He Quit His High Paying Job to Take a Risk. Now Earning Top 1%.

Working in technology, Nancy Marzouk used to be the only woman in the room. But that doesn’t mean he liked it.

“I felt like I was overworked, but I was looked at more than other people, if that makes sense,” Marzouk, 52, said.

He had studied fine arts at school, but fell into advertising after receiving his undergraduate degree and grew to love the industry. As he rose through the ranks in marketing and technology companies, he felt like he was always working harder than the people around him but he wasn’t climbing the ladder at the same rate.

“Companies wouldn’t change. I had to leave to change, actually. That’s how I felt,” she said. “I felt like I got to a point in my career where it wasn’t about what I did. There was a lot of politics. And, if you weren’t a part of that, like a group of guys, then … it didn’t matter what I did.”

Marzouk took a risk. He left his stable corporate job and launched his own startup, MediaWallah, a data management company, in 2013. Now, Marzouk makes between $600,000 and $800,000 annually, putting him in the top 1% of earners in the country, according to SmartAsset.

Among the top 1 percent of earners in the United States, only 5 percent are women, according to a 2019 American Sociological Review study. Emily Riley, another top 1% woman and researcher, recently surveyed 145 of these women to find out what it takes to be a woman in the top 1%. Some 180 women surveyed in the report earned more than $300,000, while another 170 women surveyed made between $100,000 and $300,000. The range varies slightly, but in Riley’s study the top 1% earners make more than $775,000. Women are well-represented in the top 1% of households as wives and partners of top-earning men, the researchers found, but women themselves are rarely the top earners in the top 1% of households.

“What I realized kind of in my mid-career, as I started having kids and wanted more flexibility, was that I didn’t have the tools to negotiate in a way that I felt like I was in control,” Riley, 48, said. I always felt like I was behind, I was missing something. And although I continued to be moderately successful, it suddenly dawned on me that there weren’t a lot of women above me who had created a path for me to follow.”

Riley took a risk, too, after deciding to have a third child. She wanted more flexibility as a working mom, so she became a technology consultant. Like Marzouk, he found that being his own boss actually led to more income for himself and his family. He said he makes less than $1 million a year.

Much of the discourse surrounding women in the workplace focuses on challenges and issues, Riley said. She thought about how, as a young working woman, she always wanted a guide to success. So, she pursued her own research, reaching out to successful women in her network, in women’s groups and across LinkedIn.

“I was surprised by the positive response,” he said. “It seemed really touching, that other working women agreed with me, you know, this is something we can all enjoy.

Women in the Top 1% of Earnings Are Often Married, Have at Least 2 Children

The results of Riley’s research found that there are three characteristics that the top 1% of women share: Drive, career management and a willingness to learn and grow.

She expected women in the top 1% to be fierce and competitive, which she found to be true as 44% of women in the top 1% said they were competitive compared to 25% of women in the $100,000 to $300,000 bracket. But he also found that women in the 1% do not follow the rules and are “willing to go their own way.” One in five women in the 1% are likely to “go with the flow,” compared to one in three in the lowest income bracket.

Most women in the top 1% of earners are married and have children, the study found. Although these women are usually the breadwinners of their households, 89% are married and 71% have two or more children.

Marzouk has two boys. Her husband works, but has been the main breadwinner for her family for a while now. Earlier in his career, Marzouk said, he felt like he had to do “more and more” at work, “or it would hinder my ability to move up the corporate ladder.” His partner contributed to his success, he said by supporting him and encouraging him to follow his dreams and goals.

Things have gotten better for working moms in recent years, Marzouk said, but she still feels like she missed out on a lot when her children were young. Riley said she heard a lot about the case from the women she interviewed for the study.

“You really can’t have it all, but you can live life to the fullest,” Riley said. “And that’s when you have a lot on your plate, and you can’t be everywhere at the same time. You’re going to miss some of those weekday holiday parties at your kids’ school, but you’re going to be there for their Saturday night conversations, you know?”

‘What can a man do?’

There aren’t many female CEOs in tech, Marzouk said, and few founders. He gets excited when he hears about women who want to start their own company in the field of advertising and technology, and he wants to help them. Raising capital as a woman is difficult, she said.

“Women like things more. Like, we think things in a realistic way,” he said. But being honest about financial projections does not please potential donors, most of whom are men. “People only want to invest in the pipe dream.”

His advice? Think like a man, says Marzouk.

“What would a person do? What would my husband do in this situation? she said. “And I actually do the opposite of what my gut tells me, because I know who my audience is.”

Most women are stuck in “middle class” roles, Marzouk said. Sometimes, she said, women need to think about what they want to achieve and the best way to get there — which may mean stepping out of their comfort zone.

Once you break through the glass ceiling, Marzouk said, “you can do whatever you want to do.”

Madeline Mitchell’s work covering women and the care economy at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Sponsors do not provide editorial input.

Reach Madeline at [email protected] and @maddiemitch_ on X.

This article first appeared in USA TODAY: She left her high-paying job to take a risk. Now he earns 1%.

Reporting by Madeline Mitchell, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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