In this edition, we get to know Eileen Ward, Vice President, Investment Consultant at Calamos Investments who joined WIN in 2018 and serves as Co-Chair of the Membership Committee. (And who also has some mad skills as a virtual happy hour trivia host!)
Eileen, you’ve been a member of WIN for several years and serve on WIN’s Membership committee. What prompted you to join and how have you benefitted from being an engaged member?
I joined WIN in 2018 when I was finally tenured enough in my role to find balance in my life and make networking for the long term a bigger priority. It’s been an incredibly rewarding five years. Meeting the founders, Board, and other members of WIN has been a blessing as my life has taken unexpected personal and professional turns since moving to Philadelphia to manage Goldman Sachs’ Mid-Atlantic territory in 2016. I have since explored three other firms seeking to find a long-term home in the local market and the insight on culture, compensation, and industry trends has been meaningful during each transition.
The wisdom, tenure, access, and examples of helpful, sophisticated peers and leaders in the financial services space has helped me find re-assurance and confidence in my seat and community within the Greater Philadelphia market, where I was a newcomer with few local female connections. I’ve found mentors, friends, networking and leadership opportunities, and inspiration from our programming over the years.
WIN’s commitment to engaging women of all roles and responsibilities in our community for the past 15 years speaks volumes as a new member, and the organization, from our Committee and Boards makes the effort to show up, in a busy and competitive world, well worth it!
WIN is dedicated to empowering professional development in the financial services industry. Could you describe your career path thus far and what led you to this industry?
From a young age, math was a forte of mine and in discerning where my outgoing, competitive mentality could be married with proximity to a meaningful market, (I’m from NY and grew up in Northern New Jersey a meaningful radius of Wall Street’s influence) to earn a living, I opted for rigor of Finance over Science. I love people, respect hard work, and crave academic stimulation.
My audience, financial advisors and entrepreneurs, are people I admire and respect, and therefore I am naturally inclined to support and wish prosperity for. Having played sports my entire life, I find long-term relationships and teamwork incredibly gratifying, so marrying my curiosity for the evolving economy with the benefit of serving and shepherding financial advisors, who are themselves nurturing old and new client relationships throughout an ever-changing landscape, is incredibly rewarding. Putting our heads together on quantitative and qualitative factors to drive meaningful outcomes never gets old. From sales jobs in transportation, healthcare, and finally investments, I’ve derived a meaningful career and set of experiences at some of the most respected firms on Wall Street and continue to grow professionally each day in my current role offering alternatives investments to allocators.
Without knowing this back in high school, I’ve found my ikigai – a Japanese word that refers to a passion that gives value and joy to life – in my niche of Financial Services.
The variety this industry offers in terms of putting a wide spectrum of talents, expertise, personalities, and ambition levels to work never ceases to surprise me. From the technical rigor of a CFAs and CAIAs leading to securities analysis and portfolio management, to CPAs providing audit, tax, and FP&A as a CFOs and corporate finance leaders keeping the wheels on so many different organizations and industries, to CIMAs & CFPs offering advice for the long term and interpreting capital markets of behalf of retail and institutional investors, the breadth of the industry is huge. Finding your niche can take a while, but with an open mind, curiosity, and hard work it’s highly likely someone can find a rewarding career in Financial Services.
Given your focus on working with financial advisors could you speak to some career path possibilities in this area?
There are many ways to utilize one’s skills having served financial advisors. Depending on your degree of satisfaction from technical to soft skills, one can find satisfaction from a variety of roles. Being a product manager, by understanding what the Advice-Market is seeking for end-clients, being a portfolio manager on the front line of building solutions for Allocators, distribution/sales liaising with the intermediary/advisor market place, research and data science cultivates the foundation upon which decisions are made, keeping up with regulations and laws as a planner to ensure optimal advice is offered as conditions and market forces evolve are all meaningful roles. Within each sub-set there are internal functions vs. client facing roles. Wall Street is nothing but a supply chain to access the capital markets for the benefit, longevity, and prosperity of society.
The more self-aware you are, the more likely you are to find the right function within financial services to serve the population you’re most enamored and motivated to help! Many institutions offer the benefit of tenure, but like any stalwart in business, change is inevitable and it’s important to decide where preservation and disruption can join forces to become innovation. I have no doubt that given the prosperity created by low unemployment and advances in technology, coupled with the massive generational wealth transfer from the Baby Boomers to younger generations, that wealth management and investments have a meaningful runway in decades to come. In a society where wealth connotes privilege and access, it becomes a very personal matter where trust and relationships will always have an important role.
If you could give one piece of career advice to a young professional, what would it be?
Stay in touch with old co-workers. While you might not be at the top of the hierarchy when you’re right out of college or new to a firm, your time in that seat matters and who is next to you will count a decade down the line. Pick up the phone, comment on LinkedIn, find ways to keep the connection with old co-workers alive, even if it’s purely personal vs. professional. Your alumni network will matter a decade plus into your career as you evaluate firm, role, and investment opportunities that inevitably present themselves.
There is no such thing as job security anymore. No one is offering you a pension because you are expendable. But your talent, attitude and worth ethic are valuable universally and should always be cultivated. Realize that sooner than later. Save your money, invest 10% of each paycheck starting in your first job, even if you can barely pay your rent (get a roommate!) and network with curiosity to build a foundation for when you least expect to need it.
Get credentialed in your 20’s. Studying and taking tests isn’t fun, but as you age, it’ll set you apart to prove you put in the time and effort, which implies you’re not lazy. When you’re juggling the responsibility of parenting with work, you’ll be grateful you put in the time early-on. Sometime finance can feel very institutionalized and it’s hard to set yourself apart in a sea of intellectual people, so going the extra mile will count for something down the road. Think of it as intellectual compounding and getting yourself closer to ‘the room where it happens’ so you can remain relevant and fast changing environment.
What are some topics or trends you would like to see covered by WIN? Why?
Product innovation in the Investment space. There are so many incredible asset managers building new and different solutions to enable investors to access new markets, themes, and harness opportunity.
Technology innovation in the Financial Services space. What software is changing the way business is done.
Financial Planning in the Investment management space. What is driving the benefit of financial planning most – investment solutions, markets, taxes, or regulation?
These areas are all the driving forces behind the growth and direction of financial services. It would be great for WIN to lean into these themes and ensure we’re taking advantage of our Corporate Sponsors to understand now the industry is changing and innovating, so we can all stay informed and at the top of our game.