Women in Leadership: How Amalgamated Bank CEO navigated a career spanning crises and continents

In the latest episode of our special Women in Leadership series of the ESG Insider podcast, we're speaking with Priscilla Sims Brown, CEO of New York-based Amalgamated Bank — a company she describes as "a little bit unusual" in the financial services world in that it is a socially responsible bank focused on ESG and sustainability.  

Priscilla's path to the CEO role has spanned continents and industries — from growing up in an Ethiopian family in Germany to working in business journalism in California to holding an executive role at Australia's largest bank. She also tells us how her experiences working through crisis — from natural disasters to COVID-19 — have shaped her leadership style and her approach to diversity, equity and inclusion.

"I'm not uncomfortable with discomfort," she says.

Priscilla explains how attitudes about leadership have evolved. "Often, you found women emulating men, you found women doing what was comfortable to men in the workplace in order to be accepted," she said of her early career. "What's really nice today is that a lot of the women I see in the workplace are very comfortable dressing, acting, talking, thinking differently."

Diversity in leadership has received increasing attention in recent years from stakeholders in the sustainability world. Investors have pushed for diversity on company boards and management teams, and in some parts of the world, that push has extended to laws and regulations. But the number of women in top roles remains low.

Read recent research from S&P Global on women in leadership here: https://www.spglobal.com/esg/insights/featured/special-editorial/women-ceos-leadership-for-a-diverse-future 

And here: https://www.spglobal.com/esg/insights/featured/special-editorial/the-path-to-gender-parity 

You can listen to previous episodes in our Women in Leadership series here: https://www.spglobal.com/esg/podcasts/women-in-leadership-no-horace-mann-ceo-is-not-working-the-coat-check  

Here: https://www.spglobal.com/esg/podcasts/women-in-leadership-seventh-generation-ceo-on-importance-of-being-radically-human-  

And here: https://www.spglobal.com/esg/podcasts/women-in-leadership-how-norwegian-industrial-ceo-puts-diversity-on-the-agenda  

We'd love to hear from you. To give us feedback on this episode or share ideas for future episodes, please contact hosts Lindsey Hall (lindsey.hall@spglobal.com) and Esther Whieldon (esther.whieldon@spglobal.com).  

Photo source: Amalgamated Bank

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