"I was sitting around a conference table with my male colleagues when it was announced that Carly Fiorina had been appointed to be the head of Hewlett-Packard," Knuff said.
Her co-workers speculated whether Fiorina had a family and how she would be able to juggle her work and personal commitments.
"I knew if her name had been Carl, we never would have been having this conversation," she said. Unhappy with the atmosphere there, she returned to Fiduciary Trust.
Such occurrences are less likely at Fiduciary Trust, where having so many women at the top has created a "true meritocracy," according to Michael Magdol, Fiduciary Trust's vice chairman and chief financial officer. Magdol says Tatlock's emphasis on consensus contrasts with the authoritarian management style at many firms.
Edwina Dean-McCrimmon, a business-development associate at the firm, said, "We're definitely very team-oriented, and I think that has something to do with all of the high-profile females around here."
Fiduciary Trust earned its woman-friendly reputation long before Tatlock arrived in 1984.
The company had a few women in key positions in the 1930s and 1940s, which was highly unusual," she said. "They paved the way for other women to get promoted."
The number of women at Fiduciary Trust surged in the 1990s as a number of male portfolio managers retired and the company expanded overseas. "We had a lot of positions to fill," Tatlock said, and with huge numbers of women suddenly graduating from the nation's elite business schools, failing to tap into that talent pool "would have been an enormous mistake."
So what advice do women give to other women who want to make it on Wall Street? "Find a company where someone has already set a tone for women to become leaders," said Katherine Tobin, senior director of research at Catalyst.
Tatlock, the Fiduciary Trust chairman, is more blunt. "If you're at a firm that's not interested in creating a culture where you can grow, cut out of there fast," she said. "I always tell women: `Don't sit around and complain. Find a place that wants you.'"
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