How Emily Backstrom of General Mills navigates career and family, and how the company supports women in finance.
In this Strategic Finance Lab podcast marking Women’s History Month, Emily Backstrom, vice president for corporate finance at General Mills, shares with NeuGroup’s Nilly Essaides how she has successfully managed a 21-year career at the company, rising to her current position overseeing enterprise FP&A among other responsibilities.
- Ms. Backstrom also discusses the value of deciding to lean into your career at certain times and, at other times, to step back to devote more time to family, as she did when she was a new mother.
- In addition to offering advice for women juggling work and family and describing how General Mills supports women employees, Ms. Backstrom walks through her career journey, including a decade of experience in commercial finance leadership roles across the company’s operating segments and four years in Singapore, where she served as vice president of finance for Asia & Latin America.
- Listen now by heading to Apple or Spotify.
In the interview, Ms. Backstrom also talks about the importance of making decisions based on values. That approach is one key reason she decided against returning to Wall Street after getting her MBA and sought out a company that would provide work-life balance and pursue her interest in business strategy.
- “My learning is that if you make a choice based on culture and one that’s going to give you space to grow, you can build a really long career even if it is only under one roof of one company,” she says in the podcast.
