Coronavirus: How a top Citi banker works from home

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Stephanie Grisham is out as White House press secretary, Big Tech and Margrethe Vestager finally agree on something, and we get another glimpse of how a powerful woman works from home. Have a productive Wednesday.

– A top banker, working from home. I’m a sucker for any glimpse into the daily routines of successful women; the coronavirus and work-from-home orders have made these snapshots all the more intriguing.

The Wall Street Journal yesterday gave us a peak at a day-in-the-life of Alison Harding-Jones, Citigroup’s head of M&A for Europe, Middle East, and Africa, who’s sequestered 90 minutes outside of London with her husband, three children, four dogs, and six chickens. It’s a full house, with Harding-Jones being careful not to walk into the background of her daughter’s TikToks.

The coronavirus has colored her job. Work on active deals is slowing, face-to-face meetings that are so essential to M&A are on hold, and clients are playing close attention to COVID-19’s longer-term impacts. “No one knows what that looks like,” she said.

But adjusting to life in the coronavirus era has also presented opportunities. She’s more efficient without a commute. Getting ahold of people and having a real conversation “is much easier…because everyone on a human level is looking for interaction.” Plus, she’s found time to bake bread—just like the rest of us.

One of the more stunning aspects of the coronavirus crisis is that it is an experience shared on a scale never seen before, so there’s much that resonates in a vignette like this one, even if your quarantine setting isn’t—as Harding-Jones describes her own—”like something out of Dickens.”

Claire Zillman
claire.zillman@fortune.com
@clairezillman

Today’s Broadsheet was produced by Emma Hinchliffe.

ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

- Staff shakeup. After nine months without conducting a single press briefing, Stephanie Grisham is out as White House press secretary. Grisham will return to the East Wing, replacing Lindsay Reynolds as First Lady Melania Trump's chief of staff. The new White House press secretary is Kayleigh McEnany, previously the Trump 2020 campaign's spokeswoman. New York Times

- Billions and billions. The annual Forbes list of billionaires is out, and these are the richest women in the world: Alice Walton, Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, Julia Koch, and MacKenzie Bezos. Of 2,095 billionaires worldwide, 234 are women. Forbes

- Endorsement report. Legendary civil rights activist Rep. John Lewis endorsed Joe Biden for president yesterday—and told reporters he strongly supports picking a woman for the ticket's VP slot. "It would be good to have a woman that looks like the rest of America," Lewis said. The Root

- Foe to frenemy. Margrethe Vestager was once seen as Big Tech's greatest foe. Now the European Union tech czar's efforts to use government regulation to restore public trust in technology may save tech from itself. Even Google and Facebook agree. Bloomberg

MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Macy's EVP and CFO Paula Price will leave the retailer. Twilio hired Christy Lake of Box as chief people officer.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

- Post-crisis plan. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey will donate $1 billion in Square equity, or about 28% of his wealth to coronavirus relief. But after the pandemic is over, that money, held in an LLC, will fund work for girls' health and education and universal basic income. "Why UBI and girl’s health and education?" Dorsey explained. "I believe they represent the best long-term solutions to the existential problems facing the world." Fortune

- Separation anxiety. Hospitals are, in some cases, separating newborns from new mothers who are suspected of having COVID-19; testing shortages are making separations last even longer. New mother LaToya Jordan, who gave birth last week, says she "never saw [her baby] further than my knee." The Cut

- Robotics champions. Five Afghan teen girls, part of the robotics team Afghan Dreamers, designed a ventilator that runs using the motor of a Toyota Corolla. The students are eligible for the Afghan Girls Robotics Team, the same group whose members were denied entry to the U.S. for a robotics competition in 2017. The National

- Off the court. Sen. Kelly Loeffler's recent troubles in Congress (she is among the lawmakers to have made stock trades drawing suspicion for coming after Congressional briefings on coronavirus; she denies any wrongdoing) are impacting another area of her professional life: the WNBA team she owns, the Atlanta Dream. The WNBA is known as a progressive league, and players are struggling to balance Loeffler's support for them with some of her other views. Guardian