FWSF 2022 Scholarship Application Open Now

The 2022 FWSF Scholarship Program is now accepting applications through March 21, 2022. The FWSF Scholarship Fund provides graduate and undergraduate scholarships to San Francisco Bay Area women pursuing careers in the fields of accounting, finance and/or the financial services industry. Since 1985, our Scholarship Fund has awarded more than $2.7 million in scholarship grants to more than 325 Bay Area women. Beyond financial support, FWSF scholarship recipients have the opportunity to be mentored by FWSF members and attend career development and networking events. Learn more and apply for a scholarship.

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Jobs and Career Development for Everyone

Bring Your Own Lunch January 11, 2022

In a lively discussion hosted by Sheila Cunningham, members spoke up about their career strains and challenges. Below are some of the key themes.

Working from home has helped balance work and family.

One member spoke about long work days and how she worked with her boss and colleagues to manage the number of work hours so that she could spend quality time with her young children. She pointed out that working from home has been a big positive — by making it easier to spend the time with her kids.

Coaching is always helpful.

Coaching was a particularly hot topic, with one member describing how her sessions with a strong coach resulted in her recent promotion. Another confided that she resisted coaching, as she strongly believed that coaching would not help her and then, when she finally agreed to receive coaching, it was a big revelation for her that coaching does indeed help. The important take-away is that coaches help you get to know yourself better and to have a better sense of your strengths and weaknesses. 

Don’t be afraid to take risks.

One of our members described how she recently took a big risk by recommending to her manager that they hire someone senior to her so that she and the company could be more effective and productive. Her manager was receptive to her recommendation and she was able to be involved in the interviews, which culminated in a very successful hire for everyone.

While the virtual office hinders cultivation of workplace culture, there are some work-arounds.

This led to the topic of culture and how the culture at the firm allowed our member to take the big risk. Another member, who is a senior manager within her organization, noted that the enforcement and cultivation of culture in an organization requires in-person meetings and therefore working from home under COVID-19 conditions has made it difficult to maintain the ‘culture’. Another manager observed that, in the absence of in-person meetings, life style meetings with co-workers, such as cooking tutorials or wine-tasting, have helped to maintain her organization’s culture.

We encourage you to join our career-themed sessions, which will continue in January with Coffee Connections on January 20th at 8:30 am and Bookclub on January 26th at 5:30 pm and will run through the end of March.

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Jenny Johnson: 2021 Financial Woman of the Year

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2021 Virtual Scholarship Celebration 

Our virtual scholarship celebration was held on June 4, 2021. Thirteen women, both graduate students, and undergraduate students were award scholarships.

As of 2021, FWSF has awarded over $2.6 million in scholarships over the past 30 years to more than 300 Bay Area women. The FWSF Scholarship Fund provides graduate and undergraduate scholarships to San Francisco Bay Area women pursuing careers in finance and financial services. Beyond financial support, FWSF scholarship recipients have the opportunity to be mentored by FWSF members and attend career development and networking events.

Read about the scholarship recipients.

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