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The headlines are clear: AI is disrupting entry-level jobs across industries, including consulting and professional services. There’s just one problem. Eliminating these roles overlooks a critical business needyour pipeline of next generation leaders. The rush from pyramid to diamond workforce models is short-sighted. In the pyramid model, you grow leaders from the ground up. In the diamond model, you cut the base and bet on later-stage talent to carry the weight. It may look efficient now, but it comes at the expense of long-term leadership development. If we don’t shift the trajectory, it’s likely to worsen the leadership gender gap. Despite women outpacing men in college graduation rates, recent Russell Reynolds data finds men are still 2.5 times more likely to be executives than women, and 10 times more likely to be CEOs at S&P 100 organizations. Yet, women remain underrepresented in feeder roles to the top job. The solution isn’t some new, fancy workplace tech platform or another mandatory training program. It’s intentional mentorship that directly addresses barriers women experience in advancing their careers. WHY UPSKILLING PROGRAMS FALL SHORT So why are companies still betting on upskilling programs? They look great on slides and earnings calls. They’re measurable, seemingly fair, and relatively simple to implement. They’re also not moving the needle. The problem lies in traditional delivery. Put simply, classroom or lecture settings without immediate practice opportunities fall short. Online training will not build our next generation of leaders. The approaches overlook two human-centric barriers that many professionals, particularly women, face: representation and confidence. Seeing people in top positions who look like you proves you can make it there, too. Harvard Business School research found that women are less likely than men to apply for advanced jobs because they think they aren’t qualified enough. I distinctly remember when a new leadership opportunity came my way. Instead of immediately jumping at it, I spent an entire day poring over role requirements and determining whether the position felt true to my identity. At that point, I just considered myself to fall squarely in the marketer role. Ultimately, I took a chance, accepting the new role. In that critical moment, I was fortunate to have mentors who pushed me to think about myself and my capabilities more expansively. That push, more than any certificate, gave me confidence to take on the challenge. This mindset shift allowed me to then pay it back, leading to countless hours in the trenches, coaching team members on how to best deliver their tasks, regardless of how the members professionally defined themselves. THE MENTORSHIP ADVANTAGE Why is quality mentorship so effective? When done right, it’s deliberate and rooted in real experience. Here’s my playbook, as seen through a soccer lens, a sport near and dear to my heart: 1. Find the right fit. Building a team with myriad skillsets is essential to any winning soccer club. It’s ideal to have both male and female mentors. There’s value in someone who thinks differently and may have unique strengths you don’t have. And there’s value that can only come from someone who has walked in your shoes. Take maternity leave, for example. Women working with me tend to have easier transitions back because I have lived it and my philosophy is to always celebrate the small moments that carry outsized positive impact. Mentors don’t have to be all things to mentees. Instead, seek mentors with specific strengths. You might seek a leader known for bold, creative thinking, and another leader strong in people management. 2. Get in the trenches. I believe in “learning in combat”education that comes from sitting in client meetings and sales calls, being in the room where tough conversations happen, and getting real-time feedback on actual work. Time spent on the field together always outweighs theoretical examples and 1:1 coaching. 3. Be vulnerable. For me, that means showing people the marshmallow I am on the inside of this executive exterior. Mentors should create an environment where mentees feel comfortable showing their strengths and weaknesses. Authenticity beats a fake front any day. This comes from celebrating your wins, but also asking your teammates for help when you are struggling. A defender under pressure passes back to the goalkeeper, trusting their teammate to help the team stay in controla reminder that asking for support keeps everyone moving forward. 4. Know when to listen and when to speak up. Real mentorship is about creating space for people to figure things out, not just giving advice without hearing what someone has to say. When mentors are effective listeners, they can better advocate. Sometimes that means being the voice advocating for an idea others gloss over because you see the potential in the person surfacing it. Other times, it means understanding a mentee’s dream job and clearing the way for them to secure it. Any good coach can attest to the importance of this approach with their players. 5. Get out of the way. Too many leaders listen to junior colleagues talk about their dreams, then forget to give them the opportunity to reach them. In soccer, the left wing fights to let the striker take the shot. But if the striker never gets the ball, it’s useless to have that position. Say “ok” and let your players play. There’s a delta between knowing mentorship works and building programs that deliver. The most effective programs have leadership buy-in, authentic matching, and accountability. Companies must expect leaders to coach, then create space and accountability for it. Not every leader needs to be a mentor, but you need enough who will and who want to. DIAMONDS AREN’T FOREVER (IN THE WORKPLACE) ROI and value creation remain paramount. Companies can continue chasing short-term gains and allow AI to eliminate their next generation of leadersmale or femaleor they can do the harder work of building intentional mentorship relationships that create a more level playing field. Companies that over-index towards these diamond models will inevitably have to swing back. The importance of strong mentorship will never be obsolete. The question is whether companies realize this before or after losing a generation of strong, diverse talent to organizations that remained focused on their potential. Casey Foss is chief commercial officer of West Monroe.
