Voice of Experience: Lisa Ferraro, Managing Director, TIAA-CREF

This week we are profiling amazing women in investment management ahead of our annual career panel event on the 5th November for women in the industry who want to make it to the top.

lisa_ferraroBy Michelle Hendelman

According to Lisa Ferraro, much has changed for women in finance over the past three decades as she has worked her way up from an Associate to a Managing Director. “I don’t view my success as a zero-sum game for an individual contributor anymore, and I’ve learned that people who are successful in their industries are interested in diversity and inclusion to help others and their businesses grow,” she said.

As the Portfolio Manager, Energy and Infrastructure in Global Private Markets at TIAA-CREF, Lisa Ferraro oversees a $2.2 billion private equity portfolio which is invested in oil and gas production as well as renewable energy projects. Ferraro comes from a family of entrepreneurs and has always had a keen interest in how businesses successfully operate. “Having curiosity about the fundamentals of the companies I invest in and respect for developers that are trying create value has guided how I built my career,” said Ferraro, who holds a B.S. in Economics from The University of Pennsylvania Wharton School with a dual degree in Marketing and Entrepreneurial Management. “I read financial statements, and projections like a book, to see what story they tell about the company and management team. I get tremendous satisfaction from helping companies grow, which makes me a valuable private equity partner.”

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Voice of Experience: Kimberly Mounts, Founding Partner, President and CEO of MAP Alternative Asset Management Company, LLC

This week we are profiling amazing women in investment management ahead of our annual career panel event on the 5th November for women in the industry who want to make it to the top.

sm_kimberly_mountsBy Michelle Hendelman

Kimberly Mounts, Founding Partner, President and CEO of MAP Alternative Asset Management Company, LLC (“MAP”) built a successful career working with fixed income derivatives for two of the industry’s top firms: Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs. However, if there was one thing she wished she knew earlier in her career, it was just how rewarding and fulfilling it would be to open up her own asset management company. Since Ms. Mounts founded the firm in 2006, MAP has grown into a premier institutional risk management and hedge fund consulting firm advising some of the largest public and corporate pension plans on over $35 billion of assets under advisory.

Selected as one of 140 business leaders to attend the White House Business Leaders Forum in 2011 and one of Institutional Investor Magazine’s 2012 Rising Stars of Hedge Funds, Kimberly Mounts’ persistence and dedication has established MAP as a leading risk management and hedge fund consultant. In addition, one of the largest public pensions awarded the firm a consulting contract for their hedge fund platform and a $40 billion state pension selected the firm as their investment risk consultant for their $18 billion defined benefit plan. MAP’s advisory work includes total portfolio risk management for public and corporate pensions, and a foundation. As part of the firm’s hedge fund advisory services, MAP researches, selects and combines the best-in-class fixed income managers with a particular focus on emerging, minority and women-owned hedge funds. The firm was recently named one of the Top 100 Emerging Businesses in California for 2013 by DiversityBusiness.com.

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Voice of Experience: Kerry Jordan, CFA, Director of Marketing and Chief Compliance Officer, Chicago Capital Management L.P.

This week we are profiling amazing women in investment management ahead of our annual career panel event on the 5th November for women in the industry who want to make it to the top.

Kerry Bio PicBy Michelle Hendelman

When Kerry Jordan, CFA, Director of Marketing and Chief Compliance Officer, Chicago Capital Management L.P., was first starting out in her career, she wished that she knew how to remind herself that everything would be alright. She explained, “If you make a mistake, you have to acknowledge it, learn from it, and move on from it.”

It is also important to recognize early in your career just how vital it is to act with integrity, competence, and respect and to maintain a credible reputation. “Always make sure you are acting in the best interest of your clients and your firm,” added Jordan. “I cannot emphasize this enough.”

Kerry Jordan began her career with the NASDAQ Stock Market conducting insider trading investigations on the stocks that traded in that market. “After six years of doing this, it gave me a really good orientation in compliance,” said Jordan.

