Staying Power

Derek Jeter. Cal Ripken. Tony Gwynn. Michele Ansbacher.

They all stayed with the same employer their entire career. Ansbacher, a vice president at Prudential, has been with the financial giant for 33 years, starting after she graduated from Montclair State University with an economics degree.

Ansbacher returned to campus Feb. 18 as part of the MBA Executive Speaker Series. She shared valuable lessons from her successful career trajectory at Prudential. What was especially great about Ansbacher’s presentation is she had an example from her own career for every question she was asked: how to be a mentor, what to do as a new manager, how to try to achieve work-family balance, how to manage your time, the best way to deliver constructive feedback. Her examples made her easy to relate to, especially considering she had been a student at Montclair State. She also demonstrated how important it is to be looking for opportunities at your current employer—Ansbacher  moved up the ranks at Prudential by holding 20 different jobs during her 33 years there—while also never forgetting the importance of maintaining and building relationships with your colleagues.

Ansbacher (shot from back of room on my cell phone)

Ethics was another focus of Ansbacher’s presentation, which is not surprising considering she was Pru’s corporate chief ethics officer at one point. Ansbacher talked about the “mom test” and “newspaper test,” or would you be willing to have your mother know what you did and would you be willing to have the newspaper report on what you did. So simple, but such a perfect principle to live by, right?

Ansbacher was a fantastic role model for Montclair State University students. I was inspired by her message.

She hit it out of the park.