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What if the women leaders who were long overlooked are the ones we cant afford to ignore today. The proverbial career ladder has long been the dominant metaphor for success. For many, it works: a clear, linear climb, one predictable rung at a time. For others, it doesnt, because the ladder was never built to hold the weight of multiple roles and ambitions. Women, in particular, have mastered a multi-hyphenate model of leadership out of necessity: mother and manager, founder and caregiver, mentor and innovator. What looked nonlinear was simply a different kind of training ground, one that creates resilience, adaptability, and perspective. Todays multi-hyphenates are entrepreneurs-executives-authors, CEOs-board members-storytellers, and founders-volunteers-mentors. Theyve pivoted across industries, re-entered the workforce after pauses, and taken lateral moves to gain new skills or flexibility. Those shifts and gaps arent liabilities, theyre evidence of courage, perspective, and the kind of agility various lived experiences produce. Lattice, not ladder Instead of advancing only upward, these women have built careers in multiple directions. A lattice (or jungle gym) career is about growing wider, deeper, and smarter, not just higher. For generations, womens professional ambition has been constrained and conditional: dont pause, dont deviate, dont improvise. Today, women are rejecting those outdated rules and designing careers on their own terms. A multi-hyphenate career isnt about abandoning ambition, its about redefining it. Success is measured not just by titles or tenure, but by influence, impact, and the ability to bring others along. In fact, when women come together, through mentorship, collaboration, and shared experience, they create a multiplier effect that accelerates learning, leadership, and impact across organizations.Thats not to say the traditional ladder is irrelevant. For many leaders, it remains a powerful and valid route to the top. It just cant be the only one. What the modern workplace needs Even in corporate roles, this era of constant disruption is testing every leaders ability to make high-stakes decisions and rally teams through uncertainty and upheaval. Employee expectations are shifting: new generations demand empathy, flexibility, and cultural fluency. These are existential challenges that require resilience and the ability to hold multiple perspectives at once. In that context, the women leaders who have crossed sectors, scaled startups, and taken a career pause are uniquely positioned for what the modern workplace needs right now. No matter where they sit, multi-hyphenates carry the very skills once dismissed as soft but now recognized as indispensable: empathy, emotional intelligence, adaptability, and the ability to build trust across divides. Innovation thrives at intersections, and these women leaders know how to bridge industries, cultures, and generations. Good for the bottom line The business case is undeniable. Companies with women executives outperform competitors by 30% and women founders deliver higher ROI when funded. From our vantage pointsone leading chief, the worlds largest network for women executivesand one who is CEO and cofounder of a leading AI driven, and the fastest-growing executive search firm in the U.S.we both hear directly from thousands of women navigating this reality. Together, they represent not just a large share of todays workforce, but the very talent pipeline companies will depend on for the C-suite of tomorrow. The pattern is unmistakable: nonlinear careers are producing leaders uniquely equipped for todays complexity. Yet, too many companies still cling to neatly sequenced résumés over pivots, pauses, or plurality. And they overlook a critical truth that leadership today is rarely developed in isolation. Women, in particular, are adept at building support networks that foster growth and create opportunities for many in their orbit. This collective strength can amplify influence far beyond what one individual could achieve alone. After all, leadership is a team sport. Systemic change Unlocking this potential requires change across the system. Boards should prize crisis navigation and cross-functionality. Recruiters must weigh adaptability and emotional intelligence alongside tenure. HR leaders should create returnships and project-based roles. And women themselves must stop apologizing for nonlinear journeys and claim their value. Were not looking to replace the corporate ladder. For some, it still works, and thats fine. But clinging to it as the only credible path is a mistake. Nonlinear, multi-hyphenate careersonce dismissed as messy, flawed, or unfocusedare proving to be a highly effective model for leadership. Women have been beta-testing this blueprint for decades. It works. And its time for companies to embrace it.