While she was employed at NASDAQ, Jordan was also hard at work earning her graduate degree in finance and her Charter Financial Analyst designation, which she said gave her a broad based foundation in financial analysis and management. “When I completed my graduate studies, I started working for Bank of America on its derivative structuring team in Chicago working with Fortune 500 companies designing and implementing strategies to mitigate risk,” said Jordan.

Career in Finance

After a seven year career at Bank of America, Jordan moved to the hedge fund industry where she currently works. “My derivatives background allowed me to transition into the hedge fund industry since my first position was with a hedge fund that had a very heavy derivatives portfolio,” Jordan explained. “They were having difficulty explaining derivatives to investors, and I was able to take a complex portfolio and break it down into language that investors could understand.” she added.

Currently, Jordan works as the Director of Marketing and Chief Compliance Officer at Chicago Capital Management where she has been able to combine her experience in derivatives, compliance, and asset management. In this role, she is particularly excited about the way distribution has changed in asset management. “There are many different platforms available that enable smaller managers to access institutional money,” said Jordan.

She added that the next few years should be a dynamic time in the industry as a battle for distribution starts to develop. “As there is more access to capital online through crowdfunding, electronic exchanges, and other sources, there will be a significant shift in how capital allocation to hedge funds works,” Jordan explained.

Jordan indicated that earning her Charter Financial Analyst designation stands out as one of the most challenging but rewarding accomplishments of her career so far. She also pointed out that working on a derivatives trading desk for seven years, with mostly male colleagues, was extremely rigorous, but helped to shape who she has become professionally.

In order to help strengthen investor confidence in the financial markets, Jordan dedicates much of her time volunteering with The CFA Institute on various initiatives. “Restoring ethics and integrity is one of the most important elements to the continued success of the capital markets,” Jordan said. “Global markets have experienced so much turmoil over the last five years which has resulted in distrust in the financial services industry,” she added.

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Voice of Experience: Laurie Carroll, Managing Director and Index Specialist at Mellon Capital

This week we are profiling amazing women in investment management ahead of our annual career panel event on the 5th November for women in the industry who want to make it to the top.

sm_carrol_laurieBy Michelle Hendelman

In 1989, Laurie Carroll became a breast cancer survivor. “Being a breast cancer survivor in a male dominated atmosphere was hard, but it motivated me to work even harder and embrace every challenge,” said Carroll, “and I had a lot of supportive male colleagues around me who understood what I was going through.”

Laurie Carroll graduated from Seton Hill University with a degree in Business Management. At the time she attended, Seton Hill was a women’s college. “I wish I knew at the time that I wouldn’t necessarily be accepted in the business world,” said Carroll. “Within my family, and within the tight knit community at Seton Hill, you were never told that you couldn’t achieve something,” she added.

“That was really eye-opening for me. For example, when I started at BNY Mellon over 20 years ago, I wasn’t invited to the investment management meeting even though I was managing money,” Carroll said. “This has changed,” added Carroll. “Women are more involved and they are moving higher within the industry.”

Career Path

“When I graduated from college, Pittsburgh did not have the strongest job market, so I bought a one-way ticket to Houston where some of my family members lived,” said Carroll. Within three days Carroll found a position at an up and coming investment management firm called Aim Management. “I was hired to do basic office work,” recalled Carroll, “but that is how I got my start in the industry. I was about the 20th person to be hired at the company, which was later sold to Invesco.”

Carroll learned the business of investment management by being proactive and taking advantage of opportunities to advance her career whenever she could. She explained, “Whenever someone left the company or something changed, I asked to take on the new role or task. This is how I moved up in the business.”

After five or six years of working in the investment management industry in Houston, Carroll moved back to the Pittsburgh area when she accepted a position at one of the first investment management divisions at BNY Mellon. Since then, Carroll has worked in several investment management subsidiaries of BNY Mellon. “I am proud of the flexibility I have displayed throughout my career,” said Carroll, “and I am proud of the great teams I have had the opportunity to manage.”

