Woman At Work

Own It: The Power of Women At Work, by Sallie Krawcheck, Crown Business, 2017

- Jill Priluck

When Sallie Krawcheck lost her prominent investment banking job in 2011, she was intent on learning from the experience. She writes that she “hit the wine bottle,” thanked members of the board for the opportunity, assessed how she could have improved, contemplated what she loved about her previous jobs, and plotted her next move. The result, following nine networking introductions over several years, was the acquisition of 85 Broads, a women’s business network.

Krawcheck’s Own It: The Power of Women at Work is a compelling guide for professional women who need to navigate a business world in transition. Own It is one of a number of books that have been published by and for emerging female business leaders, but Krawcheck’s Wall Street background — she was chief financial officer and head of wealth management at Citigroup and CEO of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management — ensures that the advice isn’t sugarcoated. As one of the few women who has negotiated with Sandy Weill (the former head of Citigroup) and Ken Lewis (the former head of Bank of America), Krawcheck has experience in being the only female in a room populated not by “cartoon-character villains,” as she puts it, but by middle-aged white men who had educational backgrounds, training program experience, and social connections similar to her own.