PIONEER | SEEMA
RIGHT ON THE
MONEY
Sonya Thadhani Mughal was always into finance. Now she runs Bailard, a famed name in the field
PHOTO CREDIT: Bailard, Inc.
HEENA KAUSAR
S
onya Thadhani Mughal’s introduction to finance happened when she was a child, watching her father’s stockbroker at the Bombay Stock Exchange giving or taking certificates from him for shares he had bought or sold. Now Mughal is the first woman CEO of Bailard, a 52-year-old wealth and assets management firm in the Bay Area. Mughal credits her mother for pushing her to pursue higher studies in the U.S. When she was 18, Mughal left her parents and elder sister in Pune, where she had grown up, to major in math at a liberal arts college.
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SEEMA magazine spoke to Mughal about how she decided to pick finance, how her firm dealt with the impact of the pandemic, her firm’s plans for the future, and her advice to young women seeking to make a career in finance. The interview has been edited for consistency, clarity, and flow. Tell us about your journey from Pune, India, to the U.S. Though people have stereotypical ideas about what it might be to grow up in an Indian household, mine was quite atypical. Both my parents had studied abroad in the ’60s and had decided to go back to India and settle
in Pune. My mom was very, very instrumental in pushing me to apply to colleges as an undergraduate – which at that time was quite rare. Being an immigrant [in the U.S.], I was on a student visa and needed a job when I graduated. My first day (at work) was February 22, 1994. My role was a split role as a junior analyst – on the U.S. equity team, and on the real estate team. How did you decide to make a career in investment management? Whether it was a bank or an insurance company, or an investment management company, I wanted to be in finance.
