Former FBI Executive Speaks Up On Being A Woman In The FBI

“I was deeply proud of my service. It mattered to me greatly to serve my country and make things better for other people. It may sound like a trade for some people but that’s really how I feel about it. That’s what drove me to the FBI and that’s what kept me in it and have an impact. The other thing was having enormous power,” said Former Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) executive Lauren C Anderson to SheThePeople.TV.

WORKING FOR THE FBI

While working for the FBI, she worked outside of the United States for five-and-a-half years in parts of Europe, Africa and the Middle East and that she says gave her a lot of autonomy in her work and led her to come close to people she was working with especially women in different parts of the world. “I had the ability to see firsthand the status of women in many different countries and I also worked with people who by and large wanted to work with the FBI. But it had its own ethical challenges where I stepped in and ensured that things are done in a positive manner while still working with many organisations.”

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OVERSEAS EXPERIENCE

Lauren worked in diverse places from France, Algeria, Morocco down to Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, etc. FBI appointed her to the position of Legal Attaché in Paris, France and she became the first woman to hold that position. In her position’s capacity, she directed the FBI’s engagement with, and operations in, twenty-four countries, twenty-two of which were in Francophone Africa. After her five-year-long overseas stint, she led the International Terrorism program of the FBI’s New York Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), the largest JTTF in the nation, with representation from more than 50 local, state and federal agencies.

“It was eye-opening for me in many ways and of course, I was always the only woman except in two countries where I had a female counterpart in Rwanda and Niger. It really changed me in many ways. I felt that I was having a huge impact by bringing in the level of training and professionalism into countries which didn’t know about it. At the same time, I learnt a great deal from them in terms of different cultures, religions, different tribe affiliations,” said Anderson.

What I realized in my career is that there is a lot more than I had to offer to other people than I could learn from them. And I hadn’t really given it a serious thought up to that point in time, until I went through a programme with the International Women’s Forum and that in combination with living overseas had a dramatic change.

MENTORING PROGRAM

Today, she runs LC Anderson International, an international consulting business as she is passionate about investing in women leaders and mentoring them. Talking about why she chose to mentor, she says I have been an intuitive helper since childhood. “But what I realized in my career is that there is a lot more than I had to offer to other people than I could learn from them. And I hadn’t really given it a serious thought up to that point in time until I went through a program with the International Women’s Forum and that in combination with living overseas had a dramatic change. That’s when I realized that so few women had role models to look up to.”

What women have in common in different parts of the world is that they have a passion for what they are doing, says Anderson, who is also Global Ambassador in a program between Vital Voices and the Bank of America. She speaks of a woman in Gaza with her tech startup, Somalian Ob-gyn, Filipino CPA. Anderson says that it doesn’t matter what these women do because at the core what these women have is a deep desire to succeed and educate.

Picture credit- laurencanderson

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