'Wrong gender, color, country' - India-born Aiyengar, JPMorgan's rising star

February 5, 2014

JP_Morgans_chase

Washington, Feb 5: Fifteen years ago, when Anu Aiyengar went for an interview to become a mergers and acquisitions banker at a major Wall Street firm, she got a stark, disappointing message.

"You have three strikes against you," Aiyengar, who was born in India, recalled the interviewer telling her. "How can I hire you? You are the wrong gender, wrong color and wrong country."

Aiyengar, now a managing director at JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), is seen as one of the rising stars within the largest U.S. bank's M&A group, advising clients in sectors ranging from retail to industrials.

Over the past 15 years at JPMorgan, she has worked on around $200 billion worth of transactions. Last year, she advised on such deals as auto parts retailer Advance Auto Parts Inc's $2 billion purchase of General Parts International Inc, and office supply company Office Depot Inc's $1 billion acquisition of rival OfficeMax Inc. JPMorgan was ranked No. 2 in M&A deals by value globally last year.

Being a woman, she said, has proven to be an advantage in connecting with clients, so much so that many become friends or mentors. "Maybe it's stereotypical, but I do feel that listening skills are pretty important," she said.

Former OfficeMax CEO Ravi Saligram said Aiyengar gained his trust with her analytical skills and because she spoke her mind.

"She's not afraid to push back," Saligram said. "She was not a ‘yes' person."

Still, Aiyengar said she rarely comes across other women in her business, a reflection of how corporate America and Wall Street remain male-dominated, even if the kind of overt prejudice that she experienced fifteen years ago has receded.

Women made up 15.6 percent of top executives and managers at U.S. investment banks in 2012, compared with 17.7 percent in 2007, according to annual studies published by the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

Elizabeth Nesvold, a managing director at the women-owned M&A advisory firm Silver Lane Advisors, has a similar story to tell. Nesvold, who has been a banker for more than two decades, said it took 16 years until she sat across from another female senior banker during deal negotiations.

Nesvold said she also thinks being a woman helps at times.

"Sometimes clients have told me things that I am 100 percent sure they would have not told a man," Nesvold said. "The work-life balance is challenging, while we see a lot of young women come into the profession, we do not see that many senior women stay the course."

Aiyengar said she makes an effort to find that balance. Married for 18 years with no children, Aiyengar, who remains an Indian citizen, said she finds relaxation through Indian classical dance and tries to stay in touch with friends and family outside of banking. She also tries to mentor younger women bankers.

"I am very passionate about having more women in broader financial services, and especially banking, not just M&A," she said.

Aiyengar herself benefited from mentors such as Eric Stein, JPMorgan's head of investment banking coverage for North America, who helped her with everything from learning how to building deal models to the intricacies of American football.

"He spent six hours on a white board teaching me how to set up a model," she said. "My basic checking models are still set up the way he originally taught me."

Stein said it is rare to find a banker who can handle a wide range of deals, from financial services to retail. Teaching her American football, however, was another matter.

"There is no doubt teaching her football was more difficult, but part of the reason was I tried to convince her to join me in being a Buffalo Bills fan," Stein said. "I am proud to say she is getting there after close to 20 years, and much more quickly than I have picked up on cricket."

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Agencies
June 27,2020

Washington, Jun 27: Facebook has said that it will flag all "newsworthy" posts from politicians that break its rules, including those from President Donald Trump.

Separately, Facebook's stock dropped more than 8 per cent, erasing roughly USD 50 billion from its market valuation, after the European company behind brands such as Ben & Jerry's and Dove announced it would boycott Facebook ads through the end of the year over the amount of hate speech and divisive rhetoric on its platform.

Later in the day, Coca-Cola also announced it joined the boycott for at least 30 days.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg had previously refused to take action against Trump posts suggesting that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud, saying that people deserved to hear unfiltered statements from political leaders.

Twitter, by contrast, slapped a "get the facts" label on them.

Until Friday, Trump's posts with identical wording to those labelled on Twitter remained untouched on Facebook, sparking criticism from Trump's opponents as well as current and former Facebook employees.

Now, Facebook is all but certain to face off with the president the next time he posts something the company deems to be violating its rules.

"The policies we're implementing today are designed to address the reality of the challenges our country is facing and how they're showing up across our community," Zuckerberg wrote on his Facebook page announcing the changes.

Zuckerberg said the social network is taking additional steps to counter election-related misinformation.

In particular, the social network will begin adding new labels to all posts about voting that will direct users to authoritative information from state and local election officials.

Facebook is also banning false claims intended to discourage voting, such as stories about federal agents checking legal status at polling places.

The company also said it is increasing its enforcement capacity to remove false claims about local polling conditions in the 72 hours before the US election.

