Pre-Recorded Event: Mass Career Customization

The corporate ladder has been the enduring gold standard for personal success since organizational hierarchy was invented. But the ladder model of career progression is fitting fewer and fewer. Women’s career paths, in particular, often look less like a straight climb up and more like an undulating journey filled with ascents, lateral moves and planned descents. Learn more about how mass career customizationTM provides an approach that enables a more adaptive, corporate latticeTM model of career progression, and offers a customized model for how careers are built and talent is developed.

Cathleen Benko Vice Chairman and Chief Talent Officer Deloitte LLP Ms. Benko is vice chairman and chief talent officer for the Deloitte U.S. Firms. She is responsible for driving the organization’s strategy to attract, develop, and advance a highly skilled and increasingly diverse workforce. She is also leading a pioneering approach to employee engagement and career-life integration called mass career customizationTM, a signature initiative of Deloitte’s Talent agenda. Before her appointment to this position, Ms. Benko led Deloitte Consulting’s high technology industry sector as well as the organization’s award-winning Women’s Initiative. She continues to serve as lead client service principal for a major technology client. In recognition of her professional achievements, Cathy has been named one of the “25 Most Influential Consultants” and a “Frontline Leader” by Consulting Magazine, and is the recipient of its inaugural “Leadership Achievement Award” for Women Leaders in Consulting. She has also been cited for her accomplishments by a number of prestigious organizations, including Women in Technology International (WITI) and the San Francisco Business Times, which has named her one of the “Most Influential Women in the Bay Area” for six consecutive years.

Cathy is the co-author of Mass Career Customization: Aligning the Workplace with Today’s Nontraditional Workforce (Harvard Business School Press, 2007) and Connecting the Dots: Aligning Projects and Objectives in Unpredictable Times (Harvard Business School Press, 2003). Cathy has been selected to judge Harvard Business Review’s 2008 McKinsey Awards, and is the creator of the Women’s Initiative blog, which covers life, work, and everything in between.

Cathy earned her M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Science degree from Ramapo College. She is a member of Deloitte’s Executive Committee and the Deloitte Foundation Board. She lives in Northern California with her husband and two children.