Category:
E-Commerce
When Carly Kaprive left a job in Kansas City and moved to Chicago a year ago, she figured it would take three to six months to find a new position. After all, the 32-year old project manager had never been unemployed for longer than three months.Instead, after 700 applications, she’s still looking, wrapped up in a frustrating and extended job hunt that is much more difficult than when she last looked for work just a couple of years ago. With uncertainty over interest rates, tariffs, immigration, and artificial intelligence roiling much of the economy, some companies she’s interviewed with have abruptly decided not to fill the job at all.“I have definitely had mid-interview roles be eliminated entirely, that they are not going to move forward with even hiring anybody,” she said.Kaprive is caught in a historical anomaly: The unemployment rate is low and the economy is still growing, but those out of work face the slowest pace of hiring in more than a decade. Diane Swonk, chief economist at KPMG, calls it a “jobless boom.”While big corporate layoff announcements typically grab the most attention, it has been the unwillingness of many companies to add workers that has created a more painful job market than the low 4.3% unemployment rate would suggest. It is also more bifurcated: The “low hire, low fire” economy has meant fewer layoffs for those with jobs, while the unemployed struggle to find work.“It’s like an insider-outsider thing,” Guy Berger, head of research at the Burning Glass Institute said, “where outsiders that need jobs are struggling to get their foot in, even as insiders are insulated by what up until now is a low-layoff environment.”Several large companies have recently announced tens of thousands of job cuts in the past few weeks, including UPS, Target, and IBM, though Berger said it is too soon to tell whether they signal a turn for the worse in the economy. But a rise in job cuts would be particularly challenging with hiring already so low.For now, it’s harder than ever to get a clear read on the job market because the government shutdown has cut off the U.S. Department of Labor’s monthly employment reports. The October jobs report was scheduled for release Friday but has been delayed, like the September figures before it. The October report may be less comprehensive when it is released because not all the data may be collected.Before the shutdown, the Labor Department reported that the hiring rate the number of people hired in a given month, as a percentage of those employed fell to 3.2% in August, matching the lowest figure outside the pandemic since March 2013.Back then, the unemployment rate was a painful 7.5%, as the economy slowly recovered from the job losses from the 2008-2009 Great Recession. That is much higher than August’s 4.3%.Many of those out of work are skeptical of the current low rate. Brad Mislow, 54, has been mostly unemployed for the past three years after losing a job as an advertising executive in New York City. Now he is substitute teaching to make ends meet.“It is frustrating to hear that the unemployment rate is low, the economy is great,” he said. “I think there are people in this economy who are basically fighting every day and holding on to pieces of flotsam in the shark-filled waters or, they have no idea what it’s like.”With the government closed, financial markets are paying closer attention to private-sector data, but that is also mixed. On Thursday, the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas unnerved investors with a report that announced job cuts surged 175% in October from a year ago.Yet on Wednesday, payroll processor ADP said that net hiring picked up in October as businesses added 42,000 jobs, after two months of declines. Still, the gain was modest. ADP’s figures are based on anonymous data from the 26 million workers at its client companies.Separately, Revelio Labs, a workplace analytics company, estimated Thursday that the economy shed 9,000 jobs in October. The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago estimates that the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4% last month.Even when the government was releasing data, economists and officials at the Federal Reserve weren’t sure how healthy the job market was or where it was headed next. A sharp drop in immigration and stepped-up deportations have helped keep the unemployment rate low simply by reducing the supply of workers. The economy doesn’t need to create as many jobs to keep the unemployment rate from rising.Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, has called in a “curious balance” because both the supply of and demand for workers has fallen.Economists point to many reasons for the hiring slowdown, but most share a common thread: Greater uncertainty from tariffs, the potential impact of artificial intelligence, and now the government shutdown. While investment in data centers to power AI is booming, elevated interest rates have kept many other parts of the economy weak, such as manufacturing and housing.