Category:
E-Commerce
Welcome to the future! David Arena, head of global corporate real estate for JPMorganChase, is standing on a sweeping staircase in a soaring travertine-clad lobby addressing a crowd. Hes there to welcome visitors to the ribbon cutting of 270 Park Ave., the banking behemoth’s new global headquarters in Manhattan. Behind him, an American flag hitched to a fluted bronze mast flies vigorously (its propelled by an artificial breeze that required a remarkable amount of fine-tuning). Standing next to him are the people who helped design and build the $3 billion, 2.5 million-square-foot supertall: JPMC CEO Jamie Dimon, British architect Norman Foster, developer Rob Speyer, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, and New Age author Deepak Chopra. For the leaders at JPMC, 270 Park is a big bet on the idea that working from an office is a competitive advantage in a business landscape that is rapidly changing. New technology, a shifting regulatory landscape, and geopolitical change are all coming to bear on the future of the financial services industry. A world-class office building, they believe, will provide an anchor in a tumultuous moment, and for many years to come. Ask the team behind 270 Park and theyll tell you that the new HQ is meant to be a joyful, productive space. The goal is to make workers healthier in mind, body, and spiritand therefore equipped to do their best work efficiently and effectively. Its a vessel where abundance flows naturally, Chopra proclaimed when he took the podium after Arena. [Photo: Nigel Young, courtesy of Foster + Partners] The office of the future, built for today JPMC began plotting its headquarters seven years ago. While it remained steadfast in its vision for the future of the office, the nature of work has transformed substantially since then. The pandemic forced many people into remote work due to health and safety concerns, and once the Slack and Zoom growing pains subsided, many folks realized that they actually had better work-life balance, saved money on commuting, and just generally felt happier and healthier while working from homeall while still getting the job done. For many, the drawbacks of remote work, like less access to equipment and feeling disconnected from company culture and team members, could be solved with a hybrid arrangement. Of the people who are able to perform their duties remotely, 52% prefer hybrid work, according to a recent Gallup poll, with just 26% preferring exclusively remote work and 22% desiring fully on-site work. These shifts provoke a question many office workers ask: If an office isnt technically required in order to do the job, then what is the office for? As with all headquarters, particularly on Park Avenue, the citys glass-and-steel canyon of corporate skyscrapers, they are symbols. JPMCs new building is a symbol not only of corporate ambition but also civic aspiration. Occupying a full city block, 270 Park Ave. is the first major office building to be constructed since the COVID-19 pandemic. Its the centerpiece of a JPMC microdistrict Dimon has assembled in the heart of Midtown Manhattan. Symbolically, and practically, it depicts a vision for the future of the financial sector in New Yorkone that is as brawny and commanding as Foster + Partners formidable skyscraper, which is held aloft by a massive bronze-clad base whose columns taper into six fan-shaped forms. According to a report in The New Yorker, the base alone required more steel to build than the 52-story building that was on the site before, the elegantly proportioned and assuringly reposed Union Carbide tower by SOM architect Natalie de Blois. Arena described the building as a beacon of American strength. [Photo: Nigel Young, courtesy of Foster + Partners] An office youll never want to leave Dimon has been one of the most vocal supporters of returning to the office five days a week. His employees, however, have not always agreed. They have signed petitions asking for more flexibility, and unionization efforts are underway in response to the policy. But pushback doesnt seem to be making a difference. According to a recording obtained by Reuters of a JPMC town hall in Columbus, Ohio, Dimon responded to an employee asking about the petition: Dont give me the sh*t that work from home Friday works. Later he told CNBC that employees should respect that the company is going to decide whats good for the clients, the company, etc., not an individual. . . . And so they can get a joband Im not being meanthey can get a job elsewhere. At the press conference, Hochul praised Dimon for sticking with his cmmitment to build 270 Park during the pandemic, at a time when doom-forecasting pundits spelled crisis for Manhattans future amid a sluggish return to office and the ripple effects from less foot traffic in business districts. He said come back to the office, Ill give you a place youll never want to leave! she crowed. I wondered if she may have been alluding to the business and its relationship to the city. Her official statement said the building reaffirms New York as the worlds financial capital. Over the past few years, the financial sector, which is responsible for