Ex-Lehman CFO Erin Callan stirs the pot on women and work

Erin Callan

Facebook (FB) COO Sheryl Sandberg and Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Marissa Mayer aren't the only ones stirring up debate about women in the workplace.

Sunday's New York Times featured an unexpected guest writer: former Lehman Brothers (BCS) CFO Erin Callan on "Is There Life After Work?"

As you may recall, ex-Lehman CEO Dick Fuld pushed out Callan and President Joe Gregory in June 2008, four months before Lehman crashed into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Callan did a short stint at Credit Suisse, quit that job, and never looked back. I profiled Callan in Fortune in early 2010. In late 2011, she married Anthony Montella, her firefighter boyfriend whom she knew from high school.

It may be a sign of the times that Callan's New York Times essay is generating buzz--more than Callan, now 47, anticipated, she told me in an email this morning. "I wrote the piece because I felt it was important for young women to know there is no magic formula to 'have it all,'" she said in her email.

Doesn't Callan's prescription for happiness--essentially, fall off the perch, lean back, and learn "how to live a life"--counter the empowerment message that Sandberg delivers in her new book, Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead?

Sandberg is being interviewed tonight in New York at an event hosted by Time Magazine, which has her on its current cover. I'll ask Sandberg and let you know tomorrow.

Posted in: Erin Callan, Sheryl Sandberg

• Too Big To Fail premiere: The stars align

  Hollywood, Wall Street and New York media converged last night at the premiere of Too Big to Fail, the movie.

  Michael Douglas, Brian Williams, and Regis Philbin met Warren Buffett, uber-analyst Meredith Whitney, and CNBC's Becky Quick at the Museum of Modern Art, where HBO's screening took place, and at a swishy after-party at Manhattan's Four Seasons restaurant.

  Hank Paulson is indisputably the hero of the film based on Andrew Ross Sorkin's MORE

  Patricia Sellers - May 17, 2011 11:38 AM ET
  Posted in: CEOs, entertainment, Erin Callan, Hank Paulson, John Mack, John Thain, media, Meredith Whitney, Postcards, Wall Street, Warren Buffett, Washington

• Erin Callan, Lehman's ex-CFO, goes public

  by Patricia Sellers

  Erin Callan is Wall Street's Greta Garbo.

  After Lehman Brothers (BCS) fired her as chief financial officer in June 2008 -- four months before the firm filed Chapter 11 -- Callan fled to her home in the Hamptons. She's been holed up in Long Island's affluent beach enclave for the past two years. Former colleagues and friends say she's incommunicado, and she's refused to speak to the press.

  Until today. MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Feb 22, 2011 2:13 PM ET
  Posted in: Dick Fuld, Erin Callan, finance, Lehman Brothers, Postcards, Wall Street

• Lehman's ex-CFO Callan on short seller Einhorn

  by Patricia Sellers

  The latest on the probes into Lehman Brothers (BCS): Fox Business Network's Charlie Gasparino reports that the House Financial Services Committee is weighing the idea of calling short seller David Einhorn as a public witness or to a private meeting to talk about accounting gimmickry that led to Lehman's bankruptcy. I reached Einhorn's spokesman, who declines to comment.

  Whether or not Einhorn, who was Lehman's biggest and loudest MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Mar 24, 2010 10:26 AM ET
  Posted in: Erin Callan, Lehman Brothers, Postcards, Wall Street

• Women execs rising, moving, struggling

  by Patricia Sellers

  I'm back from Brazil. Looking forward to filling you in on my whirlwind adventure, where I saw a booming middle-class and lots of opportunity.

