10 minute read
Alumni Up Close
Financial Empowerment and Well-Being
Alumnae use tools of the trade to help others
BY CHRISTINE YU ’94
Most of us don’t typically associate Andover’s motto of non sibi with Wall Street or investment banking. Yet, for Grace Chionuma ’92 the world of finance is exactly how she has put this ethos into practice.
As managing director in the Public Finance Banking Group at Morgan Stanley, Chionuma spends her days structuring deals for public sector infrastructure projects and creating financing tools to support the mission-driven work of nonprofit organizations.
Chionuma says her interest in the public and nonprofit sectors is deeply rooted in her own educational experience and the transformative power of opportunity.
Arriving at Andover at the tender age of 13, Chionuma was thrust into a completely different world. She describes the school district in her hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas, as “a poor school district in one of the poorest states.” During her last year of junior high, a student was shot and killed on campus in front of her and other students.
MORGAN STANLEY “That sense of empowerment—that
—Grace Chionuma ’92
“To go to a campus that was simply safe felt like a privilege,” she says. “It was a big deal for me.”
But it wasn’t just the sense of security that was foundational for Chionuma. Equally important was the rich educational environment. At Andover, there wasn’t any doubt that you could be successful. Chionuma says the institutional pervasiveness of this idea—and the expectation—was novel.
At Andover, she was regularly encouraged to think about her impact on others. “You have great educational opportunities and first-class facilities. But what are you going to do with it? How are you going to help others?” she says.
Years later, Chionuma found her opportunity. At Morgan Stanley, where she has worked since 2006, Chionuma connects nonprofit organizations, like community developing financial institutions (CDFIs) and affordable housing developers, with long-term flexible capital in the form of bonds. In 2017, Chionuma’s team at Morgan Stanley pioneered the first public capital markets bond initial public offering for a national CDFI, Local Initiatives Support Corp. And in 2020, they did the same for the nonprofit affordable housing developer sector with the debt IPO of BRIDGE Housing.
This had never been done before; many naysayers thought these nonprofits couldn’t raise money in capital markets. But Chionuma questioned the underlying assumptions about performance and risk and found they weren’t true. She believed it could be done and she put in the work to educate the market to ensure success.
“My work is to take these nonprofits into the capital markets, introduce them to investors, and raise capital to accelerate their impact,” she says. “It’s advancing the market, bringing in more tools, more options—more needed options—that hadn’t previously existed. That sense of empowerment—that with purpose and work you can achieve anything— really crystallized for me at Andover.”
Chionuma says her work is both “a passion and a privilege. I get to wake up and immerse myself in really challenging work that is impactful for communities that are in need.”
ISTOCK: TREE OF HANDS, CIENPIES Christine Yu ’94 is an awardwinning journalist whose writing has appeared in Outside, The Washington Post, Runner’s World, and other publications. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Globally, less than 12 percent of investment portfolio managers are women. In the United States, just 10 percent of fund managers are women.* But don’t tell Katherine Jollon Colsher ’96 it’s because women aren’t interested in finance. She’ll emphatically tell you that’s not true.
Jollon Colsher is on a mission to transform the industry by increasing the number of women in frontline investment and asset management roles. In 2020, she joined Girls Who Invest (GWI) as president and CEO. The nonprofit has a big vision: ensuring that 30 percent of the world’s investable capital is managed by women by 2030. Jollon Colsher did not always envision a career in finance. Growing up in New York, she wanted to make a difference in the world. When she was 16, she visited Brazil (where she was born) with her mom. The trip left an enduring mark. Traveling through the country’s interior, she witnessed stark poverty. It solidified her desire to help under-resourced communities and populations in need. It was this passion for philanthropic work that led Jollon Colsher to Goldman Sachs where she launched and ran the firm’s 10,000 Small Businesses initiative. The program provides access to education, capital, and support services to entrepreneurs in under-resourced communities across the United States and the United Kingdom so they, in turn, can create jobs and economic opportunity.
This experience exposed Jollon Colsher to the possibilities of what a career in finance could look like for more women. “If I could have a rewarding career in the non-revenue side at Goldman Sachs, it’s certainly beyond attainable for other women to have incredibly rewarding careers in investment management too,” she says.
Jollon Colsher is now making that happen. “Our role at Girls Who Invest is to put more women into the talent pipeline,” she says, noting that historically, financial institutions have not recruited from diverse and/or nonconventional schools. The result has been a large pool of overlooked talent.
GWI specifically recruits first- and second-year college students from less traditional schools and majors, the majority of whom are women of
—Katherine Jollon Colsher ’96
color. GWI then introduces students to the industry through an intensive education on core financial and investment principles, internships at leading investment firms, mentorship, and an on-going support community—all designed to give the students a leg up as they navigate future financial careers.
As a student who was on financial aid at Andover, Jollon Colsher knows firsthand how access to opportunity can change one’s life. “I can’t undervalue how much Andover gave me in terms of access to education. Because of that transformative experience, I’m committed to making sure other people have access to education,” she says.
