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I am asked this question a lot from women in their early professional careers or who feel their careers have stalled after several years, and my advice to both is the same: Actively manage your career like you would manage a critical project. It is not enough to simply perform your job at a high-level year after year. Most executives who sustain leadership roles in our industry do this already. What gets them there is how they manage their career and relationships. We should not have an expectation that anyone else is aware of our performance and aspirations or that they are actively advocating for us. Your performance does not speak for itself, YOU need to speak for yourself. Make the effort to build relationships across your organization and more broadly in the industry. Ensure that leaders know what you have accomplished, how you have added value to the organization, and what your interests for advancement are. Volunteer for a tough assignment or to fix a problem you have identified needs fixing. Take the lateral move or unconventional role that allows you to learn new skills and meet new people. Be bold and take risks; very few executives’ journeys to the top followed a straight line.

Honestly, when I started in the mortgage industry almost 25 years ago, it was still very much an era of anything goes with regard to workplace behavior. So much progress has been made in recent years to improve the working environment for women at many organizations, which has enabled more of us to stay in the game instead of self-selecting out of toxic workplaces. This has helped build a pipeline of talent that continues to rise through the ranks into leadership roles. While we are certainly not yet perfect as an industry, I am optimistic to see that this progress continues.

The other important development that I have seen is the rise of allyship. Most female leaders I know had the support of key male supervisors or colleagues who advocated for them along the way. And, as more women have assumed leadership positions, we began to reach back to pull up others as we rise. I have certainly benefited from both. Whether through individual mentorship or as part of a network supporting women in mortgage banking like the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) mPower, this advocacy has been invaluable to the advancement of women in our industry.

I believe that the most successful organizations empower their employees to contribute valuable ideas for the improvement of the business. The best way to have access to the most creative solutions is to have diversity of thought amongst your workforce, which only comes from the diversity of their experiences. And, when the leadership team reflects varying backgrounds, it becomes possible for more people in the early stages of their career to see a path forward which encourages our future leaders. It simply leads to better business outcomes in the long term.

Access to affordable and sustainable homeownership for everyone is more important now than ever given the record rise in property values, elevated interest rate environment, and lack of adequate housing supply. This is why I am so proud to work in the mortgage insurance industry. We enable all borrowers to have access to affordable mortgage financing options without a 20% down payment, which has been increasingly challenging for many people to save. As this relates to women specifically, we all know that despite great progress, the female wage gap still exists. This means that, all else being equal, it takes women longer to save for a down payment to buy a home. Continued support of the private mortgage insurance industry is critical to ensuring access to financing for women and all low down payment borrowers when they need us the most.