Member since May 2023
Lisa spent most of her career working with her clients to assist and educate them to achieve their financial goals and dreams. Lisa utilized her financial and retirement planning expertise combined with her investment management skills and many resources to build successful long-term relationships with her clients. Over her 40 year career, Lisa found it quite fulfilling to partner with her clients to experience their joy as their dreams were realized.
Lisa's mission and vision were driven by her core values of kindness, generosity, integrity, humility, compassion and education throughout all her work.
Lisa became an entrepreneur at age 29 when she started her first business in New York City in financial services. She then went on to buy, sell, partner and manage several businesses specializing in turn-arounds, fast growth, and building profitability.
Several of the companies Lisa enjoyed managing and working with included Forstmann, Leff, KPMG Peat Marwick, and Professional Planners Group in New York City. Phoenix Financial Associates, North American Management Corp., Winslow, Evans & Crocker and Morgan Stanley in Boston to whom she sold her business in May of 2024.
Throughout her career Lisa believed in building the community you work in and lived up to this through her Board work on over a dozen Boards in the Boston community. Some of these Boards include, FitMoney, The Ellie Fund, the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, the Women's Leadership Board at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, The Home for Little Wanderers, and many more.
Lisa has also spoken at conferences, universities, companies, etc., about financial education, financial literacy, and other topics to help educate the public and provide tools to take action with their finances. She also speaks on a wide range of other topics including community-based business building, values-based investing, managing transition, empowering younger generations to achieve their goals and dreams, and more. Lisa believes that learning never ends.
She is also returning to her dream of international travel to utilize her passion for languages.
Lisa currently sits on the FitMoney and Ellie Fund Boards. FitMoney provides free, unbiased financial literacy programs to empower K-12 students with critical like skills for a financially fit future.
She is a member of the International Women's Forum.
Previous Boards include:
Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce
Women’s Leadership Board of Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government
The Home for Little Wanderers
American Red Cross Tiffany Circle
The Women’s Presidents Organization Platinum Group
Boston Estate Planning Council
Founding Board Member of Social Venture Partners in Boston
The New England Women’s Fund
Bringing my life experiences, entrepreneurial expertise, financial acumen, and core values to groups to inspire them to move through transitions, achieve their dreams, conquer their goals, overcome obstacles, and more, through storytelling and my real life journey.
I was a Russian and Soviet Area Studies Major in college who spoke 4 languages when I graduated. After studying abroad during college and publishing my Thesis in the US Army War College Journal, I received offers from the CIA and NSA and went to work for the NSA. (Great stories about interviews here). After a couple years at the NSA I recognized that seniority vs accomplishment and ambition were valued (and I worked on some very interesting projects - more stories), so I moved to NYC to get a job on Wall Street. I had always wanted to be an Ambassador but found that government work valued contacts, Ambassadors are bought and my family didn't have the money, and one needed connections and we didn't have those either. Wall Street had always intrigued me, though I almost failed Econ in college. Though I had no experience I pounded the pavement and after a couple weeks of 3+ interviews per day I met a man on a street corner in mid-town standing at a street light. Before I crossed he asked me if he could ask me a question. I thought "Oh no, is he going to ask me out?", but he asked me if I was looking for a job? I said "Yes, and How did he know that?". He shared that I was wearing my navy blue suit, white blouse, bow tie, had my briefcase and it was 2:30 in the afternoon and i would be back to work by now from lunch if I had a job. Wow! The power of observation! I will never forget his name. He showed me his card and asked if I would come up to his office to meet his partner, as he thought they could help me. They sent me out on an interview the next day and 2 weeks later I had my first job in Institutional Wealth Management on Wall St. I always say how lucky I was to my husband and he says I am the most unlucky person he knows and one makes their own luck. If I had not been out there pounding the pavement the opportunity would not have presented itself. Of course, I was never able to tell my Dad this story as he was not happy I moved to NYC as he was old-fashioned and from the South and did not approve and would certainly not approve of me talking to strange men on Street corners. And so began a 30+ year career in Financial Services. I have since worked with Ambassadors through my Board work and I bring economic well being to women and girls both domestically and around the world combining my passions for financial and foreign affairs.
