Leading Women: Michi Raymond

Sometimes, movies can inspire us to pursue our dreams; at least that’s what Michelle ‘Michi’ Raymond, Business Development Director at myGwork, says about 1990s comedy Sister Act. Raymond had wanted to be an artist since she was aged two, and had learned several musical instruments, notably the guitar, which is now pretty much an extension of her body. She played in bars as a young woman, usually chaperoned by her parents. 

At the same time, although her family was not religious, she says she felt a religious calling, and at the age of sixteen converted to Catholicism. Watching Whoopi Goldberg playing the role of a lounge singer forced to join a convent after being placed in a witness protection program and who redeems herself through music, Raymond says she found her inspiration: “Here’s an artist, a rock star, who went to a convent in hiding, but I saw her develop with the children and the neighbourhood and give them something, to you know, to be excited about and develop them into these little artists, and I really connected with that, ‘cos I was a hippy, and I felt like I didn’t need material things, I was in love with this idea of sharing my music and helping other students, children that were in my area, and so, for me, I saw this movie and I felt inspired and I thought, ‘OK, I’m gonna become a nun’”.

Her mother nevertheless insisted that before she committed to music or the Church, she finished her education, preferably related to business, so Raymond entered Sweet Briar College, a prestigious, all-female liberal arts institution in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia. Raymond says her memories of Sweet Briar are bittersweet. She finished her degree in three years, rather than four, for two reasons. On the one hand to save on the $40,000 a year tuition fees, and on the other, because she had begun a relationship with another pupil, which angered some students.

On one occasion, she says her classmates refused to eat with her in the dining hall, getting up to go to another table when she joined them. On another, she was attacked by fellow students who broke into her room and the police were called. Raymond asked for the young women not to be expelled, hoping they would learn their lesson. 

“But also I didn’t want to be responsible for seniors being kicked out of school for a stupid drunken mistake. Those same girls who attacked me, months later, approached me themselves and said: ‘I’m really sorry, what I did was absolutely wrong, and now I realise that you never deserved that and we hope that you’ll come to lunch with us and we want to apologise’. And that was like, a wow moment, that on their own, over the course of a couple of months, they came to their own realization that what happened should never have happened”. 

Sadly, bullying LGBTQI students is widespread in college and university. Some studies suggest that at least two thirds of students from this collective are subjected to bullying. Homophobia and misogyny are behind this phenomenon, fed by toxic masculinity, which in turn negates femininity while stressing traditional gender roles.

When I asked Raymond how she dealt with these situations, she said she simply focused on her work:

“One thing I always did, which I would recommend to other people, is that, when I’m having this moment where the world seems against us, and I know that sounds extreme, but there are times when you feel like you don’t have the peers, or you don’t have anything going right. 

I would take that moment to find something that I wanted to develop and focus 100% of my energy on it, but by myself, so at that time I was struggling on academic subjects and I said: ‘OK, I’m going to focus all attention into academics and cut everything else out, and if I do well here, I’m going to have a focus, I’m not going to be worried about the outside world and I’m going to do something that’s going to better me’, and so, I became 1000% focused on academics.”

This enabled Raymond not only to resist, but also to make the Dean’s List of her class and finish her studies early. She says she has happy memories of the college, particularly of a number of her teachers and the Dean, who helped her channel her creativity. 

Raymond’s career after graduating was in the financial services sector, and she rose to become leader of Morgan Stanley’s Wealth Management pride network team, as well as working on the corporate committee of the U.S. National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. After ten years, she decided to take an International MBA at IE Business School, which is where I met her. During her time at our school, she transformed the reach of IE out, the institution’s LGBTQI club. She was president of the third-largest LGBTQI workplace inclusion conference organized by a business school in the world, attended by all kinds of stakeholders from around the world: students, alumni employers and influencers.   

She was a much-needed breath of fresh air that strengthened IE University’s diversity and inclusion: “It’s very important for a leader in a business to create a culture where people aren’t feeling like they’re getting opportunities just because they identify in a certain way or they were born into a certain gender.” She remembers that when she began running IE Out, a lot of people turned down her invitations: “They would say ‘I don’t want to go to your event, because people are going to think I’m gay’. 

But by the end of the year, they were the biggest allies to the group, and the biggest supporters that we had. And so you get to see this transformation because, I think things that are foreign to you are scary, but when you actually have to work with it, there’s maybe this learning curve, maybe this uncomfortable moment, but people can change, and I think it’s a matter of really having a hands-on experience. I could preach to you all day, but, until you actually have to work in that environment yourself, you’re not truly going to learn it.” 

Returning to Raymond’s great love, music, she remembers the first time she played in public, after a teacher to whom she will always be grateful, allowed her to perform in front of the class rather than make a traditional presentation. She played one of her own compositions, and says she was very nervous. But she persevered, gradually building up her self-confidence. “Music transformed me from a shy person to a social butterfly,” she says. 

When she thinks about her performances, many of which are available on social networks, she realizes how her confidence has grown, saying that her experience could be useful for others who suffer from stage fright:

“Now it’s the complete opposite, Before it used to be a source of anxiety and now it’s something I thrive on. 

I enjoy a huge audience of 200,000 people so much more than I do a room of five, because with five I know everyone’s eyes are on me and I get super nervous and... but if I’m speaking at a huge event I feel so much confidence on stage; I’ve learnt how to read the audience, so I never make a set list, I feel how they’re feeling and I adapt as I go, so if I think everyone is in a really chilled mood, and I want to bring up their energy, I’m going to play a song that has a lot of energy and see how they react, and if they react well, and they want more, I go for another higher energy song and I keep it going. But If I test the high energy song and people are more relaxed I bring it back down, something in the middle, and I’m tailoring it, the entire concert. 

It’s really like reading the audience and seeing what they want, to give them a show that we’re both going to enjoy. And then I started using those same skills from the stage to do all my presentations and business, and my speaking engagements. I’m always watching people to see if they’re laughing, if they are being honest, a look that tells me if they’re into this content, or they’re not understanding me, do I need a backup? Do I need it to go faster? Are they getting bored? It’s always about reading people.”

When I ask Raymond, who is still in the early stages of her career, about her long-term strategy, she replies: “My dream has always been to be an artist, and I made a very conscious decision about six months ago. Over my whole life, I’ve been balancing business and music, and I’ve gotten very far in my musical career and very far in my business career as a young person, and I always wonder, what if I focus 100% of my attention onto one thing instead of fifty/fifty? And so I made the decision, and I’m going to go for music.” 

She has already topped Virginia’s Indie Music Charts and has opened for the likes of Miley Cyrus, DJ Marshmello, Meghan Traynor, Carly Rae Jepson and Zara Larsson. When I wrote this interview, she was about to begin a Masters at Berklee School of Music, the first recipient of the Outstanding Women Scholarship and Mentorship, with Yvette Noel-Schure. I don’t know in which scenario we’ll see Raymond appear next, or on what online platform we’ll hear her songs. What I do know is that the journey that will take her there will be fascinating.  

Note

This article is adapted from a section in Chapter 9 of my book "In An Ideal Business: How The Ideas of 10 Female Philosophers Bring Value Into The Workplace". (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).