Thriving As A Woman In a Male-Dominated Industry: Danielle Phaneuf of PwC On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman In a Male-Dominated Industry

An Interview With Candice Georgiadis

Say yes to what matters and ask for what you want. Prioritize saying yes to opportunities that will advance your career, whether that’s building trust with key stakeholders and your internal team or developing new skills. Ask for the lead role on the project even if you aren’t 100% sure you can do it, and say no to doing things that aren’t going to fulfill you, personally or professionally.

In the United States in 2022, fields such as Aircraft piloting, Agriculture, Architecture, Construction, Finance, and Information technology, are still male-dominated industries. For a woman who is working in a male-dominated environment, what exactly does it take to thrive and succeed? In this interview series, we are talking to successful women who work in a Male-Dominated Industry who can share their stories and experiences about navigating work and life as strong women in a male-dominated industry. As a part of this series, we had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Danielle Phaneuf, Partner, Cloud & Digital Strategy Operating Model Leader, PwC.

Danielle leads PwC’s Cloud & Digital Strategy Operating Model practice cross-sector. With over 20 years of experience helping executives transform their operating model and organizations, she advises the C-level on IT & digital transformation, technology operating model and organization design, workforce transformation and cost optimization.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood “backstory”?

I grew up in the LA area as a true “valley girl,” with my mom, dad, brother and 2 dogs. I loved being outside: We lived on a mini-farm in the middle of the San Fernando Valley, and grew every type of fruit and vegetable imaginable (even before it was cool). I played baseball early on and was the only girl on the team until they introduced softball much later on.

Even at a young age, I had aspirations of being in leadership roles — I recently re-read a picture book my mom had saved from my first grade year, and I said I wanted to be the first woman president!

Can you tell us the story about what led you to this particular career path?

I have to admit that I didn’t plan on being a management consultant, even when I was in college. I had aspirations of being a DEA special agent, taking down the Colombian drug cartels. But when I realized what that career really looked like, I decided to try my hand at consulting.

I got a call from a college friend who said there is this fantastic opportunity to move to San Diego, do all sorts of cool work and travel the world. So I started working at Booz Allen Hamilton and never looked back. I got the chance to work on so many different projects with different clients and traveled the world, just as promised.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

This is a hard one to answer, as I feel like each engagement is interesting and challenging in its own way. But if I had to pick one story, it would be something rather recent.

Before I became a PwC Partner, I was working with a healthcare company in 2015 to create its new IT operating model. I served basically as the Chief of Staff to the CIO, a role I loved, and in that capacity, developed a very trusted relationship with him and his leadership team.

Fast forward a few years, and we were doing a similar project for a global retailer. My former CIO client was able to come visit and tell the story of how we helped him to design and deliver this new operating model. He served as a resource for this client in a completely different industry.

It was such an interesting experience to hear our client give the “qual” or reference of the work we did. It was also an incredibly proud moment for me, to know that we did really good work — so much so that a well-respected leader would stand side by side with us telling the story.

It reinforced to me how important building trusted relationships is no matter what client or industry I am serving.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

I focus my leadership around three traits — empathy and caring, honesty and candor, and courage — all of which have been instrumental in my success.

For me, empathy and caring means that I look to bring humanity into what is sometimes a very harsh environment, where we are always under pressure and are always being challenged. I am a formal mentor to several folks in our practice, have volunteered as a mentor in our women’s development program and informally mentor many more. When people know you care about their personal well-being as much as their professional success, they want to be part of your circle.

Honesty and candor are important to me both within PwC and with clients. Our clients expect us to give them the hard facts; they don’t want to hear things sugar-coated and our staff deserve the same. Something that I love about PwC is we give people real-time feedback, honestly and candidly, so they don’t have to wait for an end of year review to know how they are doing.

Courage is perhaps the hardest but most impactful trait for me to exhibit. I see it come to life in a few different ways — I demonstrate courage by challenging conventions and speaking up when it is uncomfortable. I need courage to try a new opportunity, whether it’s a new client, new industry, or a new offering. And I need courage to ask for help when I am overloaded with all the things I need to do on a daily basis.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Can you help articulate a few of the biggest obstacles or challenges you’ve had to overcome while working in a male-dominated industry?

I always heard career advice telling women to be more vocal and to say yes to every opportunity. It wasn’t until later that I learned there was a critical piece of this advice missing. It’s good to raise your hand for new opportunities, but we need to be more intentional about what we agree to take on.