“The concentration of economic gains (in AI) has left the economy looking better on paper than it feels to most Americans,” Swonk said.Younger Americans have borne the brunt of the hiring slowdown, but many older workers have also struggled.Suzanne Elder, 65, is an operations executive with extensive experience in health care, and two years ago the Chicago resident also found work quickly three months after she left a job, she had three offers. Now she’s been unemployed since April.She is worried that her age is a challenge, but isn’t letting it hold her back. “I got a job at 63, so I don’t see a reason to not get a job at 65,” she said.Like many job-hunters, she has been stunned by the impersonal responses from recruiters, often driven by hiring software. She received one email from a company that thanked her for speaking with them, though she never had an interview. Another company that never responded to her resume asked her to fill out a survey about their interaction.Weak hiring has meant unemployment spells are getting longer, according to government data. More than one-quarter of those out of work have been unemployed for more than six months or longer, a figure that rose sharply in July and August and is up from 21% a year ago.Swonk said that such increases are unusual outside recessions.A rising number of the unemployed have also given up on their job searches, according to research by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. That also holds down the unemployment rate because people who stop looking aren’t counted as unemployed.But Kaprive is still sticking with it she’s taken classes abot Amazon’s web services platform to boost her technology skills.“We can’t be narrow-minded in what we’re willing to take,” she said. Christopher Rugaber, AP Economics Writer
Category:
E-Commerce
Despite its status as an architectural celebrity, the Breuer building, commissioned by the Whitney Museum in the 1960s, has never had an easy relationship with New York City. With a hulking, top-heavy build, brooding dark-gray granite cladding, and nearly windowless facade, its as introverted as buildings come, standing confrontationally against its traditional Upper East Side neighbors. Either you love it or hate it. Critic Ada Louise Huxtable described the building as an acquired taste akin to olives or warm beer (how appetizing) yet celebrated the maximum artistry and almost hypnotic skill of its namesake architect, the Bauhaus-trained modernist Marcel Breuer. Now the historic building, also known as 945 Madison, has entered its latest chapter as the new worldwide headquarters for the 281-year-old auction house Sothebys. After a careful and subtle renovation by Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, the space has now reopened to the public. For Sothebys, the updated building demonstrates the future of auction houses as cultural destinations. It wants its new headquarters to be a place people come for exhibitions, art fairs, lectures, panel discussions, retail, and fine dining, while better serving its collector clients with bespoke, high-end art-buying experiences. What better place to bid on masterpieces than from inside one? The hope is that the new building will bring a competitive edge to Sothebys. It arrives at a complicated time for the business, which has reportedly plunged into greater debt since billionaire Patrick Drahi took ownership in 2019. It’s also facing external headwinds as the art market slumps, prompting auction houses to diversify what they sell, cultivate new collectors, and digitize. Sothebys was responsible for $6 billion worth of sales in 2024, down from a record high of $8 billion in 2022. Architecture to the rescue? It’s museum quality, but it’s the art auction house philosophy, says Steve Wrightson, global head of real estate, facilities, and security for Sothebys. I think people who’ve been here before are going to be pleasantly surprised. [Photo: Stefan Ruiz/courtesy Sothebys] An untouchable history Change hasnt come easy to the Breuer building, and throughout its history suggestions of alterations have been met with severe skepticism. Soon after the Whitney Museum opened in 1966, it outgrew the quarters Breuer built for it, ushering in an era of uncertainty for the building. Numerous failed expansion attemptsby Norman Foster in the 70s, Michael Graves in the 80s, and Rem Koolhaas in the aughtsignited battles royal between critics and architects that played out on the pages of dailies and weeklies. Paul Goldberger, writing for The New York Times, described the building as a paradox: To add to it is to subtract from it. Eventually, the Whitney gave up on renovating and decamped for the Meatpacking District in 2015. Then a series of adaptations came, demonstrating that something different might be for the better. In 2015, the Whitney leased the space to the Met, which commissioned a $15 million restoration by Beyer Blinder Belle that brought renewed