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Nobody is coming to save us – so we’ll lead a revolution to save ourselves.
The ‘glass ceiling’ was just the first barrier – now comes the ‘glass cliff’ and the takedown playbook. The global rollback of DEI programs, the literal deletion of women in leadership and the entrenched assumption that only white men are competent leaders make one thing clear: institutional bias isn’t going anywhere and, in fact, is likely to go backwards.
In short, nobody is coming to save us. If women want to drive real change, we must claim our power and take control of our own destiny by banding together to make progress. The science is clear: more diverse teams drive better business outcomes.
Shannon Nutter and Julia C. Carreon know this from first-hand experience. They climbed to the C-suite at some of the world’s largest financial institutions while staying true to who they are. They built careers that weren’t just successful, they were fully their own. And along the way, they learned that what women really need isn’t another set of instructions for how to change themselves, it’s a playbook for how to identify and prepare for bad behavior, from women with lived experience of it.
Shannon Nutter is a global executive and board director. She has over two decades of leadership experience at organizations including Vanguard, Deloitte and General Motors.
Julia C. Carreon is a financial services executive with a reputation for technology transformations and execution excellence. She has led wealth management and advisor tech at Citibank and Wells Fargo.
Shannon Nutter is a global executive and board director. A recognized expert in strategy, product development and customer experience, she has been a leader at organizations including the Vanguard Group, Deloitte and GM. Shannon is also the founder of My Classroom Economy, a K-12 program teaching financial responsibility. She earned a BA in Economics from Macalester College and an MBA from Duke’s Fuqua School of Business. Shannon lives outside Philadelphia and has two sons.
Julia C. Carreon is a financial services executive with a reputation for large-scale technology transformations and execution excellence. She has led wealth management and advisor tech at Citibank and Wells Fargo and launched the first mobile app for wealth advisors. In May 2024, Julia was featured on the Nasdaq billboard for her contributions to innovation in the wealth management space. She has a BA in Journalism. She lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and three sons.
Shannon Nutter and Julia C. Carreon are executives who built C-suite careers at some of the world's largest financial services firms while navigating the institutional barriers designed to sideline them. With decades of expertise in leadership, strategy and large-scale transformation, they've led high-performing teams in one of the most challenging male-dominated industries. Now they're joining forces to mobilize women to build collective power, and share hard-won tips for identifying and preparing for workplace land mines. Their mission: make the business case impossible to ignore - diverse teams and healthy cultures aren't just the right thing, they're the competitive advantage.
About the authors xiii
Foreword xv
Introduction 1
Part 1: Recognizing the mess
Chapter 1: Why the system feels rigged 7
Chapter 2: The world is optimized for men 27
Chapter 3: Women are poorly served 49
Chapter 4: The workplace isn’t fair 63
Part 2: Tackling the mess
Chapter 5: Rejecting the old expectations 87
Chapter 6: Politics with purpose 103
Chapter 7: Recognizing a takedown 121
Part 3: Cleaning up the mess
Chapter 8: Supporting the sisterhood 153
Chapter 9: Claiming power, creating change 169
Conclusion: Be yourself. Be great. Make a difference. 187
Want to dive deeper? 191
Notes 193
Bibliography 209
Acknowledgments 223
Index 225