting with IT before the purchase of new software. Was this move a sign that he dismissed her as a leader who could balance conflicting strategic issues because she was a woman? Was he deliberately undermining her as a rival for the CEO job, or was Teixera reading too much into this? Until now, sitting in her office at GPWM, Millar had not considered the gender dynamic as it applied to herself and to her hopes of winning the top job at GPWM. Even during the implicit bias workshop, Millar was focused on the barriers to getting more women into significant client-facing roles at the firm. But Teixera's recent comments made Millar feel uneasy, in a way she had never experienced, about her future at the firm. She wondered how she should handle the situation with Winthrop given her questions about both his motives and her own. Exhibit 1 Handout from Leadership Workshop on Implicit Bias at GPWM Definition - Implicit Bias: the unseen assumptions/stereotypes that contribute to routine racial and gender discrimination Examples - Starbucks manager assuming black men who haven't bought coffee but who are sitting in the caf are a problem - Men (and women) assuming women make less effective leaders - Northerners assuming those with a southern accent are less intelligent Action Steps Caveat: Eliminating implicit bias would require people to become completely self-aware and objective about their own thoughts, which is extremely difficult for individuals to do. Companies seeking to eliminate this bias must create processes and structures that do not rely on individual change for discrimination to be eliminated. Recommended approaches include the following: - Increasing significantly the number of women and minorities in senior operating roles, with the near-term goal of at least 30% representation in all leadership groups - Measuring targets and maintaining accountability by providing regular progress reports - Basing career progress on business results and performance - Doing comparative assessments rather than individual on performance and results - Providing sponsors, not just mentors, to women well positioned for long-term success What is the context within which Sonia Millar feels Arnie Winthrop's actions are calculated to undermine her? Reflect on the nature of her job, why she assumed her current role, the nature of her business and the location of her firm. You can simply enumerate the context in a bulleted list. "Sonia, you're being played." That was the assessment of Olivia Teixera, a longtime confidante of Sonia Millar, the chief information officer (CIO) at Glen Porter Wealth Management (GPWM), a financial services firm based in Menlo Park, California. Millar had just told Teixera about her dilemma involving their colleague Arnie Winthrop, group managing director for Brokerage Distribution and one of GPWM's most successful business heads. Winthrop had directed one of his staff members to negotiate personally with a vendor for new software. Teixera continued, "Arnie never would have pulled that stunt if you were a man. This is more than just predictable executive rivalry." Millar challenged her friend, "Aren't you being just a bit melodramatic? I doubt this is Arnie's bid to knock me out of the ruming for the CEO slot when Louis Mundell steps down. That would be too nave, given how much more I know about financial technology. It could just be his aggressiveness in pursuing his business goals. But then, we all know Arnie is not the most evolved guy in the firm." As CIO, Millar was responsible for the strategy, operations, and results of GPWM's large information and technology division. Information technology (IT) had long been the operational backbone of the financial services industry, but it had become increasingly central to the success of such firms in numerous other ways, including access to real-time market and risk data, investment algorithms based on artificial intelligence, and more recently, cybersecurity. The region's recent "fintech"1 startup activity had made IT a significant strategic concern for GPWM, although many within the company did not yet recognize the strategic threat and potential advantage of this area. Most, including Millar herself, had long viewed IT as the company's weakest link. They regarded this group as slow-moving, unuesponsive, and more concerned with process than it was with meeting business needs, not to mention leading strategic change. Because IT was a critical strategic resource and extremely expensive, GPWM had emphasized to its midlevel and senior managers that decisions about II solutions were to be centralized and approved by the company's IT group, even when portfolio managers felt their teams needed software that would not affect the rest of GPWM. To make this strategic priority clear to all, the company had drafted a policy the previous year that specified that all departments needed to obtain the IT group's advice and consent on any software purchase. Winthrop's action seemed to disregard this policy flagrantly because neither he nor anyone in his group had consulted with the IT group about this planned purchase. Millar had heard about this situation only when Andrea Foley, one of her direct reports, told her that one of her team members had received a question about system capacity from Winthrop himself. Disturbed by this development, Millar had asked Foley to wait to respond while she considered what to do next. After her conversation with Teixera, Millar took her regular morning run and contemplated her friend's comments. She wondered if Winthrop's move was intended to undermine her credibility. Her relationship with Winthrop was congenial, but they did not know each other well. Winthrop sat on the firm's leadership team and had always been very successful. He was also widely regarded as a strong contender to be GPWM's next CEO. She also knew that he had a reputation for ignoring processes that interfered with his agenda. More troubling, she had heard