I started my first business at Age 29 in NYC providing 401(k) plans to small to mid size businesses when back then they didn't exist. It was a great niche market that grew into financial planning through workshop to both the executives and employees. Shortly thereafter I found the need to merge my business with another and then sold when I moved to Boston. Since, then I have bought, sold, turned around and been a partner in multiple firms. But my initial success came from believing in my core values and always being open to opportunities. When I was young in the business my Grandmother become angry with her Advisor as he kept buying her tobacco stocks when my Grandfather had died of lung cancer and emphysema and she had continually asked him not to do this; so she asked me to assist her. My Mother, who told me I would never make it in this business as I was not greedy enough and this was a greedy business, found she needed me more than anyone when she and my Dad divorced and she became disabled. Fortunately I was there to manage her resources and money and she ended up leaving quite a legacy to her children. These themes of social consciousness, clients values, humility, generosity, etc., have alway been core to my business and recognized by my clients. In fact, I am asked to speak about this to groups. As shared in my Best Story, I have alway seen Opportunity everywhere, or perhaps it just lands on me, like the seatmate on the plane, or the woman in the bar who felt bad when a drunk man spilled his drinks on me, or the couple I met waiting for my date to get money at an ATM, all who became clients. At the end of the day, truly my best stories are my client successes and making their dreams come true - goals they never thought they would achieve, but I don't have time for all of those here.
I was a Russian and Soviet Area Studies Major in college who spoke 4 languages when I graduated. After studying abroad during college and publishing my Thesis in the US Army War College Journal, I received offers from the CIA and NSA and went to work for the NSA. (Great stories about interviews here). After a couple years at the NSA I recognized that seniority vs accomplishment and ambition were valued (and I worked on some very interesting projects - more stories), so I moved to NYC to get a job on Wall Street. I had always wanted to be an Ambassador but found that government work valued contacts, Ambassadors are bought and my family didn't have the money, and one needed connections and we didn't have those either. Wall Street had always intrigued me, though I almost failed Econ in college. Though I had no experience I pounded the pavement and after a couple weeks of 3+ interviews per day I met a man on a street corner in mid-town standing at a street light. Before I crossed he asked me if he could ask me a question. I thought "Oh no, is he going to ask me out?", but he asked me if I was looking for a job? I said "Yes, and How did he know that?". He shared that I was wearing my navy blue suit, white blouse, bow tie, had my briefcase and it was 2:30 in the afternoon and i would be back to work by now from lunch if I had a job. Wow! The power of observation! I will never forget his name. He showed me his card and asked if I would come up to his office to meet his partner, as he thought they could help me. They sent me out on an interview the next day and 2 weeks later I had my first job in Institutional Wealth Management on Wall St. I always say how lucky I was to my husband and he says I am the most unlucky person he knows and one makes their own luck. If I had not been out there pounding the pavement the opportunity would not have presented itself. Of course, I was never able to tell my Dad this story as he was not happy I moved to NYC as he was old-fashioned and from the South and did not approve and would certainly not approve of me talking to strange men on Street corners. And so began a 30+ year career in Financial Services. I have since worked with Ambassadors through my Board work and I bring economic well being to women and girls both domestically and around the world combining my passions for financial and foreign affairs.
I started my first business at Age 29 in NYC providing 401(k) plans to small to mid size businesses when back then they didn't exist. It was a great niche market that grew into financial planning through workshop to both the executives and employees. Shortly thereafter I found the need to merge my business with another and then sold when I moved to Boston. Since, then I have bought, sold, turned around and been a partner in multiple firms. But my initial success came from believing in my core values and always being open to opportunities. When I was young in the business my Grandmother become angry with her Advisor as he kept buying her tobacco stocks when my Grandfather had died of lung cancer and emphysema and she had continually asked him not to do this; so she asked me to assist her. My Mother, who told me I would never make it in this business as I was not greedy enough and this was a greedy business, found she needed me more than anyone when she and my Dad divorced and she became disabled. Fortunately I was there to manage her resources and money and she ended up leaving quite a legacy to her children. These themes of social consciousness, clients values, humility, generosity, etc., have alway been core to my business and recognized by my clients. In fact, I am asked to speak about this to groups. As shared in my Best Story, I have alway seen Opportunity everywhere, or perhaps it just lands on me, like the seatmate on the plane, or the woman in the bar who felt bad when a drunk man spilled his drinks on me, or the couple I met waiting for my date to get money at an ATM, all who became clients. At the end of the day, truly my best stories are my client successes and making their dreams come true - goals they never thought they would achieve, but I don't have time for all of those here.