Our interview with Jillian Kennedy, Canadian Leader of Defined Contribution and Financial Wellness at Mercer Canada

Our VP of Communications, Sarah, sat down to talk to Jillian about her career path and the challenges of working in a client-facing role.

Can you tell us about the early stages of your career, what was it like entering the workforce?

School was a very safe place for me, it was easy to meet people who wanted to cultivate ideas and had similar passions that I did. Getting into the workforce was like a wake-up call and I hadn’t really figured out what I wanted to do with my career. I took a job at a local insurance company in the city I grew up in and after 7 years, realized I wanted to find something that was more of a career. Once I made that decision, it felt like the first time I had truly chosen something for myself.

Sometimes it can be challenging to see all the career options that are available to you while you’re still in school. How did you determine what you wanted to do as a career? 

My career decision was influenced by the people around me. My mom was a nurse and I saw how she took care of people, how she had purpose and meaning in her job. I was a competitive swimmer, surrounded by coaches that taught me discipline and how to believe in myself. I wanted to help people and was drawn more towards the finance industry, but I took literature & communications in university.  However, working for that insurance company helped me develop these skills that I didn't know I had. I was horrible at math in school, but I could understand patterns and the way money moved. I could understand why people would behave differently and have emotion attached to something like money. I picked Mercer because it was run by women, and I felt like we were speaking the same language. I got really excited about the fact that someone else could see the world the way I did and that's all it took for me to take a chance on this career path.

Can you tell us about your career path at Mercer?

I've been at Mercer for 17 years, but I didn't really know what my plan was going to look like when I first started. I just kept going until I felt like I wanted more or that I would be happier doing something else. I’m lucky enough to work for a company that rose to the challenge at the same time I did and allowed me to take on more responsibility. I was an associate, principal, senior principal and then partner. Now I lead a business on the wealth side of our organization. 

Have you ever experienced imposter syndrome? How did you deal with it?

Going from high school to university is a scary time. I do think it’s different once you're in the later stages of your career after you’ve had that big milestone. The biggest milestone in my career was when I went from being a consultant to being a leader. I will never forget this because I felt as if the burden of the world was on my shoulders, and I questioned why they picked me for the role. The interesting thing about imposter syndrome is that this feeling of not being good enough does not last very long. Then it turns into this hyper vigilant feeling of always wanting to be better and that's what stuck with me for a very long time. What can happen though is you never get to enjoy where you're at and it can be easy to burn out. It’s important to think about your life outside of work, and not just compartmentalize your feelings within your career.

What was it like stepping into your first leadership position? Were there any specific challenges that you faced?

In my view, the best way to lead is to be vulnerable with the people you’re leading. That can be difficult to do but how are you supposed to lead if people don’t see that you can make mistakes too?  There is a difference between leading and managing. My role in leading is to inspire people to do things that they don't want to do or to do something that doesn't come natural to them. Sometimes people have an issue with leadership styles, and I do believe there's a difference between the way women and men lead. I advocate very strongly for both styles; you need to be able to look at things objectively but also from the human lens.

What are some of the changes you’ve seen over your career?

The big difference is that there’s the willingness to have women at the table whereas before, that wouldn't necessarily happen. When consulting with businesses, I would typically see a man representing the finance role (CFO, treasury, etc.) and a woman on the HR side. You can't have a successful business without both of those things working together and there’s been a big evolution of these two groups starting to become alliances with one another. That was a big step in the right direction: getting everyone at the table, not seeing gender but seeing their role and respecting that role.

Do you have any advice for those working in client-facing roles?

In the finance industry, there can be a mentality of work hard play hard but in reality, there’s no rule requiring you to drink when taking clients out in a social setting. You may find that you have a lot of clarity to help handle uncomfortable situations if you refrain from drinking while hosting clients. Early in my career I felt that I needed to drink to fit in, but you can end up having really meaningful conversations while also staying sober at events.

Do you have any advice for those in the early stages of their career?

Reach out to other women and try to make those connections. We tend to try and do things on our own or try to work through things on our own. Reach out to others to create a community, a group of people at your workplace that you trust and who you can go to, to talk through a situation.