Another career highlight Carroll noted as critical to her professional development was the international assignment she accepted a couple of years ago, to live and work in London. “I knew working abroad would be challenging on both a professional and a personal level. There is a different atmosphere and a different way of doing things, so I had to learn how to fit in to that culture,” said Carroll.

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Voice of Experience: Robin Cohen, Partner, Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman

sm_robin_cohenBy Michelle Hendelman

“I knew very early on that I wanted to be a lawyer, but the path to where I am today was somewhat accidental.” Robin Cohen fell in love with law in elementary school when she participated in a program that gave her the opportunity to get firsthand experience in the legal field. “Students were able to leave school twice a week and do something that you were interested in pursuing later in life. I worked downtown in a common case court where the judge tried a lot of criminal cases.” This experience served as the foundation for Cohen’s bright future in the courtroom.

Career Path

Cohen left law school unsure of the career path she wanted to follow, but she very quickly developed a passion for litigation. “When I got my first assignment, and was told it was an insurance case, I assumed I would be representing the insurance company, but in fact I was representing the policyholder,” said Cohen. She continued, “This really fit my personality. I enjoyed being the plaintiff and moving litigation forward.” Since then, Cohen has been a key player in the insurance coverage area, representing big organizations in complex, and sometimes even groundbreaking cases.

The last trial Cohen prosecuted in December definitely stands out to her as one case of which she is particularly proud. “The trial team consisted of attorneys I have practiced with for a very long time. We work together like a well-oiled machine. It was a complex case and the jury came back within five hours and found in favor of our client.” She continued, “From the culmination of all the mentoring work I had put into the team, I was so proud of them and the success we achieved.”

Another source of pride for Cohen in her career came when she was about seven or eight years out of law school and an important client asked her to be lead counsel on a big environmental coverage case. “I was very young to be doing this,” recalled Cohen, “and it was one of the first environmental coverage trials in the country. The client so was happy with the outcome of the trial, they gave us a party at the Rainbow Room. And it was as a result of that case that I was able to develop so many clients.”

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Voice of Experience: Hilarie Bass, Co-President, Greenberg Traurig

sm_bass_hilarieBy Michelle Hendelman

Hilarie Bass, Co-President of Greenberg Traurig, emphasized the importance of defining your personal level of success and mapping out a career path that will enable you to get to that level.

According to Bass, all lawyers should look at their careers through a long lens. “Think about what you want to achieve in five years and create a vision for what that definition of success will look like,” explained Bass. “Being a really good technical lawyer is a precondition to any level of success in the practice of law. That being said, technical ability in and of itself is not enough,” she added.

Career at Greenberg Traurig

Bass has a unique career path in that she has spent her entire career at one law firm. “I came to Greenberg Traurig as a summer associate, accepted a job offer on the spot, and have been here for my entire legal career,” explained Bass. She became a shareholder in 1987, and in the mid-nineties Bass became the head of the Miami Litigation Group.

After leading the litigation group in Miami, Bass spent eight years as chair of the Global Litigation Practice for Greenberg Traurig. She then became Global Operating Shareholder for three years, which gave her the unique opportunity to work with the chairs of all the practice groups at the firm.

Since February, Bass has been getting up to speed in her new position as Co-President. “In this role, I have a lot more opportunities for interaction between our lawyers and our clients,” said Bass.

“The achievement I am most proud of in my career, outside of practicing at Greenberg Traurig, is having served as the chair of the ABA litigation section, which is the largest section of the American Bar Association.”

She continued, “The other moment I am proud of is my work on a pro bono case in which I represented two foster children that led to the finding of unconstitutionality of the statutes that prohibited gay people from adopting in the state of Florida. We raised the legal issues from the perspective of two fit children rather than the adopting parents.”

“It was great to be able to use the law in the way I have always thought about it,” Bass said, “which is a tool for social change.”

Currently, Bass is approaching the end of almost four and half years of litigation in a major case involving Chinese drywall. She explained, “Post-Katrina, it made economic sense to import drywall board into the US. Between the real estate boom and the post-Katrina reconstruction, there was a high demand for drywall. As it turned out, the imported drywall contained an excessive amount of sulfur, which will deteriorate anything made of copper or silver in the house.”

