Her Son’s Autism Made Her a Better Mother and a Better Manager (It Can Help You, Too).

This month I'm telling stories of women who’ve reached the highest rungs of Corporate America. But no path to success is the same. These executives come into management from different backgrounds, and they each have unique tips for moving up, negotiating pay, and thriving in a male-dominated workplace.

My own reaction to these stories constantly surprises me. I think I’ve heard it all. Then, suddenly, I hear something new.

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Maura Mizuguchi is all business. She impresses me as someone who doesn’t have much time for chitchat. As Chief Accounting Officer at Cetera Financial Group, she runs the numbers for the nation’s second-largest independent broker-dealer. Her resume boasts a diverse range of Fortune 100 companies, plus a stint at a high frequency trading firm — “You have to take an IQ test to get considered for a position there,” she tells me. “I didn’t have to work on my people skills.”

Don’t be fooled. She’s no cold and calculated beancounter. In fact, her professional history is one that has been formed by two unusual events: working in a bar, and mothering a severely autistic son.

“It’s very easy to walk away from a relationship, from a job, from anything,” Maura says. “What you can’t walk away from is your children.

From Over the Rainbow

Maura was born and raised in Honolulu, a fifth generation Japanese Hawaiian. After high school she eventually worked at a restaurant/bar called Hank’s Place. “Their featured entertainer was a guy named Israel Kaʻanoʻi Kamakawiwoʻole,” she says. Yes, THAT Iz, the one who sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” (Can you imagine working in a bar when Iz was starting out? Maura tells me his older brother Henry — who died before Iz — had an even better voice.)

Maura didn’t really have much of a plan at the time. “I was languishing,” she says. Also working at the bar was a girlfriend who came from a very poor background — “five kids in a two bedroom apartment in low income housing.” One day, this friend told Maura that she was about to graduate from college. “She says, ‘I’m studying Hawaiian Studies, and I’m graduating on the dean’s list with high honors,’” Maura recalls. “I was floored. Like, ‘What?!’” Maura said that moment changed everything. “I said, ‘I need to find something to do with my life.’”

She went home and looked at the want ads in the newspaper. (If you’re under the age of 40, Google “want ads” and “newspaper” to learn how the job market functioned before Indeed.com). Maura noticed a lot of job openings for accountants.

So she signed up for an accounting class. She loved it. “This is easy; debits equal credits, everything nets to zero, all right!”

Maura earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Hawaii, then moved to the mainland in 1986 when she was offered a job by auditing giant PwC. She says they told her, “Hey, if you want to move up in this world, you need to get out of the small world.” She left Hawaii for California and stayed.

Does Being a Woman of Color Hurt… or Help?

Maura eventually left PwC to go work for McDonnell Douglas (later Boeing). The company had a so-called “green room” at its headquarters in St. Louis. “It’s where all the muckety mucks hang out,” she tells me. “They all talk about who’s the up-and-comers.” One day her boss told Maura, “Congratulations, you made the green room!” But stay in the “green room” — that is, to remain in contention for promotion — he told her she needed an MBA. She applied to the Anderson School of Management at UCLA, where she was accepted. McDonnell Douglas paid her tuition. She stayed with the company a dozen years.

In 2002 she went to work for Toyota, but it didn’t last — “I was too high energy.” She was also the only woman on her team. That was followed by stints at GE, a seat on the Financial Accounting Standards Board, yada yada yada, until she landed at Cetera.

Maura came up through the ranks of accounting and finance when there weren’t many women around, and she was sometimes mistaken for a secretary. Once, at a banking conference while working for McDonnell Douglas, she remembers a banker asking her, “Where can I get some water?” Maura’s response? “I don’t know. I’ll find out for you,’” she remembers with a laugh. It happened more than once, she says, “but I always kept my composure.”

Within her own companies, Maura sometimes wondered if she was being singled out. “You always feel like, ‘Are they picking on me because I’m a woman?’ Or, ‘Am I not getting ahead because I’m Asian?’”

Maura decided to quit asking those questions and instead flip the conversation around. She started telling herself that if she wasn’t a woman, “Maybe I wouldn’t be where I am today. Maybe that played to my advantage.”

Mother to a Challenging Son

It’s tough to be a mother and have a career, but it’s been even more challenging in Maura’s case. “I am raising five boys, and two of them are autistic, one of them pretty severe.” The severely autistic son is Kapono, who was labeled “emotionally disturbed” as a youngster and kicked out of school.

Maura had to let go of the typical dreams a mother has for a child, and Kapono’s condition taught her to reset expectations for all her sons. “The biggest learning moment for myself is realizing what their limitations were,” she says, “and how do we make them the best they can be with what their skills and interests are?”

How Kapono Changed Her Management Style

“One thing I’ve learned through [Kapono’s] experience is that everybody has a special need in them,” Maura tells me. “I do. You do. And if you don’t believe you do, you’re not being truthful to yourself.” (“That would be your special need!” I joke.)

Kapono’s treatment included a lot of psychotherapy, and Maura learned much about human behavior during the experience. “I realized, ‘Wow, this is really powerful.’” So she brought that new knowledge into the office, changing her management style.

I asked her to give me an example.

“I was hired into a position as the Chief Accounting Officer, and there was a person existing [already] in that role,” Maura says. The guy had no idea his replacement had been hired and that he was being demoted.

The guy was understandably furious. Maura said he tried to sabotage her, which infuriated her. “Of course, your natural instinct is to sabotage back,” she says. But she didn’t. She felt the company had not been fair to him, even though he was taking it out on her.

Maura saw the advantages of keeping the guy around and engaged. “I knew he had more knowledge than me.” She wanted him to stay for a year. “I needed to figure out a way to get the most out of him so that he could become a contributing member to my team.” So Maura didn’t fight back. Instead, she worked to win him over, and she deflected his attempts to undermine her.

“It worked,” she says. He stayed until the company was sold. “It’s been many years, and we’re still friends.”

Maura believes this quieter, ego-free approach has helped her succeed. “I advise my children all the time, ‘Don’t lead. Influence. Because with influence, you will become the leader.’”

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The Unexpected Life of Kapono Mizuguchi

In case you’re wondering about Kapono, well, his story is full of unexpected surprises. He spent seven years in special needs schools, but after a lot of therapy and work, he returned to his neighborhood high school and graduated with the class of 2020. He’s now in the College to Career Program at Long Beach City College, “a unique program focused on transitioning young adults with qualifying disabilities to the workforce via the higher education system.”

Watch this short video of Kapono’s high school graduation speech. It’ll be the most uplifting two minutes of your day.

Added bonus! Here’s a video of Iz singing with his brother, Henry, who went by the nickname “Skippy.” In the video, Iz is second from the right, Skippy is second from the left. Aloha!

Cover image by Carol Yepes/Getty Images

What a story! Meantime, I’m working on my own story, as I walk across northern Spain on the Camino de Santiago. By the time you read this, I should be more than halfway through the 500-mile trek. Buns of steel, baby! You can follow my progress on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram! Feel free to leave a comment below; I will be checking in every evening along the route. Mahalo!