that Winthrop had recently become quite vocal in his complaints to his colleagues and the current CEO about the IT department. As she replayed her conversations with Teixera and Foley, Millar kept coming back to two questions. Was Teixera correct in her conclusions that Winthrop's move was politically motivated and gender biased? If so, how did that assessment change what she should do? When Millar returned to the office after her run, she decided to review the materials she had gotten at the workshop on implicit bias that all GPWM's executives had attended recently (see Exhibit 1). Looking over the materials might help her interpret Winthrop's behavior and guide her subsequent actions. Glen Porter Wealth Management (GPWM) GPWM 2 was formed in 1987 by Glen Porter and a colleague from Wells Fargo, two executives who recognized the growing opportunity to offer financial guidance to the new class of young, highnet-worth individuals working in Silicon Valley. Given the rise in technology-based startup activity in the valley, GPWM grew from \$20 million in assets under management in 1987 to $23 billion by 2017. Porter led GPWM for the first decade, drawing on his prior experience as a broker, private wealth adviser, portfolio manager, and managing director. As the company expanded, he felt it needed a new structure to allow for succession planning and development of his wealth managers. In 1996, he established the positions of CEO,CFO, chief investment officer, and several managing directors. Over the next two decades, three more CEOs followed Porter, leading the firm through both rapid growth and then retrenchment after the financial crisis of 2008. As the firm's assets grew, the corporate structure expanded to include expertise in risk management, , trust operations, and marketing (see Exhibit 2). Louis Mundell became CEO in 2015 after having quadrupled the size of GPWM's largest business group, Family Wealth Management. 3 Part of his success was due to his effort to add new customer segments by recruiting and developing a diverse set of wealth managers. He was regarded as the most visionary and charismatic CEO to lead GPWM, and experienced professionals from inside and outside the firm campaigned to work for him. By January 2017, Mundell had already established his imprint on GPWM. He had initiated major reviews of the company's business and support areas and had established strong succession planning and development throughout the firm. Mundell felt that his cadre of financial professionals had deep industry knowledge and client relationship expertise - and many career options. He believed GPWM would need to differentiate itself in the pool for its talent to contimue growing rapidly. Sonia Millar Sonia Millar started her career in 1995 in the Private Banking Group at Chase Manhattan in New York. Over the next eight years there, Millar built her portfolio of clients as she became an expert in financial planning, family wealth advising, and charitable foundation management. Mundell hired her at GPWM in 2003 as a managing director and took an active interest in her career. Like him, she had proven adept in acquiring new and expanding existing client business. She had also shown strong leadership potential in managing her team. When he was named CEO, Mundell altered the structure of the client-facing part of the firm to fill a vacancy in Brokerage, one of the four groups at GPWM, and to address growth in the industry and the firm. He divided this talent into four groups: Brokerage, Family Office, Portfolio Management, and Wealth Management/Trusts and Estates (see Exhibit 3). He also created a new advisory panel of the leaders of these client-facing groups, separating them from the C-suite executives. Millar was promoted to the new role of group managing director of Wealth Management/Trusts and Estates, the largest of the four groups, but without family office functions or portfolio management, that role was considerably smaller than when Mundell held it. Millar was surprised and deeply disappointed at not being named as Mundell's sole successor. Succeeding him as the group managing director of family wealth management would have elevated her to the C-suite in the old structure. This change was even more puzzling because she knew that the firm was sensitive to the view that Silicon Valley firms tended to exclude women from leadership roles, When Millar pushed back on this reorganization in her first conversation with Mundell after these changes, he explained, "I want to see more integration across the client-facing groups." Pulling these group heads into a special advisory group would provide him this window into opportunities for enhanced performance and growth. He reassured her that she would be considered part of his leadership team and reminded her that her new position would give her more executive leadership experience. Despite the reservations expressed by a number of her women friends about Mundell's changes and assurances, Millar decided to take this promotion as a sign of Mundell's belief that she could follow him into the CEO role. As group managing director, Millar was responsible for sales, client service, operations, strategic planuing, and administrative management of the wealth management business. She also retained a portfolio of her own private wealth clients, which grew in her assets by almost 30% over the next year. Under her watch, sales, client satisfaction, and return on investment (ROI) on operations of all wealth management improved. Her top producers supported her initiatives, and most of her staff members had also grown their portfolios substantially. She believed-as did the other business heads - that the only limit to her division's growth was the IT group. Millar Agrees to Become the CIO In January 2018, Mundell invited Millar to join him on a business trip to meet with investors. During the trip, Mundell asked her to become CIO. He told Millar that her familiarity with