MAKING IT I FEATURE
Local execs named to list of Canada’s 100 most powerful women
These three execs know how to lean in to their ambitions.
Three Waterloo Region women recently named to a list of Canada’s 100 most powerful women are separated by depth of experience, career achievement and personal interests, but all three share the ability to be cooly analytical about their career paths. Sue Reibel, senior vice-president of business development, group benefits and retirement solutions for Manulife Financial, was recognized in the Women’s Executive Network corporate executive category for excellence in management, corporate performance, community service, vision and leadership. Jennifer Christie, territory manager for John Deere Canada, and Kelly Lovell, a university student, motivational speaker and CEO of the Kelly Effect, were among seven women under 30 who received the network’s Telus Future Leaders Award as socially conscious, passionate and courageous sources of inspiration to others. In separate interviews, the women discussed their career choices and offered their top five tips for success in business.
SUE REIBEL
WHEN SUE REIBEL graduated from the University of Waterloo with a bachelor of math and accounting, she immediately pursued a chartered accountancy designation, expecting it would be her career focus. But once she attained CA credentials, she realized she missed the business challenges she’d experienced in co-op placements and soon left public accounting for a real estate and development firm. When that market slumped, she took a job as controller for a book publisher that was later sold. The new owner offered a job in Toronto, but she declined, not wanting a long commute. That was 20 years ago. When a friend at Manulife mentioned a posting in the tax department in Waterloo, Reibel applied. She had no knowledge of insurance, but saw the job as a door-opener, liking the promise of stability and opportunity within a large, respected firm.
“I didn’t have a vision of where I’d go at Manulife, and I knew quickly that I didn’t want to do a tax job for long. It didn’t get me excited,” Reibel says. “But I knew I needed to do a really good job — to give it 150 per cent — to move forward.”
She returned from her first six-month maternity leave a month early for promotion to a financial reporting role. “The financial services industry and insurance are complex, and I liked that,” Reibel says. “Every day brought another problem to solve. Manulife was growing through acquisitions for which I did due diligence, and then we demutualized. I was in the right place at the right time.”
Reflecting on her route to the executive suite, she says she sometimes let things happen “and sometimes you have to take a risk and put yourself out there.
“Only two times did I push hard for a position, but they were very pivotal to my career.”
One move took her from the insurance side to chief financial officer of group benefits — a job she really wanted — and in 2008 she “pushed to become general manager of one of the businesses; I wanted to run a business.
Reibel advocates setting a personal development path, in consultation with others if possible, which includes a realistic assessment of one’s skills and plans to fill any gaps in that skill set.
She has had mentors throughout her career, always informal relationships that were never put into words. “I suppose a formal mentorship can be useful to get things moving,” she says, “but there needs to be a special fit, trust and openness for mentoring to be really effective.” Finding the right mentor, she says, is “a little like dating.”
Her most valuable mentor has retired from Manulife, but to this day she calls him, has lunch with him and seeks his advice.
She encourages strategic networking:>>
>>“There are only so many hours in a day. If you’re spending time on networking, you need to ensure there’s a benefit to yourself or to another organization.”
Among her volunteer roles, she is a member of Wilfrid Laurier University’s board of governors and its investment oversight committee and also chairs Laurier’s pension committee.
Reibel developed and changed over two decades at Manulife. “What drove me in 1996 was very different than now. What I liked then were the technical aspects of solving problems. Now, leading people, moving an organization forward, is what’s more important to me than personal or technical outcomes. It’s less about me, more about other people. With bigger jobs comes more leadership, motivating, setting a vision and strategy and executing it through other people.”
She doesn’t care for quotas in business; her most productive teams have had a mix of men and women. “There’s a different dynamic when both are at the table,” she says. “They bring different questions and different perspectives which produce a better result. The most challenging team I’ve led was all women.”
Executives require a strong personal support network, Reibel says. “That’s what can get in the way of women; often they’re providing that support for someone else.
“Talk to very successful women and you’ll find they either don’t have children, or they have a partner who stays home or who has a predictable job, and they have a nanny. I don’t know how two highly successful people can make it work. My husband (a sergeant with Waterloo Regional Police) is extremely supportive, but when he worked shifts and the children were young we had a nanny.”
After her daughter’s birth 13 years ago, she returned three months early from a one-year mat leave. “Businesses change in a year,” she says. “Other people haven’t been off when you were off, and they’ve moved along. That’s hard to swallow if you’re career-minded.”
Meetings and corporate receptions and dinners mean Reibel is often on the job into the evening. Then there’s business travel: last November and December, she says, “I could count on two hands the number of days I was home in Waterloo.
“It’s the unpredictability: it’s very hard to excel in an executive role, or run your own business, if you want reliable hours. You have to understand your personal priorities.”