Women are more likely to devote up to 200 hours of their time to “non-promotable work,” such as taking on pro bono projects because we think we have to say yes. There was actually a great opinion piece from Jessica Nordell that simulated how this and other biases against women impacts our career growth. For us to overcome this barrier and succeed, we need to evaluate how each opportunity presented to us maps back to our career and company goals. If it doesn’t serve our career, we need to confidently say no.

The other challenge I’ve observed is how to not be only invited to something because I’m the only woman. The way I handle this is only saying yes to those things where I can contribute something meaningful. This is similar to how I prioritize where I spend and reinvestment my time.

Can you share a few of the things you have done to gain acceptance among your male peers and the general work community? What did your female co-workers do? Can you share some stories or examples?

I’ve learned to lean on the fact that I stand out for being a woman in a male-dominated industry, instead of focusing on how I can conform. If you think about it, we actually have the upper hand because being the only one means we instantly become more memorable. I’ve used this to my advantage to set up follow up conversations, network and build relationships.

For women struggling to find acceptance, I say, don’t. Instead, lean on the traits, characteristics, and hobbies that make you unique. I’ve learned to embrace my love of celebrity gossip, new hairstyles and wine to build authentic relationships with my colleagues, regardless of gender. Just today I started a conference call with a client, and we spent the first few minutes talking about my new hair, which was much more fun than jumping into portfolio management.

Ok thank you for all of that. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman In a Male-Dominated Industry?” (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Be informed and always deliver on your commitments. I always do my research and feel confident that I am credible in every situation, because I prepare. My clients and my teams expect that. And I keep my commitments: Whether it is a critical project deadline or getting coffee with a mentee, I ensure that I deliver.

2. Say yes to what matters and ask for what you want. Prioritize saying yes to opportunities that will advance your career, whether that’s building trust with key stakeholders and your internal team or developing new skills. Ask for the lead role on the project even if you aren’t 100% sure you can do it, and say no to doing things that aren’t going to fulfill you, personally or professionally.

3. Don’t go at this alone. Even if you are the only woman in the room, you can access other resources, like mentors or peers, to help you and provide outside perspective. Build a team of allies and confidants who you can trust and who always have your back.

4. Lean into your femininity, or what makes you, you. Recent data proves that companies need diverse perspectives to improve business performance and customer satisfaction. Own your lived experiences, whatever they may be, and use them to connect with others — for me, that can be sharing my photography experiences or dishing on celebrity gossip.

5. Leave the door open behind you. Seize the opportunity to mentor women junior to you, help guide them and to build the next generation of women leaders.

If you had a close woman friend who came to you with a choice of entering a field that is male-dominated or female-dominated, what would you advise her? Would you advise a woman friend to start a career in a field or industry that’s traditionally been mostly men? Can you explain what you mean?

While it’s overwhelming to enter a male-dominated field, women can use this space to their advantage to truly make a difference. They can make ripples across the industry — inspiring others to do the same. Being the “only woman” or one of few has been a huge differentiator for me in my tenure in leadership. It has allowed me to become a role model for junior women who can now see themselves in a leadership position. Passing on that inspiration and helping to guide the next generation of women leaders is an incredible honor.

I tell my peers that we shouldn’t shy away from breaking the metaphoric glass ceilings of industries like technology. These spaces need innovative ideas and diverse perspectives like mine and like those of the many talented women with whom I work.

Have you seen things change for women working in male-dominated industries, over the past ten years? How do you anticipate that it might improve in the future? Can you please explain what you mean?

The biggest change I’ve seen over the last decade is that I am no longer the “only woman in the room.” Still, there are instances where I may be one of few in the room, but my network of other women and aspiring female leaders has grown tremendously within the firm and across the industry.

I expect we’ll see this trend continue, especially as businesses prioritize supporting women in the workplace, a key component of any diversity, equity, and inclusion program. Companies are working to build an inviting internal culture and thriving business, and diversity is a key component of that. We use Employee Resource Groups, or Inclusion Networks as we refer to them at PwC, to help build this vibrant culture. These networks are used to facilitate professional development opportunities geared toward diverse communities.

I’m also seeing a shift within my fellow peers. Women are becoming more intentional and vocal about their career aspirations across all levels. They are also more comfortable in many environments bringing their true selves to work — whether it is in the way they dress or in their hairstyles and makeup or in showing off their kids on a conference call, authenticity seems to be more prevalent. In the future, I anticipate that more women will step into their strengths and passions at work, be recognized for all that they bring, and claim dedicated seats at that table where decisions are being made. I look forward to helping to make that future a reality.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.