Voice of Experience: Marcy Engel, COO and General Counsel, Eton Park Capital Management

By Melissa J. Anderson (New York City)

“When I was fourteen, I decided I wanted to be a lawyer. I didn’t know what that meant – I didn’t know any lawyers,” Marcy Engel, Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel of Eton Park Capital Management, said with a laugh. Engel went on to attend the University of Michigan and then studied law at the University of Pennsylvania. “During law school, many of my friends were finding jobs with Wall Street law firms. It sounded good to me so I took a position with Sullivan & Cromwell,” she said.

Engel began working in the litigation department, and after three and a half years, she decided it was time to try something new. She explained, “Litigation meant dealing with people’s fights that were three, four, five, six years old. It was very backward looking. I wanted to advise people. I wanted to be forward looking.”

She began a job at Salomon Brothers advising the equity sales and trading groups. “At the time, this was a new area. I had to learn things from the ground up – I didn’t know what a short sale was!” she laughed.

Engel continued, “It was a time of increased regulation, and in terms of derivatives and futures – this was a time when it was really growing.”

In 1997, Salomon was acquired by Travelers Group and merged with Smith Barney, and then the following year, Travelers and Citi merged.

In 2001, Engel became General Counsel of Salomon Smith Barney, leading over six hundred people in over 30 countries. “I didn’t sleep much,” she joked.

In late 2004, she said, she received a call from Eton Park. She explained, “I thought I would just go talk to them give them some advice… but I ended up being very impressed with the vision for the business.” She joined Eton Park in 2005 as General Counsel, and in 2006, she took on the Chief Operating Officer role as well.

Engel is as focused on helping to build a business as she is on her legal career. “I love what I’m doing right now. Eton Park is a dynamic, growing business. We’ve been in business for almost 6 years. So much is changing, and we are involved in a lot those changes,” she said.

Engel said she’s proud of the way she has managed to combine her legal career with business skills. She said, “It enabled me to make the transition to the role of COO – understanding the business and how all the areas of firm work together and interact.” Considering the future of her career, she said she hoped in five or ten years she’d be doing what she’s doing right now. But, she continued “there’s no such thing as doing what you’re doing now!”

She explained, “This is an incredibly dynamic industry, with new regulations, with a changing investment environment and markets. There are always new issues and challenges. You have to think about how to be out on your front foot in dealing with all that. It’s exciting. There’s never a dull moment.”

“We care very much about our investors. That’s our number one focus. We have been spending a tremendous amount of time on financial regulation and reform, understanding how it will affect as both as market participants and investors,” she added.

Advice for Developing a Career in Law and Investment Management

“You can’t be too focused on planning your career,” said Engel. “I see people who do a lot of planning, there’s too much of that. You miss opportunities that are right in front of you if are too focused on next steps.”

Engel firmly believes that there is always more to learn. She explained that one of her pet peeves is when “young people interviewing for a new job say ‘I learned everything there that I could…’”

She continued, “I view that as an alert. They explored everything that they could? How could that be? There are always things that can be done beyond what your role is.”

In fact, she said, the best advice she can give young women is to “try to get as much experience as you can. Keep reaching for the next thing. If something needs to be done, If nobody’s jumping up to do it – take the opportunity and try to get that experience.”

She recalled how, earlier in her career, her boss would send emails asking if anyone knew anything about a subject. She recalled many of her peers would send back an email that simply said “no,” passing up the opportunity to work on something new. She remembered, “I’d say, ‘No, but I’ll find out!’ You’re there to learn. If you show that kind of interest, the willingness to go the next step, your career will take care of itself.”

For women advancing in their career, she said, “Leadership is about doing by example. You want people to say, ‘I see why that person was promoted.’ It’s not about how many people report to you, it’s about leading by doing.”

Engel said she has been lucky to have had many mentors throughout her career. She recalled one woman, who she worked for following the merger of Salomon Smith Barney as having had a major influence on her.

She said, “She became my boss through the merger—she did not hire me—I was kind of foisted upon her.” The two worked closely together and they became friends.

Engel said, “She really taught me a lot. She was the most calm person I’ve met professionally. She could take any situation and get people away from the blocked thinking that came from crisis, and could get everyone to be productive and work on solving the problem.”

Engel said her mentor unfortunately passed away 4 years ago. “She helped me grow from being a senior manager to being a leader. She recalled. “She would listen, really hearing the problems, and then she would turn around and say, ‘Here’s what we’re going to do.’ I have tried hard to do the same.”

Women on Wall Street

“Why aren’t there as many women as men on Wall Street?” asked Engel. She said there must be challenges unique to women in the financial services industry.

“Certainly just by the numbers – something’s going on. But law and business schools have women. You don’t see as many women in the business 7 to 10 years out of school. Either they’re leaving the industry for work/life reasons, or they’re going into more entrepreneurial fields. There’s not as many who stay on Wall Street for the long term.”

She continued, “Whatever doors may be shutting, as senior women in the industry, we have to do our best to keep propping them open.”

Work/Life Balance in Investment Banking

“For young working women having their first child, I have a saying. I tell them ‘you have to be able to say the following and be able to believe it: Just because I buy the cupcakes instead of making them, doesn’t mean I love my children any less than the mother who bakes them.’”

“You have to do the things that are most important to you,” she explained, “but you can’t do everything.”

Because Eton Park is a small firm, Engel says she is able to spend time with women at her company. She said, “When women come back from maternity leave, I spend a lot of time with them – that’s the most sensitive time.”

She said, “The concept of work/life balance is a completely individual one. The key is to find a role that fits with what they believe is balance and not what someone else believes is balance.”

“Of course, if you have children, it’s hard to be away from them,” she added. “But over time – my kids are 17 and 20 – work/life balance changes. It is very different now than when my children were younger.”

“You should find a supportive environment, a role or job where people look out for you professionally in the long term, because work/life balance is going to change all the time.” She continued, “I really do think if you have a top performing person who works all the time, then they have a young family, if you treat them the same as before, and don’t acknowledge the struggles they are going through –that can backfire.”

Engel said, “My family is the number one most important thing to me, beyond anything, Now my kids are somewhat older, and seeing how they have developed as young adults is exciting My daughter is a senior in high school so I’m almost an empty nester… but we’ll still have the dog – it stays home and doesn’t go out every night,” she said with a laugh.

Engel said that personally, one way she connects with her family is their annual vacation. She said, “Every summer we take 2 weeks and have fun and spend time, just as a family. We try to go someplace special. When the kids were young, we’d go to Cape Cod. And as they got older, we’d travel.”

She added, “I hope we can continue to do that as a family, even when we have grandkids. This summer we went to Israel for the first time. It was a phenomenal trip.”