Her Stories

Kirsten Green

"Closing the remains a persistent issue in finance, but the women who operate in this world are strong advocates. We need to continue growing our space of inclusion and acceptance. Working side by side with women really is the first step toward understanding the  specific needs and concerns of women."

How to do better: “Make a focused effort to listen to your female colleagues, be democratic in your actions and forge the important and needed evolution in an industry that is seriously lacking in diversity. And, for goodness’ sake, please stop any inappropriate sexual innuendos or worse!”

—Kirsten Green is founder of San Francisco–based VC firm Forerunner Ventures, which has invested in more than 40 startups since its launch in 2010; among its portfolio companies are Bonobos, Hotel Tonight, Jet.com and Warby Parker. forerunnerventures.com

Seema R. Hingorani

"The research is clear and conclusive: More gender diverse teams get better outcomes. Yet in the asset management industry in particular, less than 5 percent of the world’s investable capital is managed by women, and the number of women portfolio managers at the world’s mutual fund companies, private equity firms and hedge funds is startling low at 15 percent, 6 percent and 3 percent, respectively."

How to do better: “In 2015 I founded an organization called Girls Who Invest to create a pipeline of young female talent and prepare them to succeed in the asset management industry. The pipeline is certainly a problem. And men and women in our business need to have an open dialogue about how to evolve firm cultures so that once women are in, they are welcomed and set up to thrive. Men and women need to partner to change the workplace.”

—Seema R. Hingorani is founder and chair of Girls Who Invest, a nonprofit with the mission to have 30 percent of the world’s investable capital managed by women by 2030. girlswhoinvest.org

Gina Sanchez

“I effectively funded my own company and really had to pull myself up by my bootstraps. There are so few places you can go to access capital that are specifically geared toward women. As a female looking for capital for my business, I was put to an extraordinary task. As a result, I think my business is better. Women in this industry tend to be incredibly successful, largely because they’re held to a different standard.”

How to do better: “Make an effort to ensure that quality women are promoted. But the bigger challenge is that there is still a gentlemen’s club culture that persists and young men who still want to be a part of it. It’s a very real advantage to be a male in the industry. There are still venues and events and conversations that you’re invited into as a man that you’re not invited into as a woman, and it creates a sense of kinship that doesn’t happen with women as easily. It’s something that is very subtle and very, very difficult to deal with.”

—Gina Sanchez is CEO of Chantico Global, a West Hollywood, Calif.-based investment consulting firm founded in 2013, which spun out of Roubini Global Economics. chanticoglobal.com

Stephanie Drescher

“In the early days after I joined Apollo, I was participating in a meeting of our investment committee. One of the male senior members of the firm stood up and said, ‘I will circle back on this…but I need to leave now for a parent-teacher conference.’ That was a very strong message to me, early in my career. In an environment like finance, where the demands are high, work ethic has to be very strong. Having the ability to balance work and life is important, and there are certain firms that set that tone and model that behavior. I continue to perpetuate that as a senior manager.”

How to do better: “In this period when we don’t have as many women executives to help with onboarding, development and retention of female professionals throughout their careers, one way that Wall Street can ensure we’re raising awareness is through a discussion around unconscious bias. Having a conversation about how we’re wired to think and how that might impact decision making or interactions is all part of awareness.”

—Stephanie Drescher is global head of business development and investor relationship management at New York–based Apollo Global Management. agm.com

Vivian Lau

“Diversity drives a lot of value. The understanding of culture really impacts how astute you can be on the investment, and the conversation on the table becomes more powerful.”

How to do better: “The reason I run money today, that I had a good career at Goldman Sachs and I had the courage to build my own firm, is because of mentorship. The thrill of investing capital and being given more responsibility over time gave me the desire to try to be the best in this field. One of the most important things we can do is be mentors. For young women, seeing what they can become, makes them become.”

—Vivian Lau is founder of One Tusk Investment Partners, a New York–based investment advisory firm. She joined Serengeti Asset Management as a founding partner in 2008, and previously worked at Goldman Sachs for eight years. onetuskinvest.com

Lorine Pendleton

“Obviously, women don’t get the level of funding men do, but endless studies have shown that women-led companies actually outperform companies where it’s an all-male founding team. If you want to make money, why wouldn’t you invest in women? If you look at the VC firms, only 7 percent are women partners. VC firms are risk-averse, so they’re going to invest in  people who look like themselves, which typically are white men. That’s the issue.”

How to do better: “I’m hopeful. Women are now realizing their power—their financial power, their social power, their human power, their capital. They’re now saying, ‘We’re going to actually pool our money. We want to help bring other women up.’ It’s going to take more women forming VC firms, more women partners.”

