Enrepreneur of the Year Award
Kim Stolz
Firm: BANK OF AMERICA MERRILL LYNCH
As a director in equity derivative sales at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Kim Stolz manages the responsibilities of a demanding job with a certain amount of entrepreneurism.
“Being able to balance your clients’ needs, the firm’s needs and your own needs is obviously a big part of the job, so I think everyone feels that even though it’s a big organization, you are running your own little business within that organization,” she told Traders.
Stolz has quite the drive for someone with multiple goals. After graduating from Wesleyan University, she worked as a model, wrote a memoir about Millennials and their digital lives, served as a correspondent for MTV News, and has been a contributor to CBS News and CNN. Until this summer, she also served as vice president of equity derivatives sales for Citi before joining BAML. As one financial colleague outside of BAML put it, “Kim is a fantastic options salesperson and she covers us as well as anyone. She’s smart in her space and is great at connecting us with the right people at her firm.”
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But her entrepreneurial bent doesn’t end there. Two years ago, together with two partners, Stolz opened a bar and restaurant in downtown Manhattan. She also spent the past four years writing a book, an anecdotal memoir of sorts, about her generation’s reliance on smartphones. She undertook both of these pursuits while balancing the demands of her Wall Street career. The experiences, Stolz said, introduced her to new and different types of work-related challenges.
“When you work on Wall Street, you are part of a well-working machine. Learning how to run my own small business was an incredibly difficult, humbling but also rewarding experience,” Stolz said. “I think some of the lessons I learned were certainly helpful and inform everything I do.”
The bar and restaurant, which opened in 2012, was undertaken with a close-knit group of friends and colleagues. In fact, Stolz’ wife, who is a food concierge director and wedding planner, ran the restaurant as its general manager. Day-to-day challenges ranged from predictable issues, like staffing, arranging employee health insurance and number crunching, to preparing for the unexpected, like health inspector visits or a fire in the kitchen.
“These are all things that you constantly have on your plate. You can’t call anyone to help you. It is completely on you to run this, and anything that goes wrong really comes out of your pocket,” Stolz said. “But when you walk into your place and people are enjoying it, and having a good time and enjoying what came out of your creativity for the menu and the atmosphere, it’s very rewarding.”
The restaurant was sold earlier this year, and Stolz’ book, titled “Unfriending My Ex,” was published in June by Scribner. While she still has some readings and press events related to her book, for the moment the former “America’s Next Top Model” contestant’s plate is a little bit more clear and there is certainly relief in that.
“At some point, I am sure I will want to invest or partake in an experience that I can work on while still focusing on my job at Merrill,” Stolz said, “but for the foreseeable future, I want to fully concentrate on my growth and career here at the firm.”