a quarter of the citys economy, has been shifting investment from New York and California to Sunbelt states. JPMC now employs more people in Texas than New York. Still, the bank has emphasized its commitment to New York. The opening of our new global headquarters is not only a significant investment in New York, but also a testament to our commitment to our clients and employees worldwide, Dimons statement about the opening reads. We are strengthening our ability to serve our clients and communitieslocally and globallyfor generations to come. Theres ample symbolism of this sentiment in the architecture. In his remarks, Foster described how the building is anchored into the bedrock below and that its formwhich in the skyline resembles either a slender tower or an elongated, bulky ziggurat depending on your vantage pointis derived from the urban fabric and zoning code. Ive always admired the grid, and it is inseparable from the grid, Foster remarked. Theres no computer wizardry. It is four square and rooted in tradition. In fact, 270 Park Ave. is the first project to result from the East Midtown Rezoning, a Bloomberg-era idea finalized in 2017 to attract and maintain business in the area. It also created a funding mechanism to improve the neighborhoods public realm and mandated indoor or outdoor public space for new development. At the new headquarters, this element takes the form of a leafy public plaza on Madison Avenue furnished with concrete benches, movable jet-black Bertoia chairs and Saarinen tables, and an installation by Maya Lin composed of tessellated slate-gray stone that apparently references Central Park schist. Along Park Avenue, there are long cascading steps into the building that give the illusion of a plaza but nudge passersby to keep it moving; the steps are far too shallow to sit on, unlike at the Seagram Building a couple of blocks north. Arena described 270 Parks open space and public art as our gift to the city, as though it were benevolence and not part of the deal NYC struck with JPMC to allow the company to build to an astounding 1,388 feet. Taller than the Empire State and Chrysler buildings, and with a scintillating LED light installation by the artist Leo Villareal at its crown, 270 Park is certainly making the presence of those gifts known. [Photo: Nigel Young, courtesy of Foster + Partners] The quantified workplace This idealistic vision of both JPMC and Midtownthe hive of abundance within the prosperous cityhinges on a critical element: people. The building is a recruitment and retention tool that plays into the elements that have been scientifically proven to increase quality of experience, like ample natural light and clean air, as well as amenities designed to bring individual fulfillment to employees. To that end the interiors are designed to promote social, functional, and restorative activities among all teams that will use the building, which will encompass 10,000 employees. Really you’re solving for people, Stefanie Shunk, a design director at Gensler, told me after the ribbon cutting. The firm was responsible for 1.7 million square feet of workspace spread across 30 floors of 270 Park Ave., which includes conference floors, amenity spaces, health and wellness floors, and executive suites; the firm SOM designed the buildings eight trading floors. Were all high-performing individuals now, Shunk continues. And with an Oura ring, or different devices, we’re measuring ourselves as well. So what does that mean? Mindsets have shifted to how we think about what optimizes our day. Shunk and her team conceived of the work floors from a perspective of experience density so that employees would never feel like theyre in a vast expanse or too far from amenities. The elevators on each work floor open to a double-height communal space, which resembles a café. Lactation and well-being rooms (including prayer rooms with foot baths) are located off the communal spaces. Providing sensory varietyfrom a dead-silent recharge room to an energetic shared space and everything betweenalso guided the strategy. The workspaces are flexible, built with the assumption that the business and its teams will change. Theyre constructed on raised floors, arranged on a modular grid, and the walls are demountable. We wanted this space to live over time, Shunk says. It wasn’t about a 10- or 20-year lease; this is a 100-year-plus building. While the workstations are all open, Gensler devised seating arrangements and interior details that help each individual feel like they have more personal space. Along the windows, designers dispensed with private offices so that more daylight can permeate the space. Instead, they clustered workstations in groups of two and four, reducing the number of middle seats as much as they could. People like to feel like they’re in their own space, Shunk says. We just didnt want to see a run of 8, 10, 12 desks. For people with workstations near high-traffic areas, custom glass partitions are installed so their backs are protected. The primary detail that changed dueto the pandemic was the addition of video chat rooms designed for one to two people; before, the smallest conference rooms were huddle