  But right now, a catch-up on well-known women who moved up and down and over while I was away. Christiane Amanpour's leap to ABC News is big. For perspective, last year at a Fortune Most Powerful Women dinner in New York, Amanpour gave a tribute MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Mar 22, 2010 1:22 PM ET
  Posted in: Charlene Begley, cnn, Erin Callan, FORTUNE MPWomen, General Electric, Joanne Bradford, Lehman Brothers, Postcards, Power Shift, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, Yahoo

• Lehman ex-CFO Callan under new scrutiny

  by Patricia Sellers

  "The fall of a Wall Street highflier," in the latest issue of Fortune, portrays Erin Callan as a star banker at Lehman Brothers who is catapulted to CFO, finds herself in a maelstrom, and flames out--all the while maintaining a fierce determination to perform for her bosses.

  Ever since Lehman (BCS) died in September 2008, one key question has been: Was Callan so eager to please CEO Dick MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Mar 12, 2010 5:20 PM ET
  Posted in: Erin Callan, finance, Lehman Brothers, Postcards, Wall Street

• Lehman ex-CFO Erin Callan: She's back!

  "Whatever happened to Erin Callan?" has been a Wall Street mystery ever since early last year, when she walked out of her post-Lehman place of employment, Credit Suisse (CS). Callan cut off contact with practically everyone she knew. Rumors abounded about her fate.

  I found her. Well, at least I found out what the former CFO of Lehman Brothers (BCS) is doing now. (It's fascinating and not exactly tragic.) To learn MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Mar 8, 2010 3:25 PM ET
  Posted in: banks, Erin Callan, Lehman Brothers, Postcards, Wall Street

• Genentech president jumps to a new life

  Another Fortune Most Powerful Woman -- a longtime member of our annual Power 50 list -- is leaving the corporate world. Susan Desmond-Hellmann, who was Genentech's (DNA) president of product development, is heading to the University of California San Francisco as chancellor.

  Desmond-Hellmann's departure from business's upper echelons (She ranked No. 13 on Fortune's 2008 Power 50 list) adds to the trend of top women execs leaving corporations and deciding not MORE

  Patricia Sellers - May 1, 2009 3:41 PM ET
  Posted in: Best Companies to Work For, Citigroup, Dawn Hudson, DNA, education, Erin Callan, FORTUNE MPWomen, Genentech, health care, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, P&G, PepsiCo, Personal Power, pharmaceutical, pharmaceuticals, Postcards, Power Shift, Procter & Gamble, Roche, Sallie Krawcheck, Sue Decker, Susan Arnold, Susan Desmond-Hellmann, UCSF, Yahoo, Zoe Cruz

• Pepsi's former boss lands a new gig

  by Patricia Sellers

  Dawn Hudson spent more than a decade chasing stretch goals at PepsiCo (PEP). She headed sales and marketing at Frito-Lay, the consumer giant's snack unit. She led marketing at Pepsi-Cola North America and ascended to CEO of that $5.5 billion business.

  That job turned out to be Hudson's ceiling inside PepsiCo, where chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi has put her own stamp on the company. Hudson (who ranked as MORE

  Patricia Sellers - Mar 26, 2009 1:39 PM ET
  Posted in: boards, Brands, CEOs, Citigroup, consumer goods, Dawn Hudson, eBay, Erin Callan, FORTUNE MPWomen, headhunters, Indra Nooyi, Kraft, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, management, Meg Whitman, Morgan Stanley, P&G, PepsiCo, Personal Power, Postcards, Power Shift, private equity, Procter & Gamble, Sallie Krawcheck, sports, Susan Arnold, Wall Street, Zoe Cruz

• Power Point: Don't be naive about press

  "You can't be naive about the press. I had a lot of positive exposure but didn't recognize the opportunity for significant negative exposure. Exposure becomes celebrity, and you get a persona."

  -- Erin Callan, former Lehman Brothers (LEH) CFO and now head of global hedge fund business at Credit Suisse (CS), in Katie Benner's exclusive Q&A with Callan in the current issue of Fortune. In her first interview since leaving Lehman MORE

  Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Sep 30, 2008 7:07 PM ET
  Posted in: banks, Credit Suisse, Erin Callan, FORTUNE MPWomen, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, LEH, Lehman Brothers, Most Powerful Women, Postcards, Power Point, Wall Street