Sallie Krawcheck

What you hear and what the research shows is that gentlemen negotiate for their first job. Women do not negotiate from their first job and on. And I tell women there is no H.R. fairy godmother. There might be, but you better not count on it.

The research indicates that when we women invest, we women do tend to be more patient, take a longer-term perspective and as a result of it, tend to be better investors than men. But the messages we get are that investing is sort of 'the guys' world.'

As an entrepreneur, I've learned how crucial it is to be able to call a spade a spade and avoid falling in love with a particular strategy or product. Instead, you need to let the customer tell you what she needs - and to change her as she changes.

Somehow, there is this feeling that women require remedial financial education, and so everything must be dumbed down. The reality is that we all need a lot more education, but guys just go ahead and invest anyway.

If you aren't committed to diversity of thought, you have no business launching a startup.

In the old world of business, there was often just one seat at the leadership table for women, two at best. That meant that only so many women could advance. But in a world where women recognize the power that they own - and where technology can upend the traditional rules of engagement - one woman winning doesn't mean another loses.

Your career is not going to go the way you planned. It is impossible at the age of 23 to pick the right industry, the right company, and you can visualize what you're going to be doing in your 40s, 50s, and 60s, but chances are that it's going to be something quite different. So remain open to opportunities and change.

We haven't always been aware of it, but the 'locker-room bro talk' has long been going on not just in locker rooms but in some corporate conference rooms. Of course, not by all men. But by some - including some who hold positions of power. And that matters in holding women back.

Recognize that the issues we face as women advancing in business are issues my grandmother would have loved to have had. And fight the good fight nonetheless. For yourself and your peers - but also for your daughter, when it's her turn.

Ask any woman who has gone through a divorce and had her standard of living decline substantially. Ask any woman who's been fired or 'reorg'ed out' and had to scramble to take a job she didn't want. Ask any woman who wanted to quit a job but couldn't afford to. Investing is possibly the best career advice women aren't getting.

People say to me, 'Has being a woman helped or hindered your career?' And the answer is yes.