spaces intended for four to five people. Gensler designed the video chat rooms to include virtual desktops to ease moving from their workstation to the room, and tables that are contoured to give each person in a meeting a more equitable experience on-screen. Part of the value of more of these rooms is to protect the acoustical environment in the open areas. The reality of work today is that even if you are in the office, youre likely working with someone who is not there and so video calls are now routine. What really changed from the pandemic is we care so much more about the individual and designing to the outer edges of what people need, Shunk says. It used to be Design for the 80%, and now its Lets solve for the majority. [Photo: Nigel Young, courtesy of Foster + Partners] A one-stop-shop for everyone Foster describes the building as a city within a city where presumably every activity someone might need to do throughout the day can happen within 270 Parks walls. One space that JPMC is particularly proud of is The Exchange, a three-story community hub Foster + Partners designed. It includes an expansive space for parties and corporate gatherings, plus a Danny Meyer-curated food hall with 19 restaurants and cafés (one is in an Airstream and another is in what looks like a classic green NYC newsstand). Foster + Partners designed a lavish client center at the very top of the building, with 360-degree views of the city. As I watched the video fly-through of the buildings interior that played during the ribbon-cutting ceremony, I was wowed by the wealth of spaces and the lengths the real estate team took to make the office come off as hospitable. I would very much like to work from a plant-filled office, with daylight and views of the metropolis. (Although I could do without the mandatory biometric scanning employees will need to do to enter the building; instead of badges, JPMC will use their palm or fingerprint.) The concentration of amenities and activities within the building reminded me of another architect who frequently spoke of his developments as a city within a city: John Portman, who constructed epically scaled hotels in beleaguered downtowns to spark economic development. But Midtown Manhattan now is not Atlanta in 1985. This August, pedestrian activity in the city topped pre-pandemic levels. One of the great pleasures of being in New York City is experiencing everything it offers in its entirety, not merely a microcosm designed in its image to keep people in a single location. According to Chopra, achieving an abundance mindset involves reframing your thoughts to focus on everything you currently have instead of obsessing over what you lack. In the case of JPMC, thats likely the freedom to work remotely. Employees are steadily moving into 270 Park, with full occupancy expected by the end of the year. As they adjust to their new office, they will determine whether perks like imported taps that pour a perfect pint of Guiness, an app that enables them to order lunch to their desks, a signature scent piped into the air, and lighting that adjusts with circadian rhythms are the acts of corporate generosity or hallmarks of a gilded cage.
Category:
E-Commerce
I slip on a pair of Nike running shoes. I clip a chunk of metal to the heel, which wraps around my lower leg like a shin guard. The battery goes on last, hugging it all like a high ankle bracelet. In all of 30 seconds, Ive turned my legs into robots. I’m wearing Nikes new exoskeleton footwear, dubbed Project Amplify. My legs feel heavier for sure. But with each step, theres a little kick in my heel. Like a cherry bomb exploding underfoot. And when it launches next year under a new name for an undisclosed price, Project Amplify will power runs up to 10 kilometers long on a single charge, increasing your energy output by 15% to 20% along the way. Think of it as an ebike for your feet, says Michael Donaghu, a VP at Nike who leads the Project Amplify team. [Photo: Nike] The long road toward amplification Exoskeletons offer the possibility to completely reimagine human movement, so it might not be surprising to learn that Nike has been pursuing the possibilities of exoskeletons for 14 years. As Donaghu explains, he began at Nike decades ago working for the cofounder mad scientist running coach Bill Bowerman himself, who had a penchant for saying that an ounce on your foot was worth a pound on your back. As such, much of Nike innovation is about subtractioneliminating weight to ensure the product doesnt get in the way of your body. Nikes marathon-busting Vaporfly shoes offered some rebuttal to this idea, as Nike studied the possibilities of energy return, developing carbon plates and foams that could give back an extra 4% of your stride. What if, instead of playing subtraction, we could give you more? Donaghu muses. And exoskeleton research was right along these lines, albeit taken to the extreme. The problem a decade ago, however, was that the components needed for robotic assistance never quite added up. The technology was too heavy, or not powerful enough, Donaghu says. The theory just didn’t play out in practice. Rather than dissuading Nike, Donaghu says it kept