financial techoology, success in establishing sales support operations, and work on various IT task forces made her an obvious choice. Also, he believed her strong financial background would help her make a strong business case for any new technological initiatives. Millar was stunned by the request. She did not understand why Mundell would ask her to take this on, especially given that he had become her mentor and her friend. Although this role would give her a chair in the C-suite, it was a staff position, unlike the line jobs that she had long occupied. In those roles, she had profit and loss responsibility and had enjoyed autonomy, tangible accomplishments, and rapid career progression. As CIO, her accomplishments would be hard-won and likely viewed in metrics that would be equal parts subjective and objective. As a task force member on GPWM's recent IT initiatives, she had observed the dilemmas faced by GPWM's past CIOs, who lacked the resources and clout to meet the business units' ever-increasing demands for service. Most important, she was concerned that accepting this role could keep her from becoming GPWM's next CEO. At GPWM, the CEO appointment had typically gone to a powerful business head. "Louis, how much have we used the rubric of 'the best use of X's time and talents' to assess developmental opportunities for our employees at GPWM? I can't believe that you feel this role fits that criterion for me! It will make it almost impossible for me to succeed you as CEO." Mundell acknowledged her opinion: "I hear you, but we both know that IT is a strategic resource on which the company's future depends. No one else in this firm can turn this around but you, and not even the best outsider could do what you and I both know you can do. For the good of the company, please say yes. I'm not stepping down soon; you have time to work this miracle, resume your producing manager leadership role, and still get the top job." Millar took a week, which involved multiple sleepless nights. She calculated that it would take two years to fix the IT organization to the point where a new executive could be brought into the firm. Before telling Mundell she would take the role for two years, she proposed a set of critical criteria that would constitute a turnaround in the function and invited him to add to this list, but he demurred. In exchange, she expected complete autonomy in IT personnel decisions, assurances that Mundell would deliver any talent she needed to borrow from the business units, and his commitment to initiate a search for the new CIO within 12 to 15 months. She also wanted final hiring authority for her successor. As Mundell was agreeing to her terms, Millar added one final requirement. "We both know that you will be stepping down in a few years. We also both know that taking this job is a major detour for me in advancing here." She waited for Mundell's nod and continued, "I will take on this role only if you guarantee that you will use your influence to ensure that I will be taken seriously in the competition for CEO." She felt this guarantee was essential because the competition for the CEO spot would be tough. Mundell agreed to all of her conditions, and commented, "I'll be here for at least four more years, so you will have plenty of time back in the line. You can significantly enhance your track record by making this tumaround." Millar as CIO In her first year as CIO, Millar accomplished a great deal. She created a small steering committee of business leaders to provide strategic input on her needs assessment of the IT function and her planned changes. She then led a major internal review of the IT group's operations. She also benchmarked the group's performance externally and evaluated all the division's personnel Although the recommendations that came out of this work would take time to implement, the early signs of improvement were promising: Among her direct reports, Millar had four senior leaders with considerable experience at the firm. While all had been given high scores on their performance reviews over the last five years, the benchmarking study indicated that one was in a role that was no longer strategically important for GPWM. This would lead to some significant reduction in headcount, and Millar was developing a plan to mitigate any effects of layoffs on other units in the company. Another of Millar's direct reports was seen by many of Millar's executive colleagues, herself included, as unresponsive to the needs of the business. This leader oversaw the business applications committee, which was critical to integrating the business with techology. While he was an effective manager and well regarded within the group, Millar decided that she needed to move him out of this role. She met with him to discuss her concerns and hear his perspective, which was that the business groups had become too impatient for new technological solutions. As she probed more, he acknowledged that he had grown weary of fighting with them and often used policy to justify his decisions. After several conversations, they mutually agreed to a phased plan for his retirement. Millar also began to develop drafts of succession plans for her critical personnel, including those who reported to her own staff. In the past, she had done this work in collaboration with her direct reports. Because she was learning about her employees and had a tight timeline for implementing change, however, she decided to draft these plans and then compare her assessments with her staff members' views of their potential successors. This process led to many areas of agreement-and to some disagreements. For example, Millar felt that Andrea Foley, assistant director of technology advancement, had the knowledge and outside connections to be the firm's leader in this area, but Foley's direct manager had decided she needed more development before promoting her. Millar invited both to meet with her and three consultants to learn about