In the past six years, 1,400 women have participated in GWI’s program. Jollon Colsher says GWI plans to add another 500 women this summer.
“We’re seeing tremendous stickiness in terms of the impact of the program,” she says, adding that about 75 percent of participants from their flagship Summer Intensive Program have remained in financial careers.
“We believe that diverse investment teams have better outcomes and returns. If that’s the thesis, we need to make it happen.”
—DANIEL ARRIGG KOH ’03 DEPUTY CABINET SECRETARY FOR THE EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
Daniel Arrigg Koh and Ai-Jen Poo took part in a recent alumni webinar organized by the Equity and Inclusion Committee of the Alumni Council. The pair discussed their work, the importance of their Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) heritage, and their Andover experiences.
—AI-JEN POO ’92 PRESIDENT, NATIONAL DOMESTIC WORKERS ALLIANCE
BRIAN ZEGER ’74 MAKING MUSIC TOGETHER
What better way for aspiring musicians to learn than by working with professionals? Brian Zeger ’74, a noted collaborative pianist who has performed throughout the United States and around the world, came back on campus this spring to engage with student vocalists, the chamber music class, the Fidelio Society, and the Academy Chorus.
“It was so inspiring to be at PA to work with students and see some of the positive changes on campus,” says Zeger, who also is the artistic director of the Marcus Vocal Arts Department at The Juilliard School. “My years at PA were huge growth years for me, both intellectually and emotionally.”
After working with some of the advanced music students, Zeger and the young musicians enjoyed a freewheeling conversation over pizza, chatting about potential career paths in music and the performing arts.
“I found that few of them know what role music might play in their lives after high school, so the talk jumped around among all kinds of artistic roles, both on and off stage. These are such early days for them as potential performers, administrators, audience members, or supporters,” Zeger says. “My advice was to stay open and to seek out artistic communities wherever you find them—or create them where you see the need. The warm spirit of collaboration I felt when Fidelio rehearsed with Dr. Siegfried [music department chair] convinced me that music would stay in these students’ lives.”
—ALLYSON IRISH
JESSIE WALLNER
Patricia Tran ’24; Karen Wang ’24; Ellie Cho’23; Holly Barnes, director of chamber music; Jasmine Ma ’23; and Brian Zeger ’74
Fashion Illustration Comes to Life
BY NANCY HITCHCOCK
Coconut slivers on a wedding dress. Tangerine hats and peapod pants. Meredith Wing ’04 delicately arranges elegant pieces of fruit and vegetables, sprigs of herbs, flower petals, and buds atop her fashion illustrations to create chic three-dimensional art.
Wing’s creative process begins by sketching an illustration with archival technical pens. She then adds color with markers, builds dimension with broccoli earrings, artichoke skirts, and croissant dresses, and, finally, photographs the collage. Wing frequently posts demonstrations on Instagram, the platform that’s given her the biggest exposure since she started Meredith Wing Design in 2012. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Wing’s business took flight when she discovered social media: “Posting on Instagram has been 100 percent the reason for my business success,” she says.
Thus far, Wing’s whimsical art has been used for packaging for Burt’s Bees, 20-foot-tall murals for the Andaz hotel in New York City, coffee sleeves for the iconic French pastry shop Ladurée in several major cities, and assorted other projects for clients such as Anthropologie, Coach, and American Express.
“Herbal Essences was one of my most exciting jobs because it’s such a household name,” says Wing, who worked on the shampoo and conditioner bio:renew campaign. Grey Advertising provided a narrative for 10 characters, including one named Willow. Wing created stylish illustrations for each character using product ingredients such as mint leaves, grapefruit peel, and coffee fruit flown in from South America.
“It was exciting to see these advertisements come to life in the pages of nearly every major magazine,” enthuses Wing. “My art was also on the storefronts of pharmacies, on global TV ads on major networks, and on billboards around the world.”
At Andover, Wing was president of the art club, had weekly meetings at the Addison Gallery, and won several art and playwriting awards. She majored in English literature in college, studied and worked in Paris for a few years, and then returned to attend Columbia University, earning master’s degrees in French (2009) and architecture (2015). It was during her graduate work in architecture at Columbia that she started posting her personal artwork on Instagram. Clients began admiring her creations. “Soho House reached out to me early on and asked me to go to Coachella—a music festival in California—to create illustrations of celebrities at their events,” she says. “That was a big break in the beginning that gave me the confidence to know that elite institutions were pursuing my services.”
Wing’s most recent project was a week-long residency at The Charleston Place hotel in Charleston, South Carolina, where she led workshops and demonstrated live drawings for guests.
Looking back, Wing says she is happy to have eschewed a more traditional career. “When I was bold enough to create my own path,” she says, “I was able to really thrive.”
Follow Wing on Instagram @moomooi