the company focused on the longer gameand every once in a while, a new PhD would walk through the doors and reignite interest in the idea, just to keep the coals burning. I think you can have a lot of shared intuition as a group of designers and researchers, and sometimes technology just isn’t ready to do it, or you’re not smart enough to figure it out, he says. By 2021, the team opted to try again in earnest, dedicating full-time researchers to the project longer term. Quite a few developments helped. Algorithms, sensors, and microprocessors had all matured. But most of all, Donaghu credits the drone industry, fueled by a new wave of lightweight, high-RPM motors, with providing one of the most fundamental components of Project Amplify. That mass adoption made smaller, more energy-dense motors of the size that you would want to put on a body, he says. [Photo: Nike] Designing the first consumer-friendly exoskeleton The design of Project Amplify is inspired by the human body. Developed in partnership with Dephy, it’s essentially a robotic version of your Achilles tendonthe connection between your calf muscles and heel that powers running and jumping. As you walk, onboard sensors track your gait and attempt to power your step at just the right moment. Donaghu likens the challenge to pushing someone on a swing. Too early, it feels weird. Too late, and its pointless. The task requires accuracy in the milliseconds, while accommodating for the fact that everyones gait is a little different. [Photo: Nike] Nike hasnt mastered this work yet. As I take my first jog in Project Amplify, I find myself fighting the machine. I dont feel puppeted, as I have with larger exoskeletons in the past, but I dont feel like a super version of myself, either. Instead, theres a bit too much pressure on my shin, and my heel slips slightly out of the shoe. Allow me to admit, its a bit infantilizing to find yourself struggling to run at Nike HQ, and Im admittedly despondent when another tester trying Amplify for the first time flies by me effortlessly. Tweaking the level of support and response time (simple buttons and sliders in an app) does help. And while Im still a bit awkward, and the footwear never feels weightless, they also got my ass up a 500-foot training hill, leaving me reasonably but not devastatingly winded. For me, an elite running shoe feels like Im running on flubber, and an e-bike can straight-up feel like driving a motorcycle. I wanted one sensation or the other in a way that wasnt quite there yet in Project Amplify. But taking it off? A dream! All you do is pull a tab on the heel, and the robot ulatches. Im reminded of the handful of people necessary for me to don an exoskeleton pant made with Arcteryx. Meanwhile, Nike really has developed something that I believe most people could slip on with relative ease. [Photo: Nike] Polishing Amplify for launch Despite the fact that hundreds of people have taken more than 2.4 million steps with Project Amplify, Donaghu knows the product isnt fully cooked yet, and hes even a bit self-conscious as the team shares a platform theyve yet to perfect with journalists such as myself. Could we already be in the market right now? Yeah, we actually are getting really good functional testing results and feedback from most people. It just doesn’t meet the threshold of, like, is it swoosh-worthy yet? he says. I just think we have a responsibility to make sure that this thing ends up being really aspirational. Like, it really disappears visually. Functionally, it’s just something that’s there helping you. And if we can’t get to that threshold, then for some of us, it’s not going to be good enough. For now, Nike reaching that threshold means continuing to tweak the algorithms so that people like me dont face a learning curve when using the product. He also suggests that the team still has levers to pull to lighten the technology while increasing its power output. And, of course, it has to look fire on your foot. To this aim, the design team has developed a mockup of Project Amplify thats more svelt, graceful, and all-around Nike-vibing than the chunkier prototypes theyve built thus far. Now its just up to the poor engineering team to bring that vision to life. As for where Project Amplify fits in the market, its too much power for competitive sport, but perfect for recreation. Longer term, Nikes own CEO isnt making any bold predictions about revenue potential or market size, but the writing is on the wall that the age of exoskeletons is coming. That’s especially for those aging with lower mobilitythese technologies will revolutionize quality of life. There are so many ways that it doesn’t fit perfectly into our business model. It’s a bigger swing, says Donaghu, who a few beats later admits that it feels wonderful to be making such a swing, to launch a product on the true edge of the companys capabilities. That’s Nike at its best, when we’re just being a little more bold to say we’re responsible for trying to change this industry and just help people move by and large. What are all the things that we’re not releasing that would do that?
Category:
E-Commerce
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