HEADWINDS AT THE TOP: ONGOING CHALLENGES FOR SENIOR-LEVEL WOMEN IN FINANCIAL SERVICES | 19 ties at home. Nearly half of senior-level women say that they continue to shoulder most house- hold responsibilities, while just 13 percent of their male peers say the same. Compared to their male peers, senior-level women are also much more likely to believe that prioritizing work-life balance—including participating in flexibility programs such as maternity leave and flexible work schedules—will undermine their ability to succeed at work, perhaps because they perceive the penalty to be higher as their responsibilities at work increase with seniority. Ultimately, they are less likely than senior-level men to view the benefits of top lead- ership as being worth the cost (Exhibit 6). Some of these women worry that a financial services career does not structurally lend itself to work-life balance. Margo Cook, president of Nuveen Advisory Services, comments, “Finance ca- Finance careers reers don’t feel friendly to women. Some women are attracted to related industries like consult- don’t feel friendly ing or accounting where the structure better allows for them to have kids and then re-enter the to women.... We as work force without the sense of falling behind. But the finance industry can do a better job of an industry must that. We as an industry must figure out how to keep women through the course of their career.” figure out how Women may also be limited by their colleagues’ assumptions about their work-life priorities. to keep women Karen Peetz observes, “The prejudice that holds women back is the limiting of expectations. It’s through the course assuming you don’t want to do certain things. I had two kids and was married, so people as- of their career. sumed that I wouldn’t want to take an assignment in London, that I wouldn’t want to drag them along. That wasn’t true. Be vocal about what you want. Don’t assume that people will know.” Margo Cook Nuveen Advisory Services