luster to the buildings bluestone floors, concrete walls, and bronze fixtures. Then the Frick Collection moved into the space temporarily to critical appeal; turns out Breuers austere brutalism is a transcendent setting for traditional portraiture. In 2023, the revolving door of tenants closed when the Whitney sold the building to Sothebys for an astounding $100 million. The acquisition was part of a real estate strategy that began at Sothebys about six years ago. Instead of housing all of its functions under one roof, as it did at its former York Street headquarters, the company decided to assemble a portfolio of spaces dedicated to a single purpose. A building in Long Island City that Sothebys purchased in 2022 is now its processing and storage center. Though the company sold its York Street building to Cornell Universitys medical school in October, it will lease four floors for offices. For auctions and exhibitions, it sought a location central to collectors with a street-facing presence. The Breuer building was right at the bulls eye of the area the real estate team identified, Wrightson says. This was the heart of the arts and culture scene in New York City, he says. [Photo: Max Touhey/courtesy Sothebys] Same structure, new function While museums and auction houses both display art, the shift in function from a space that stewards culture to a sales floor represents a major conceptual shift. Because of this, Sothebys and Herzog & de Meuron (who collaborated with the local architecture firm PDBW on the project) had their work cut out for them, even though they always intended to apply a gentle hand to the renovation. Our deep respect for Breuer drove the project from the outset, says Wim Walschap, a senior partner at the firm. Portions of the building are still under construction, including a new freight elevator and Marcel, the Roman and Williams-designed restaurant on the lower level. But the majority of the renovation, which encompasses a refreshed lobby and four floors of gallery and auction space above, is complete. Sothebys Breuer lobby gallery features works from the collection of Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein. [Photo: Max Touhey/courtesy Sothebys] Still, preservationists worried that the Breuer building would be permanently and unsympathetically altered; they successfully lobbied the city to designate it as an individual and interior landmark, which affects the exterior plus the lobby, staircase, and portions of the restaurant visible from the street. Moreover, even though Sothebys is keeping the building open to the public, theres a distinction between that notion and a public building, wrote Philip Kennicott in The Washington Post. Museums exist to preserve culture; the art market exists to make a profit off the exchange of a commodity. Going to the Breuer will be like going to a wake. The actual experience is more like visiting your old home after the new owners have moved in: The spaces are familiar but different. For the Breuer, we kept what carries identity and public life: structure and spatial sequence, primary materials and tactility, calibrated light, and the way a building meets the street, Walschap says. We removed later accretions that cloud the original intent and revived lost spaces where they clarified the experience. Limited-edition Herms Birkin bags [Photo: Stefan Ruiz/courtesy Sothebys] All the features that made the building distinctivecrossing over the moat of the sculpture garden, the luminous lobby ceiling, the large windowsare still there. But the concrete benches in the lobby are now vitrines, and the coat check in the corner is a retail space selling luxury lifestyle products like Patek Philippe watches, first editions of literary classics like Alice in Wonderland, and limited-edition Birkin bags. The original galleries, which were not landmarked, are structurally the same as before. However, the second levels dark parquet floor has been changed to white oak. We tried to get it refinished and it was just splintering so we had to replace it, Wrightson says. A bit like theater The most major interventions to the Breuer involved modifying the building to better serve the logistical needs of Sothebys, which are more demanding than a museum due to the volume of objects and number of exhibitions it displays in a year. A museum might have a dozen special exhibitions over the course of a year; Sothebys averages 125. It’s a bit like theater, but it’s also like a Formula One event, Wrightson says of the precision turnover that happens. The goal is to be able to change an entire exhibition in 48 hours. Most changes to the building that make this possible are completely out of sight from visitors: Herzog & de Meuron lengthened the loading dock and inserted a new freight elevator in what were formerly administrative spaces in the northeastern section of the building. This way, Wrightson says, we can maneuver in the background. In the lobby: Frank Stellas Concentric Square (left) and Jean Arps