Katie fell in love with the industry and worked her way up to financial advisor. She then moved to Denver, Colorado to manage a branch. Intrigued by a future in management, she enrolled in a manager assessment program, but was unsuccessful.
Devastated after learning “I didn’t make it”, she can now say this: “Failure is part of growing up. It’s inevitable if you’re pushing yourself towards something new. At some point there will be disappointment. As hard as it is to feel the pain of not succeeding, other paths will open up that you never expected.
Indeed, they did. One of the management appraisers offered her a job in Houston, Texas, where she would go to gain more experience as a manager, overseeing a private wealth management office. “It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made,” says Katie, who re-wrote the Manager Assessment and passed.
After three years, Katie moved again, this time to Stamford, Connecticut, when her leadership skills were put to use running her first resort. She savored “my dream job” for four years until another opened about four years ago with Morgan Stanley in Philadelphia. This latest move gave him responsibility for eight branches and 203 financial advisors and support professionals who collectively manage more than $50 billion in assets (as of 4/2022).
“If someone had told me when I started that I was going to run the Greater Philadelphia complex, I would have told them they were completely nuts,” she laughs.
Today, his number one goal is to develop talent, to support individuals with the firm’s resources so that they can “be wildly successful, whatever that means to them”. Katie strives to be a good listener, getting to know what’s important to each individual and being inspired by their successes. “That’s why I love what I do every day: coaching, connecting and connecting with people.”
