Lydia Fenet shares how she became the lead benefit auctioneer at the largest auction house in the world, and what this taught her about power. Join Laura Gassner Otting as she hosts this episode of LGOtv with special guest, Lydia Fenet – Auctioneer, Glass Ceiling Shatter, Most Powerful Woman in the Room.
Timestamps:
1:32 – Make yourself available and say yes!
3:29 – At what part in your youth did you decide that you were going to work at Christie’s Auction House?
5:42 – “The door is yours if you can kick it open.”
8:25 – “At the end of the day, all I heard was yes.”
15:22 – “I heard some of my male colleagues use that line, but from a woman, they didn’t appreciate it as much.”
17:45 – “As a charity auctioneer, the thing to always remember is that it actually has nothing to do with the people who are bidding…You are telling a story on stage.”
23:20 – “When you realize you’re making a third of what you want, you feel completely betrayed.”
28:55 – “I said, ‘There’s no step 1 because there’s no step 2. If I don’t get what I want, I’m leaving.’”
35:42 – “Ask for the most you can and every year keep asking.”
38:58 – It’s the first time a women’s magazine ever called me thin.
41:48 – “It was sheer force of will that the book ended up selling as many books as it did because I refused to let it fail.”
45:36 – “I see the mountain getting higher and I think, strap on my crampons, we got the ice part of this going.”
52:49 – “It was the moment that you need, when you realize there’s a net underneath you that is so strong, that even if you were to fall, there are 20 people that have got you. That’s when you realize that you’ve done it right.”
Links:
https://lydiafenet.com
https://www.instagram.com/lydiafenet
https://twitter.com/lydiafenet
https://www.facebook.com/lydia.fenet
Lydia Fenet is Global Managing Director, Strategic Partnerships and Lead Benefit Auctioneer at Christie’s Auction House. She has led auctions for more than six hundred organizations and raised over half a billion dollars for nonprofits globally. She was named one of New York’s most influential women by Gotham magazine and has been featured in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Crain’s, and has appeared in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Vanity Fair and Town & Country.
Washington Post Best Selling Author and Motivational Keynote Speaker, Laura Gassner Otting, inspires people to push past the doubt and indecision that keep great ideas in limbo because her presentations make listeners think bigger and accept greater challenges that reach beyond their limited scope of belief.
She delivers strategic thinking, well-honed wisdom, and perspective generated by decades of navigating change across the start-up, nonprofit, political, as well as philanthropic landscapes. Laura dares listeners to find their voice, and generate the confidence needed to tackle larger-than-life challenges. She leads them to seek new ways of leading, managing, and mentoring others.
