Supporting Gender Equality
Two things are abundantly clear when you speak to Sue Coté P’19. First, she sounds very much like a Villanovan when it comes to giving back and driving positive change. Second, her approach to gender equality issues is as honest and as logical as it gets. It’s little wonder why Coté sits on the Advisory Council for Villanova’s Anne Welsh McNulty Institute for Women’s Leadership. At the same time, she’s an ardent supporter of Villanova School of Business–to create opportunities for her daughter, Danielle’ 19 VSB, and other women the way others supported her. In fact, a recent multi-year gift from Sue and her husband Rick does just that.
Learning Through Experience
Sue Coté spent the majority of her career in industries where few women held leadership positions–public accounting, finance, and investment management. It wasn’t until the early 1990s when she ran mutual fund operations for Prudential Investments’ Mutual Funds and Annuities that Coté first reported to a woman.
By then, Coté had learned to be successful with few female role models. She worked exceptionally hard and received considerable support from mentors, but the key was building relationships with her male colleagues–a message she stresses with the women (and men) she’s mentored over the years. “For me, it was about finding commonality,” Coté explained. “Whether it was about sports, family or some other interest, establishing a connection helped minimize the gender differences.”
Turning Point
After Prudential, Coté returned to public accounting as a partner at EY in New York. Again, she noticed the small number of women in leadership, but EY was committed to addressing it. That was a turning point for Coté. Until then, she mentored colleagues to pay it forward; now, she could drive meaningful change. She championed programs that coached women to build relationships and find commonalities with male colleagues and supported efforts to better understand why more women than men left the profession to help retain talent.
“[Businesses] need gender diversity, age diversity, and racial diversity to create a collaborative, challenging environment. It's a business imperative.”
After years of giving to VSB, Sue and Rick Coté recently decided to focus their support on gender equality issues. Among other things, Coté hopes it creates more opportunities for female faculty in areas like finance and investment management who can serve as role models to young women and give them something to which they can aspire.
Originally published in the Winter 2019 Issue of Villanova Business magazine.
Sue Coté
“[Businesses] need gender diversity, age diversity, and racial diversity to create a collaborative, challenging environment. It's a business imperative,”