A sentiment that has stuck with Sallie Krawcheck, CEO and founder of Ellevest, since the beginning of her nearly 40-year career is that she refuses to have impostor syndrome.
A longtime banker, Krawcheck shattered many glass ceilings in the time that she spent on Wall Street. Throughout the 2000s, she held the CEO title at Merrill Lynch Wealth Management as well as US Trust, Citi Wealth Management, Smith Barney, and Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. And she also served as chief financial officer at Citi. But to get there, and eventually cofound and launch Ellevest in 2014, she says she had to learn to ignore the moments when impostor syndrome started to creep in.
“Society messages to us that we should have impostor syndrome. When we look up towards the top of many companies today, we still don’t see that many people who look like us so therefore we may know we’re an imposter,” Krawcheck said at the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit in Laguna Niguel, Calif., on Monday. “My rule is I do not do impostor syndrome—I just refuse to do it.”
Krawcheck credits her ability to stop thoughts of impostor syndrome to the beginning of her career in the 1980s at Salomon Brothers, an investment bank that later merged with Citigroup in 2003. She told Fortune that the men she worked around were very open about the fact that they did not want her there. Krawcheck’s way of coping? She knew the value of her intelligence, and her ability to outwork them, so she put her head down and continued to rise up the corporate ladder. Krawcheck said she has always had a growth mindset—if there is something that she doesn’t know, she’ll learn it. “In fact, I’m having my most fun when I’m a little bit out over my skis,” she said at the summit.
Yet another sentiment that she chooses to remember in her everyday life is that “nobody boos a nobody.” Throughout her career and various leadership roles, Krawcheck says she has continuously received criticism and dealt with haters. But she wears the negativity like a badge of honor, saying you have to succeed despite the hatred because “pressure is a privilege.”
Sometimes being the only woman in the room, Krawcheck would speak out about the need for a more diverse environment to yield better results.
“I got told to shut up about it,” she said. “So I went and formed a whole company around it. Ellevest is funded by, founded by, built by, built for, investing in, and investing through women to get more money to the hands of women so we can start more businesses ourselves that are the way that they should be.”
Krawcheck also touched on the importance of personal branding, which has been key to success throughout her career. As one of the first LinkedIn influencers, she quickly gained a large following and now has over 2.5 million followers on the platform. This came in handy when she launched Ellevest in 2014, posting about the company through her own channels and drawing a quick following.
She reminded everyone at the summit that they have a personal brand, whether they know it or not, so being conscious of how you are perceived and how you shape your public image is important.
“For me, I want to be known for getting more money in the hands of women, therefore improving women’s lives and improving their families lives—simple as that,” Krawcheck said. Additionally, Krawcheck encouraged the women at the summit to raise one another up and work as a team—although women have long been told to climb to the top alone, that doesn’t have to be the reality anymore, and helping one woman helps all women.
