Today, we spolight the winners of our Mentor of the Year award.
Mentor of the Year is given to women who have shown dedication to the cause of mentoring other women in financial services.
Traders Magazine proudly salutes Renee DeGagne, Managing Director, RBC Capital Markets LLC and Amy Ellis-Simon, Global Head of Specialist Sales and Americas Head of Corporate Access, Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
Renee DeGagne
Firm: RBC Capital Markets
Years in industry: 24
Previous Firms: RBC-related companies
Status: Managing Director, Global Trading Client Management
Sometimes people just need someone to listen to them – an ear to bounce an idea off of or someone to offer guidance or even just say, “It’s going to be OK.”
That’s what a mentor does, Renee DeGagne said. Whether it’s a woman or a man, her door is always open to a colleague who needs a place of refuge. And that is what makes a successful mentor.
“Sometimes people need a little support,” she said. “They are looking for someone who will just listen to them.”
While life on the trading desk can be frenetic and consuming, DeGagne always makes time to assist staff who are in need of counsel. With almost a quarter century of experience behind her, she can speak to almost any subject someone might approach her on: professional, personal or emotional. Chances are she has probably lived it and has something to offer. She can relate.
She began her career at RBC began in 1988 as a management trainee working on Brady Bond refinancings in the chief accounting office. DeGagne credits her mentors – Michael Harvie, Mark Hughes and Stephen Walker, all of whom shared their unique blend of experience and lessons. Harvie, her mentor for the first 12 years of her career, holds a special place.
“He taught me important things, one of which was about making tough decisions and how that relates to people,” she said. “Our decisions have a human cost in our sphere – for those we know and those we don’t know.”
She added that Harvie’s working relationships with partners across the firm have helped in her career journey.
Now it’s about paying it forward to the nearly 30 people she counsels regularly and the 300 people in the firm’s Women’s Resource Group, an RBC program she help create and establish. Helping these junior colleagues is not only satisfying to her, but also a necessity in today’s trading world.
Amy Ellis-Simon
Firm: Bank of America Merrill Lynch
Years in Industry: 18 (see next page)
Previous Firm: Merrill Lynch
Status: Global Specialist Sales and Americas Corporate Access
Being a good mentor means telling like it is and not tickling an apprentice’s ears.
It’s that ability to be honest and candid with a student that is essential to helping junior financial professionals maximize their potential and thrive in life overall, and not just on the trading floor, according to Amy Ellis-Simon.
“My job is not to be a cheerleader, but to be able to have that uncomfortable conversation with someone in order to help them get better,” Ellis-Simon said. “Both the mentor and student need to be willing to honestly assess the opportunities and how to meet them.”
Honest conversations and candor were a part of the 18-year veteran’s ascent on Wall Street, ranging as far back as her years at the University of Michigan in the early ’90s. Ellis-Simon recalled that back then, she was involved in collegiate and extra-curricular activities that required her to demonstrate leadership and teaching – years before the term “mentor” became part of the vernacular.
“The goal is to use your personal capital to help someone else with the expectation that capital gets well spent,” she said.
And many professionals have invested in Ellis-Simon. She credits several clients both on the sellside and buyside who have helped her excel in the world of finance and prompted her to become a mentor in her own right. One such person sits just feet away from her on Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s trading floor: 2011’s Wall Street Women Mentor of the Year winner, Sylvia Rocco.
“She’s my go-to person,” Ellis-Simon said.
Like Rocco, she continues to mentor junior staff and relishes the ideal of “paying it forward.” That is, giving something back to the firm, the trading business and to others. For her, it’s just the right thing to do.
“I’ve been mentored throughout my life, so if I’m viewed as giving back, it’s because someone took the first step and mentored me.”
