I start every morning with tea in bed. My husband, Richard, brings it in to me — PG Tips with milk and one sugar. We live in a second-floor apartment on Manhattan’s Central Park West. We couldn’t afford the higher floors, but we still have beautiful views of the trees in Central Park. It feels like a long way from my roots in the poorest mining valleys of South Wales.
We have five children: Shira, Lisa, David, Adam and Emma. The eldest is 38, the youngest is 18, and she’s just started medicine at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.
I love getting dressed. I see it as my armour. I don’t do casual. A high-neck, pencil-slim dress with a jacket and heels is ideal. I’m 5ft 1in, so the extra height makes me feel more powerful.
I talked about appearance in my book Executive Presence. It followed on from studies we did, revealing that to be seen as having leadership potential, you needed three things on top of a good education: communication skills, gravitas and appearance.
My office is on Broadway, a five-minute walk, opposite the Mandarin Oriental, which is where I go if I’m having a power breakfast. A lot of my day revolves around two things: a think tank I set up in 2004 called Center for Talent Innovation [she is ranked one of the world’s top business gurus by Thinkers 50], and my consultancy, which now has a turnover of $10m. I have a team of about 40 people.
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I had IVF and gave birth to Emma when I was 51. Some people were shocked, others were thrilled. The irony is she was the easiest of all my births
Put simply, our work is about lifting up and empowering the groups that have historically been discriminated against. And one of our main areas is women and the last glass ceiling.
One of the initiatives we set up came about after I published a book in which I asked why so many women still hadn’t made it to the top. Our conclusion was that while women have mentors — colleagues, friends, family — to give them advice, they’re unlikely to have a sponsor. By this I mean someone who is powerful and will put you up for promotion, open a door for you, align their reputation with yours.
Our studies showed that men were twice as likely to have a sponsor as women. We called it the Sponsor Effect. We also knew something had to be done. More than 60 organisations, including American Express, have sponsorship initiatives now, and it’s making a big difference.
For lunch, I often walk home, sometimes through the park. I will have something light, like a vegetable soup. I’ll also use this time to recoup. At some point in the day, I’ll also go for a swim. I find it so restorative and the pool’s only a block away.
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I’ve been in New York since my mid-twenties, but I was born in the Welsh village of Pyle, and grew up in Pontypool, a town that had thrived on jobs in coal, iron and tin-plate, but was by then in decline. I was the second of six girls and our father was a teacher. He was also patriarchal and desperate for a son. Every time Mother was about to give birth, he made us pray for a boy.
Typical of the women in our community, my mother’s role was to bring us up. But my father realised I was bright, and when I was 13, he did something that had a lasting effect on me: he took me to Cambridge. He wanted me to see what I could aim for. “Girl,” he said, “if you get in here, it will change your life.” I never forgot those words.
Five years later, I did get in. I got a place to study archaeology and anthropology, I later switched to economics and went on to do a PhD in it. I then moved to the US, attracted by its opportunities, and became an assistant professor of economics at Columbia.
Since then, I have written 12 books. When Baby Hunger came out back in 2002, it caused quite a stir. It was about the number of high-achieving women in the US who, not through choice, had reached middle-age with no kids. Our studies found that 42% of them were childless at 40.
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My own case was different, but I could relate to this. I’d had a miscarriage in my mid-forties and I didn’t think I could get pregnant again. We already had four kids, but my husband and I wanted another, so I had IVF and gave birth to Emma when I was 51. Some people were shocked about it, others were thrilled. The irony is, Emma was the easiest of all my births.
Afterwards, so many successful career women came up to me wanting advice. Of course, Richard was my rock throughout. His background is in finance, but he now heads up a music organisation, his passion.
In the evenings, I might be at an event or giving a speech, but I’m disciplined about choices. You have to be, otherwise you’d drown. I also enjoy just going home. We eat a lot of grilled fish — flounder, swordfish. I also have a soft spot for potatoes: they remind me of childhood.
I don’t like to go to bed too late, and will often want to reflect on the day. I hope to carry on doing what I’m doing, but I might gravitate more towards writing in the future. I’d love to do a memoir about my journey one day. My father would be so proud of how far his Welsh valley girl has come.
Sylvia Ann Hewlett will be speaking at Women and Power on November 2 at the Fortune Theatre, London WC2; atgtickets.com