Bass continued, “I represented many of the big public builders across the country who repaired their homes on behalf of their homeowners. We have had a lot of success reaching settlements with various parties. I am glad we are coming to a positive end on this case.”

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Voice of Experience: Kelly Brennan, Managing Director, Securities Division, Goldman Sachs

Kelly BrennanThe Glass Hammer is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month by featuring profiles of Hispanic Women Business Leaders all week long!

Kelly Brennan, Managing Director in the Securities Division at Goldman Sachs, graduated from UC Berkeley with a Liberal Arts degree and a minor in Biology. Her intention at the time was to follow the Pre-Law or Pre-Med track. Instead, Brennan decided to go to the financial industry right out of college when she accepted a position as a junior trader at Susquehanna Trading Group.

“I was one of three women in the incoming class of fifty-five people,” recalled Brennan. She continued, “As a junior trader, I was the only woman at the desk and I learned pretty quickly that instead of trying to fit in by thinking and acting like the men, I could have a true competitive advantage by approaching things in a slightly different way.” As a woman in this male-dominated culture, Brennan realized that she could bring a unique perspective to the table.

Brennan noted, “I learned very early how to lead with content and this has helped me at every level of my career, from being a junior trader to more senior roles.”

At Susquehanna International Group (SIG), Brennan moved her way up the ranks from assistant trader to trader, eventually becoming the only female specialist at SIG on the NYSE. In 2005, Brennan joined Goldman Sachs as an Associate in the Prime Brokerage area on the Securities Lending desk. She was promoted to a Vice President in 2006, and then to Managing Director in 2010.

Brennan pointed out that throughout her career there have been many small achievements as well as a few very poignant moments. “One of the proudest moments of my career happened earlier this year when I returned to work after my first maternity leave. I heard a lot of feedback about how my team had really stepped up while I was out. It was rewarding to hear that the team that I helped to recruit, train, and mentor had not just survived while I was out but managed to push the business forward and excel in my absence. It was validating to see that my role in that was valued and acknowledged.”

The evolution of technology and its application to the trading world is one thing that excites Brennan about the future of financial services. “It leaves a lot of room for innovation in trading and thinking about how we communicate information to our clients via a whole new mechanism of technology that we haven’t seen before in the industry,” said Brennan. She is enthusiastic about building new trading platforms based on new technologies.

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Voice of Experience: Yvonne Garcia, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Client Solutions, Investment Manager Services, State Street Corporation

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The Glass Hammer is celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month by featuring profiles of Hispanic Women Business Leaders all week long!

yvonne_garciaBy Michelle Hendelman, Editor-in-Chief

Yvonne Garcia, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Client Solutions for Investment Manager Services at State Street Corporation, wishes she understood the value of professional networking and the reward associated with giving back early in her career. Although the knowledge of these important factors came along with experience, Garcia is building a strong foundation for her career on these professional tenets.

She explained, “It is at this point that it truly sinks in that you need to have access to resources, connections to decision makers, and supporters, as they will be critical throughout your professional and personal journey.”

Garcia is a true example of a professional woman who is being proactive in making sure future generations have access to the resources she identified as being so valuable to career advancement at any level. In addition to her SVP role at State Street, Garcia also serves as the National President for ALPFA, the largest Latino Professional Business Organization in the United States.

Career Path

Prior to joining State Street, Garcia served as the Director in Marketing and Distribution Strategy for Liberty Mutual’s Agency Corporation. In this role, she had the opportunity to contribute to the growth and development of new products and channels. Additionally, she was responsible for organizing a global team to ensure that all team members were delivering a consistent message true to Liberty Mutual’s brand.

Previously, Garcia also served as Vice President for Bank of America’s China Construction Bank Strategic Assistance. In this role, Garcia, along with her team, successfully created and implemented over eighty wealth management centers all throughout China. As a fully certified Six Sigma Black Belt, Garcia develops and adheres to well-planned processes and strategies and prides herself on delivering value to her clients at State Street using new approaches that are not typical within the financial industry.

