Woman-Owned Brokerage Award
Elizabeth Nesvold
Silver Lane Advisors
When Elizabeth Nesvold started her career 25 years ago, there were few women on Wall Street and even fewer mentors. She had to look to her home to find inspiration.
I had some great people in my life and in a career dominated by men, and my mother was a wonderful mentor for me, said the managing director of Silver Lane Advisors, the boutique investment firm she manages with her husband, Peter. She came from an age in which boys didnt like smart girls, and she told me growing up that I could be anything I wanted to be.
Nesvold clearly followed her mothers advice. Her firm specializes in large block trades looking to grow their businesses. We are responsible for taking people through processes to find a good home for them. You can think about them as the single largest trade of someones prospective career, she said.
Nesvold says she is impressed with the new generation of Millennials who are entering the workforce and dont think twice about women having the same opportunities as men. Peter oversees the hiring process; Silver Lane received more than 500 resumes in two days for a recent position opening. These are people who are wonderfully qualified, she said. I have been in business for 25 years, and back then people didnt have the same level of internships that are offered today.
Working with the younger set has been an eye-opener for Nesvold. It used to be that people were climbing all over each other to get those jobs; the Millennials care about more than what is on their resume. They care about culture and learning opportunities. They want constructive criticism compared to the verbal beatings from bosses that we got in the past. You can learn a lot from them.