Ptolémée III [Photo: Max Touhey/courtesy Sothebys] Sothebys has 30% more exhibition space than the buildings previous incarnation as the Frick Madison. To find this room, Herzog & de Meuron converted back-of-house and administrative areas into galleries, which sometimes resemble typical white-box galleries that feel like they could be anywhere. Instead of replicating Breuers tectonic sensibility in the new exhibition spaces, the firm channeled his intentions. New work aligns with the existing rhythms and joints, remains legible and light touch, and, whre possible, is reversible, Walschap says. From left: Dorothea Tannings Interior with Sudden Joy, Frida Kahlos El sueo, and Victor Brauners Maison hantée will be auctioned November 20, 2025. [Photo: Max Touhey/courtesy Sothebys] Back when Breuer designed the building, the Whitneys collection primarily consisted of painting and sculpture, and his structure is well suited for those mediums. Sothebys sells a far wider range of objects and artwork, so having a blank canvas gives the exhibition teams more options for viewing experiences. We could have a dinosaur in a gallery one day and then the next day it could be a basketball jersey, Wrightson says. So we really have to be able to plan for all of those different needs. The fifth floor, which the Frick used for offices, is now primarily gallery space, plus flexible work space for about 50 Sothebys employees who need to be on-site. The public hasn’t seen [this floors] windows and skylights for the better part of a decade, Wrightson says. He thinks jewelry and watches, which benefit from natural light, will look especially good here. A site for desire Adaptability was a critical element of the renovation to support the range of objects Sothebys sells but also the new formats it uses to sell them, like online auctions and livestreams. To make installations efficient, the design team created a metal-framed wall system that straps to the concrete coffered ceiling that Breuer designed. And to give curators more options to illuminate art, Herzog & de Meuron created custom LED track lighting, which nestles into the concrete ceiling, that can be operated remotely. The ceiling also proved to be an ideal mount for cameras that Sothebys uses for virtual sales. When we first started doing livestreams back in June of 2021, it was an army of people who would come in with multiple giant boom cameras and we’d have massive control rooms set up with cables spread out everywhere. That’s gone, Wrightson says. Most of that is now happening remotely with what looks like joysticks. The redesigned fourth floor of the Breuer currently holds works from the Leonard A. Lauder collection scheduled for auction on November 18, 2025. [Photo: Max Touhey/courtesy Sothebys] The Breuer building gives Sothebys more options for what an art buying, shopping, or appreciation experience embodies. The buildings fourth floor, which is a double-height space, will serve as the main gallery space most of the time and convert into an auction room whenever there is a sale. (Sothebys is still working out what the auction room will look like.) This also means creating more opportunities for exclusivity. The levels mezzanine, which also used to be offices, now features private viewing areas and skyboxes for clients who want a birds-eye view of the action. A former conservation studio is now a viewing area for works that require black lights to examine. Meanwhile, the auctioneers who prefer to have more intimate sales, like those who specialize in wine and watches, have the option to use the restaurant, which visitors will be able to access directly from Madison Avenue once its open next year. They like more of a banquet-style table and more of a playful experience, Wrightson says. With its new headquarters, Sothebys architectural language is more aligned with the mass appeal of a major cultural institution than the art market. Its trying to make auction houses cool. I can imagine regular museumgoers who havent stepped foot in an auction house before will be thrilled about admission-free access to see Kahlos and Klimts before collectors squirrel them away, just as I can see the thrill collectors might take in going shopping in what feels like a museum. As its viral auctioneer Phyllis Kao told Ssense, Sothebys really sells desire; a pedigreed set and setting enhances that effect. During the peak of the Breuer building style in the 1980s, Village Voice critic Michael Sorkin summed up the challenges of retooling an architectural darling. Adding to a masterpiece is always difficult, calling for discipline, sensitivity, restraint, he wrote. Above all, though, it calls for respect. Thankfully, outstanding original architecture remains crucial to all the audiences Sothebys wants to welcome into its world. Whether or not visitors will be pleasantly surprised, as Wrightson hopes, may come down to how they feel about the art market itself.
Category:
E-Commerce
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