In her current role at State Street, Garcia is primarily responsible for developing new client relationships, deploying cutting-edge technology and operational processes, and delivering complex consulting engagements for existing and potential State Street clients. She formulates client-focused strategies that enhance ROI for the prestigious list of the global clients she serves and creates business value for State Street.

She is particularly excited about the internal and external opportunities associated with operating a global business. Garcia said, “One area I am interested in right now is how to foster corporate cultures that encourage intelligent risk-taking behavior and how best to lead that change and get others to realize the necessity of this given the global shift in demographics (i.e. age, culture and ethnicity).”

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Voice of Experience: Deborah Hammalian, Chief Compliance Officer, ING U.S. Investment Management

debbie_hammalian_ingBy Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

According to Deborah Hammalian, Chief Compliance Officer of ING U.S. Investment Management, setting career goals can help propel you forward. “Select a few goals and map the path for each. Identifying the path is a very powerful advantage toward reaching a goal.”

But, not everyone starts their career with a clear goal in mind – Hammalian included. Even still, she says, don’t stand still. “Have a clear goal, but don’t stop if you don’t.”

Hammalian began her career as a product support specialist, and her desire to grow and learn brought her to the legal and compliance world. Then, within a few years of starting out, her industry was in turmoil and her company was facing a huge round of layoffs. Nevertheless, she stayed flexible, and found a niche that suited her well. “My ability to adapt to and manage change has been a key to my professional growth,” she said.

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Voice of Experience: Deborah Lorenzen, COO, BK University, BNY Mellon

deb_lorenzen_smBy Michelle Hendelman, Editor-in-Chief

Deborah Lorenzen, COO, BK University, BNY Mellon, recently celebrated her 20th anniversary with BNY Mellon. This milestone is enriched by a career that has been fundamentally involved in the growth, development and enrichment of the company’s structure, business strategies and corporate culture.

Lorenzen has taken on roles in many different disciplines, locations and business units at BNY Mellon including special projects, program management, and Corporate Trust. She’s worked in San Francisco, New York, Edinburgh and London. Now in her latest role as COO of BK University, Lorenzen hopes to be part of an exciting new era of transformative change at the global financial services company. BNY Mellon provides services and solutions across the investment lifecycle.

The roots for BK University and Lorenzen’s involvement in the project were actually planted in the late nineties when she received an unexpected phone call at her desk. “One day my phone rang and it was Gerald Hassell, who had just become president of the company. He was calling because he wanted someone who could figure out how to launch a corporate University. And it took some time to get here, but I am now the COO of BK University. At the time, we weren’t ready for this on an institutional level, but now we are,” recalls Lorenzen.

On Defining a Career Path

When she looks back at her career path, Lorenzen agrees that it was not the most linear. However, she feels that her deep vault of experiences is what has shaped her and prepared her for her current role. Lorenzen said, “My interests are in how we run this company and becoming part of the leadership team that helps drive this company forward. Perhaps there could have been a more direct career path, but for me it was really important to understand a number of different disciplines and to be a more effective and well-rounded leader with the perspective to go along with the global nature of our business.” She continued, “Every single opportunity I took has helped me to understand our business more deeply.”

For Lorenzen, taking advantage of the opportunities presented to her throughout her career has contributed to her success at BNY Mellon. “I believe the greatest risk you can take in your career is to stand still,” said Lorenzen, “You have to move and you have to put yourself out of your comfort zone because that is the only way you learn. You don’t regret the things that you do. You may regret the things you don’t do.”

Impacting the culture of her company in a positive way is something that has always been a source of pride for Lorenzen. “One of the things I am most proud of is the time that I have spent connecting people,” explained Lorenzen. “I once spent six months in Edinburgh working with 400 employees of a business we had just acquired. I helped them understand how we got things done in this organization and explained the culture of our company. I enjoy making those linkages for people so that they can be more successful.”

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