Liora Haymann Shares Secrets to Success with The Glass Hammer

The Glass Hammer is an organization dedicated to providing professional advice and executive coaching services to ambitious women looking to grow their careers in their respective fields. Liora Haymann, Managing Director of OBMI’s Miami office, was approached by The Glass Hammer to share her story from MIT to Managing Director. Liora shares insight into the beginning of her career when being a woman in architecture wasn’t expected, shepherd leadership, and being more than her career.

“When you stumble on a rock in a mountain climb, you find your way around and keep going,” says Liora Haymann. “You may even later sit on the rock that seemingly blocked you to enjoy the view.”

During her first year in Architecture School in Chile, Haymann’s studio teacher declared that he didn’t like wasting his time reviewing women’s projects because in two years they would marry and leave school. While it would be unacceptable today, that comment ignited a motivational fire in Haymann.

“I’m a rational person, so I looked at the classes above me and I thought, he’s just stating a fact. And then I said to myself, I’m going to prove him wrong,” she says. “I never thought he meant to dismiss us. He meant to push us. And that’s how I’ve taken it every time I found such challenges. I’ve never thought that somebody is putting me down. I’ve always thought it’s a challenge.”

Five years later, that teacher congratulated Haymann for being accepted for graduate studies at MIT in the US. But it remained true that out of a 50/50 gender split in the first year, only five women graduated as part of the 1983 class – whereas about twenty men did. She remains friends with her tight-knit female classmates still today.

Read the full article on The Glass Hammer.