—Lorine Pendleton is a business development executive, angel investor and a chair of Tiger 21 New York. She is a member of Pipeline Angels—a network of female angel investors who are creating capital for women social entrepreneurs and collectively have invested in 40-plus companies—and she is an investment partner in Portfolia Funds, through which she has funded 14 companies. lorinependleton.com

Eileen Foley

“When I entered financial services, there was a sense that women had to conform to the men—that we needed to blend in with the norms that were set by them. I can remember being the only woman in a sea of gray suits, thinking, One of these things is not like the other. Oh, it’s me. I think as a society—and as an industry—we’re really celebrating people’s differences more now.”

How to do better: “I feel a huge responsibility to those who are coming behind me—women in particular, but male and female—to ensure that people are able to stay in the workforce if they want to. That they don’t have to choose between having a family and caregiving responsibilities and working. We allow for flexibility—particularly with the technology we have today. It’s how we as individual leaders set the tone.”

—Eileen Foley is executive director of the family office at BNY Mellon Wealth Management. bnymellonwealth.com

Shelley Goldberg

“When you work in a macro trading environment, you are on 24/7. You get this adrenaline rush. It’s a powerful role, which is why I think it attracts that type-A alpha male. But these kinds of roles don’t require any kind of specific thinking that men have. In fact, there have been studies about women traders actually being better traders. Women think more holistically; they think about big picture and are not so driven by taking a risk. So I think when you measure women versus men, women are more disciplined in terms of risk taking.”

How to do better: “It’s the role of everyone—and in the best interest of everyone—to support and help women to move forward. Women are making perhaps more decisions about spending on a daily basis than men are. This was figured out quite a long time ago, but it hasn’t really saturated into the workplace—not only from a purchasing standpoint, but from a decision-making standpoint.”

—Shelley Goldberg is founder and principal of New York–based Invest-With-Purpose. invest-with-purpose.com

Jesse Draper

“I’ll be raising a venture capital fund against a first-time manager who is a male and has had zero experience, yet I will know that he got a million-dollar check from someone, and then that person will write me a check for a quarter of that. Unfortunately, that’s just what happens because men control most of the capital. They bet smaller on women. So, what I try to do with my fund is bet earlier and bigger on more diverse companies.

“The data is there that if women come into wealth, then they will more likely invest it in diverse teams and women, and that’s what we need. We need to create the next female billionaire.”

How to do better: “It’s about elevating other women. If you’re on a public board, pull up another woman and help her get on a board. Make time to sit down with young women—you never know where one of those meetings is going to lead.”

—Jesse Draper is founder of Los Angeles–based venture capital fund Halogen Ventures, which promotes female-founded and female-led technology consumer businesses. Halogen’s portfolio companies include Sugarfina, Laurel & Wolf interior design and Naya Health, the maker of the first FDA-approved smart breast pump. halogenvc.com

Kathie Andrade

“My biggest dream was always to be a mother. Because of that, I’ve taken a very nontraditional career path and tried some groundbreaking ideas that paved the way for many others at the companies I’ve worked for. I had the first job-share at FleetBoston Financial and began working on what’s now known as ‘flex time.’ It wasn’t easy. I would work from 9 p.m. until 3 a.m., while my kids were sleeping. I didn’t have work-life balance, but I had balance in what was important to me. That created an inner motivation for me. Because I was charting new territory, it forced me to imagine what could be possible and assume that it was achievable. That’s been my secret to success.”

How to do better: “Women need to have extra support. One recent initiative about which I’m particularly pleased is TIAA now offers 16-week parental leave at 100 percent compensation for all new parents—regardless of gender or status as primary or secondary caregiver. It’s an old-fashioned idea that women should shoulder more responsibility for children. But if we don’t allow men the ability to be there, we shift an incredible amount of work to women.”

—Kathie Andrade is CEO of Retail Financial Services at TIAA. tiaa.org

Maria Jelescu-Dreyfus

“Culturally, we’ve made a lot of changes in the last 15 to 20 years in terms of the ability to integrate women into an appropriate business environment. But in terms of promoting women and paying women, there’s a lot of catching up to do. When you look at the executive management teams of all the big U.S. banks, you’re lucky to find even one woman—there is a handful of women at best in such senior roles. We want more women on boards, but no one really gave it a lot of attention until the analysis came out that said it’s actually good for business—it creates better company performance. Reports show that the very few women who manage money actually on average do better than men.”

