Fierce competition, demanding clients and complicated bond deals are a normal part of Morgan Stanley's Co-Head of Debt Capital Markets for financial firms' Cecile Houlot-Hillary. They may be challenging but for the veteran investment banker, it was returning to work after her three maternity leaves that posed the biggest challenge, Reuters reported.

She attributes her successful return to work to the support given by her managers. Now, she advocates that this kind of mentoring should be given to the female employees of banks. As part of Morgan Stanley's Diversity Advisory Council, she now ensures that such coaching is made available to the lender's female employees who were out of commission for awhile because of childbirth and are now ready to return to work, the report said.

She told Reuters, "Whether you call them mentors or sponsors, I think it's helpful to get independent advice from senior people, helpful to bounce ideas off someone else, it's helpful to have someone senior who looks out for you." She added that the move may seem apparent and quite simple "but it is very important to have these processes."

Her investment banking career began at JPMorgan where she worked for 13 years, climbing the corporate ladder from being an intern and eventually becoming a managing director. Her work at Morgan Stanley started in 2010, the report said.

In her long years as a veteran investment banker, Houlot-Hillary said the proudest moment in her professional career was helping the Bank of Ireland get back to the money markets. Together with her team, she raised bonds worth €500 million after an international bailout barred it from trading for a couple of years, the report said.

The resilience, motivation and passion that Houlot-Hillary has about her work is also getting her results as the bank's "gender champion." She said, "Retaining employees with high potential is obviously a priority for us. Moreover, Morgan Stanley sees diversity as an opportunity to better serve our clients by bringing diverse perspectives to the table."