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" At this point we&amp;#039;re leaning in so hard we might fall over. But the truth is, that&amp;#039;s not the case for women everywhere, which is why Claudia Chan\u2014 a PR exec turned motivational media HBIC\u2014 put together a two-day summit in New York to celebrate the millions of women in business who are looking for a leg up. As Chan puts it, &amp;quot;You cannot become what you cannot see,&amp;quot; so her slate of crazy-accomplished speakers took to the stage and spilled their secrets to scoring the corner office. From conquering the pay gap to starting your own business, these are the working girl&amp;#039;s words to live by. You Better Be Asking For It &amp;quot;Men reach out and ask for help more than women do,&amp;quot; Charlotte Relyea, partner at the uber-prestigious consulting firm (and notorious boys&amp;#039; club) McKinsey &amp;amp;amp; Co., told an audience of professional women. Each woman on the panel agreed that women ask for help and advocacy far less often than the men they work with...and it&amp;#039;s all to avoid looking pushy or dodge an intimidating conversation. &amp;quot;Ask yourself, &amp;#039;Who&amp;#039;s the one person I want to have lunch with,&amp;#039;&amp;quot; challenged Relyea. &amp;quot;Now go out and ask that person to meet you. Once you do it, you&amp;#039;ll realize it&amp;#039;s not that scary and it&amp;#039;s something people will respect you for.&amp;quot; Fit Your Own Mold Lubov Azria is the Chief Creative Officer of BCBG Max Azria, and gave the S.H.E. Summit attendees a look inside the hiring process at a major fashion brand. Bottom line: people who think a little differently than everyone else will always have an advantage. &amp;quot;There was a Harvard professor who interviewed dozens of students for a single internship, and he asked everyone the same question: If you were in a two-seater car and on the side of the road was (1) your best friend, (2) a man having a heart attack, and (3) the love of your life, what would you do?&amp;quot; After a scan of the audience, she continued, &amp;quot;He heard the same three answers over and over again\u2014 &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;d pick up my friend&amp;#039;, or &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;d save the dying man&amp;#039;\u2014 until one student said, &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;d get out of the car, have my best friend drive the guy having a heart attack to the hospital, and I&amp;#039;d stay with the love of my life.&amp;#039; When I hire people, I&amp;#039;m always looking for the person who&amp;#039;d get out of the car.&amp;quot; If You Make Your Own Rules, They&amp;#039;ll Never Hold You Back Sallie Krawcheck is the original female leader on Wall Street, becoming a CEO at Citigroup and Bank of America before she turned 45. At the S.H.E. Summit&amp;#039;s kickoff event, Krawcheck told a crowd of listeners, &amp;quot;When women start businesses, they are successful more often then men, and yet funding goes to women far less than it goes to men.&amp;quot; That&amp;#039;d be seriously depressing news if Krawcheck was willing to lie down and accept it, but instead she just bought (yes, bought) 85 Broads, a 30,000-member women&amp;#039;s networking group. &amp;quot;Sometimes,&amp;quot; she said, mingling with the crowd after her speech, &amp;quot;you have to be the solution to your problem.&amp;quot; Pick Your First Bosses Carefully  Who you work for is just as important as the work you do, and this is especially true for career starters. &amp;quot;Your first bosses should be people who see potential and talent in you, because that will make or break your career&amp;quot; said Anita Sands, Chief Operating Officer of UBS Wealth Management. &amp;quot;My best bosses stripped be down and built me back up to be even better because they believed in me.&amp;quot; Corporate and Conscience Do Mix Joi Gordon became the CEO of Dress for Success by accident. Originally thinking she&amp;#039;d make a single donation to the non-profit, which gives suits to poverty-stricken women for job interviews, Gordon called DFS to give a suit and talked her way onto their executive board. &amp;quot;I went from suit donor to board member in just one phone call,&amp;quot; she laughed. Now a lawyer turned non-profit CEO, Gordon spoke to women looking for a career path with purpose. &amp;quot;If the question you ask yourself on the way to work is, &amp;#039;what&amp;#039;s the gift I&amp;#039;m giving to this world,&amp;#039; go into non-profit. We need leaders here.&amp;quot; Success Isn&amp;#039;t A Race When Alexandra Wilkis Wilson founded Gilt Groupe in 2007, she never dreamed that a mere few years later the company would be launching internationally in Japan. &amp;quot;We were so excited by the success of the Japan launch that we started talking: let&amp;#039;s do the China market, and this market, and that market, and a list of other countries that we didn&amp;#039;t know as much about as the U.S. and Japan.&amp;quot; By taking a step back and realizing Gilt needed to slow down to get ahead, Wilson kept the company profitable in Japan and the states without jumping into new markets. &amp;quot;Sometimes we have to say no to opportunities that seem like a good decision, but in the long run wouldn&amp;#039;t be a good opportunity for us.&amp;quot; Photo courtesy of Mat Szwajkos - Swig Social for SHE Summit "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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