How to do better: “It all comes down to mentorship and sponsorship. It’s critical to get women to support junior women but also to get the men to do it; they should want to create a better working environment for their own daughters. It’s going to take time, but all we can do is keep pushing.”

—Maria Jelescu-Dreyfus founded Ardinall Investment Management in New York in 2017. Previously, she was a portfolio manager at Goldman Sachs for 15 years. ardinall.com

Katrina Dudley

“I have a very good coterie of very successful women who are all just sick and tired of being told what to do. We are sick of, ‘Lean in,’ ‘Lean out,’ ‘You can have it all,’ ‘You can’t have it all,’ ‘You don’t negotiate,’ ‘You need to negotiate more.’ And we don’t see that happening with the men. Also, I fundamentally believe women don’t take care of themselves. If people ask me how I got ahead, I say, ‘I always made sure I took care of me, first.’ But I don’t tell them to go off and do it. And there’s a difference.”

How to do better: “Firms need to be more aggressive. The business case has been made: We know that having a diverse team leads to better decision making; it gives you a broader perspective. Diversity in terms of socioeconomics, background, experience, gender, race—it’s those diverse teams that make the better decisions. We need to have more successful women at the top of front management so that people will come in at the bottom and see that there is a career path to the top.”

—Katrina Dudley is co-portfolio manager of the Franklin Mutual Series European mutual funds at Franklin Templeton Investments. She is cofounder of the Iron Skirts, an organization founded by five female industrial investors to help women in finance get ahead. franklintempleton.com; theironskirts.com

Sandra Navidi

“Part of the reason women haven’t been able to break into the financial industry is because they’re not plugged into the same power and information channels that men are—they’re not part of the network to the same extent. There’s only so much you can do in a homogenous environment. And considering that it’s mostly men who are still in the positions of power, networking is limited in its scope.”

How to do better: “Looking back at the ’80s and some of the very public manifestations of the Wall Street culture, I see we’ve made quite a bit of progress. But culture and societal norms in general have changed—and a lot of behaviors just have become more subtle and harder to fight.”

—Sandra Navidi is CEO of New York–based BeyondGlobal. beyond-global.com

Tracy Castle-Newman

“Once I got to Wall Street, if I looked to my right and my left, there were men. But I didn’t think I couldn’t get ahead. I just always focused on the fact that if I do a good job, it’s a meritocracy.

“In 2013, I decided to create a Women’s Investment Roundtable that looks just like Morgan Stanley’s Lyford Cay Conference [founded by Barton Biggs 34 years ago to gather top investors], but it includes only female portfolio managers. The first year I had about 10 people; we’re now up to 22, and I’ll probably cap it at 30 because the benefit is the closeness that these women have with each other. They have built a camaraderie, they’re very open with their ideas and they’re not afraid.”

How to do better: “More women need to take more personal risk. Be comfortable with that, and own the success and the failure. Paying it forward is also important. There’s something to feeling like you’re included, like you have a voice and a seat at the table.”

—Tracy Castle-Newman is a managing director at Morgan Stanley and COO for Global Institutional Equity Distribution, and is founder of Morgan Stanley’s Women’s Investment Roundtable. morganstanley.com

Kelly Coffey

“We have a women’s network [at JPMorgan Chase] that is helpful. But I do think you have to supplement that with being inclusive of the guys. When you’re having a conversation about diversity and the goals that you have, it has to be very inclusive. You can’t have women go off in a room on their own and figure out how to solve everything.”

How to do better: “Women need sponsors and advocates, something that has worked well for us here. Talented people and more diverse individuals, not only women, need more advocates and sponsors who are willing to say, ‘I know this person can do the job. We’re going to take a chance here.’”

—Kelly Coffey is CEO of U.S. Private Bank at JPMorgan Chase. jpmorganchase.com

Mary Petrovich

“I’ve always been in environments where I’m one of a few women. Maybe because I grew up a tomboy, I’ve always viewed guys as my peers, and they’ve always viewed me with respect—but it’s based on performance. It’s not like there haven’t been hard times and discrimination, but you keep going. There has been adversity and challenges, but I find that the longer I’ve gone in my career, the better the situation has become.”

How to do better: “When you think about private equity and investment banking, you have to sacrifice a lot. First, you have to make the decision that you really want to be doing it. Then, there has to be networking that connects women with the senior executives of the company. And there has to be a conscious program to place women with the skill—and the will—in the right roles and nurture them into more senior roles.”

—Mary Petrovich is chairman of the board at AxleTech International and an operating executive at the Carlyle Group. axletech.com; carlyle.com