How Lehman Brothers' golden girl fell through the glass ceiling

[financeguy]

A hundred miles from Manhattan in the swanky beachside enclave of East Hampton, the so-called Greta Garbo of Lehman Brothers has gone to ground. The bankrupt bank's former chief financial officer, Erin Callan, lives quietly in a wood-shingled house, attends spin classes at a local gym and is dating a New York fireman.

Smart, sassy, young and charismatic, Callan was briefly the golden girl of Wall Street. In multiple television appearances, Callan adopted a plain-speaking patter in the spring of 2008 to reassure investors over the future of the 158-year-old investment bank. A fashionable figure, she seemed a refreshing change from the middle-aged men around her. The only problem was that she got things desperately, spectacularly wrong.

To those fighting for more diversity in the financial industry, Callan's rise and fall has a familiar ring. Michelle Ryan, an associate professor of psychology at Exeter University, says there can be a tendency, which she dubs the "glass cliff", to promote women as a "bold move" in moments of crisis, when all else has failed: "I do see her position as a really classic case of the glass cliff. Women often tend to occupy these dangerous leadership positions in dangerous times, when things are getting hairy. When things are going great, it's usually men who occupy these roles."

Lehman Brothers' golden girl, Erin Callan: through the glass ceiling – and off the glass cliff | Business | guardian.co.uk

 

[Kieran McConville]

More than a couple of Australian state governments have gone the same course.

 

[AliEnvy]

My company's board of management and executive ranks are entirely old, white men.

Guess things are going great!