advanced technologies. Based on her own observations of Foley and her manager, as well as the views of the consultants, she decided to promote Foley and terminate her boss. These conversations led Millar to reach out to several of her clients in the financial technology sector and in venture capital to learn more about new developments in artificial intelligence, blockchain, and regulatory technologies that would influence the wealth management industry and the firm. The more she learned, the more she realized that her strategic focus needed to be more extemal and that she would have to guide her steering committee and the rest of the business leaders to develop these insights as well. Although her clients pointed out that these trends were accelerating, Millar understood that she would need to take the time to develop a multifaceted plan that would educate and influence her peers and allow for the staged development of the IT function from adequate through improved to mission central. Quietly, with Foley's assistance and the guidance of two clients, Millar set up a pilot of data-analytic software to test its applicability to GPWM. In the meantime, in monthly meetings of the client-facing directors and in a major presentation to the C-suite executives, Millar presented her analyses, recommendations, and plans for near-term change. The responses from her colleagues were very positive. In her regular meetings with Mundell, he often shared compliments he had heard from her colleagues about her accomplishments. Generally, she felt appreciated by her executive colleagues, despite the warnings from friends both inside and outside the firm that the competitors for the C-suite often operated with adversarial intentions, if not downright malice. In one conversation, a friend who served as chief investment officer at another firm warned her: "In the toumament for the top job, it is either hand-to-hand combat or sly Machiavellian maneuvers, all to 'keep what's mine and grab what's yours." 'This account startled Millar, who had seen much competitive jockeying at Chase Manhattan but had not found the dynamics among GPWM's leaders to be that different from her experience as part of Mundell's leadership team, where relations were more than cordial and typically collaborative. The biggest difference was that now, she was one of just two women executives among the senior leadership of the firm, the other being the firm's general counsel. Some interactions with her executive colleagues had given her reason to speculate about their willingness to see women as equals, but these had been passing impressions. Despite their joking during the implicit bias workshop, most had been willing participants and even Winthrop, whose group had no women, had seemed concerned about the topic. Still in the office after her run, Millar contemplated Teixera's comments about Winthrop's behavior. Was Teixera right that this tactic was a ploy in the competition for CEO? Was Winthrop setting up the potential for a visible conflict that would cast her in the role of petty bureaucrat? Millar had a nagging feeling that this speculation was correct, but she knew that occasionally some of her own more aggressive wealth advisers had pushed the boundaries of firm-wide guidance. But why would Winthrop not just come to her directly if this was a critical strategic issue for his group? He had to know she would understand his concerns given her own line experience. He should also realize that there were plenty of good reasons for the policy of consulting with IT before the purchase of new software. Was this move a sign that he dismissed her as a leader who could balance conflicting strategic issues because she was a woman? Was he deliberately undermining her as a rival for the CEO job, or was Teixera reading too much into this? Until now, sitting in her office at GPWM, Millar had not considered the gender dynamic as it applied to herself and to her hopes of winning the top job at GPWM. Even during the implicit bias workshop, Millar was focused on the barriers to getting more women into significant client-facing roles at the firm. But Teixera's recent comments made Millar feel uneasy, in a way she had never experienced, about her future at the firm. She wondered how she should handle the situation with Winthrop given her questions about both his motives and her own. Exhibit 1 Handout from Leadership Workshop on Implicit Bias at GPWM Definition - Implicit Bias: the unseen assumptions/stereotypes that contribute to routine racial and gender discrimination Examples - Starbucks manager assuming black men who haven't bought coffee but who are sitting in the caf are a problem - Men (and women) assuming women make less effective leaders - Northerners assuming those with a southern accent are less intelligent Action Steps Caveat: Eliminating implicit bias would require people to become completely self-aware and objective about their own thoughts, which is extremely difficult for individuals to do. Companies seeking to eliminate this bias must create processes and structures that do not rely on individual change for discrimination to be eliminated. Recommended approaches include the following: - Increasing significantly the number of women and minorities in senior operating roles, with the near-term goal of at least 30% representation in all leadership groups - Measuring targets and maintaining accountability by providing regular progress reports - Basing career progress on business results and performance - Doing comparative assessments rather than individual on performance and results - Providing sponsors, not just mentors, to women well positioned for long-term success What is the context within which Sonia Millar feels Arnie Winthrop's actions are calculated to undermine her? Reflect on the nature of her job, why she assumed her current role, the nature of her business and the location of her firm. You can simply enumerate the context in a bulleted list