Ethan Zuckerman, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Civic Media, said the changes are a "reminder of how powerful Facebook may be in terms of spreading disinformation during the upcoming election".

He said the voting labels will depend on how good Facebook's artificial intelligence is at identifying posts to label.

"If every post that mentions voting links, people will start ignoring those links. If they're targeted to posts that say things like 'Police will be checking warrants and unpaid traffic tickets at polls' a classic voter suppression disinfo tactic and clearly mark posts as disinfo, they might be useful," he said.

But Zuckerman noted that Facebook "has a history of trying hard not to alienate right-leaning users, and given how tightly President Trump has aligned himself with voter-suppressing misinfo, it seems likely that Facebook will err on the side of non-intrusive and ignorable labels, which would minimize impact of the campaign."

Earlier in the day, shares of Facebook and Twitter dropped sharply after consumer-product maker Unilever announced a new ad boycott on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram through at least the end of the year.

The European company said it took the move to protest the amount of hate speech online.

Unilever said the polarised atmosphere in the United States ahead of November's presidential election placed responsibility on brands to act.

In addition to the decline in Facebook shares, Twitter ended the day more than 7 per cent lower.

Unilever, which is based in the Netherlands and Britain, joins a raft of other advertisers pulling back from online platforms.

Facebook in particular has been the target of an escalating movement to withhold advertising dollars to pressure it to do more to prevent racist and violent content from being shared on its platform.

"We have decided that starting now through at least the end of the year, we will not run brand advertising in social media newsfeed platforms Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in the U.S.," Unilever said.

"Continuing to advertise on these platforms at this time would not add value to people and society."

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On Thursday, Verizon joined others in the Facebook boycott.

Unilever "has enough influence to persuade other brand advertisers to follow its lead," said eMarketer analyst Nicole Perrin.

She noted that Unilever pulled back spending "for longer, on more platforms (including Twitter) and for more expansive reasons" in particular, by citing problems with "divisiveness" as well as hate speech.

Sarah Personette, vice president of global client solutions at Twitter, said the company's "mission is to serve the public conversation and ensure Twitter is a place where people can make human connections, seek and receive authentic and credible information, and express themselves freely and safely."

She added that Twitter is "respectful of our partners' decisions and will continue to work and communicate closely with them during this time."

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News Network
June 19,2020

London, Jun 19: Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner who once took a bullet for campaigning for girls' education in Pakistan, was over the moon on Friday after completing her degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Britain's prestigious Oxford University.

Malala, 22, who attended Oxford's Lady Margaret Hall college, took to Twitter to share two pictures that show her celebrating the milestone with her family.

"Hard to express my joy and gratitude right now as I completed my Philosophy, Politics and Economics degree at Oxford," she said in the tweet, accompanied by two pictures - one showing her sitting with her family in front of a cake that says: 'Happy Graduation Malala', and the other in which she is covered with cake smiling for the camera.

In the tweet, the famed human rights activist also revealed her plans for the immediate future - Netflix, reading and sleeping.

"I don't know what's ahead. For now, it will be Netflix, reading and sleep," she wrote.

Malala was shot in the head by the Taliban militants in December 2012 for campaigning for female education in the Swat Valley in northeastern Pakistan.

Severely wounded, she was airlifted from one military hospital in Pakistan to another and later flown to the UK for treatment.

After the attack, the Taliban released a statement saying that they would target Malala again if she survived.

At the age of 17, Malala became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her education advocacy in 2014 when she shared the coveted honour with India's social activist Kailash Satyarthi.

Unable to return to Pakistan after her recovery, she moved to Britain, setting up the Malala Fund and supporting local education advocacy groups with a focus on Pakistan, Nigeria, Jordan, Syria and Kenya.

The Taliban, who are against girls' education, have destroyed many schools in Pakistan.

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News Network
April 17,2020

Washington, Apr 17: The confirmed coronavirus death toll in the United States reached 32,917 on Thursday, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

The toll as of 8:30 pm (0030 GMT Friday) marked an increase of 4,491 deaths in the past 24 hours, by far the highest daily toll in the pandemic so far.

But the figure likely includes "probable" deaths related to COVID-19, which were not previously included. This week, New York City announced it would add 3,778 "probable" coronavirus deaths to its toll.

As of Thursday night, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had recorded 31,071 coronavirus deaths, including 4,141 "probable" virus deaths.

The US has the highest death toll in the world, followed by Italy with 22,170 dead although its population is just a fifth of that of the US.

Spain has recorded 19,130 deaths, followed by France with 17,920.

More than 667,800 coronavirus cases have been recorded in the United States, which has seen a record number of deaths over the past two days.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump unveiled plans Thursday evening to reopen the US economy, allowing each state's governor "to take a phased deliberate approach to reopening their individual states".

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