Woman-Owned Brokerage Award
Danielle Hughes
Firm: DIVINE CAPITAL MARKETS
The early days of the institutional broker-dealer Divine Capital Markets is a good example of how timing isnt everything. Founder and CEO Danielle Hughes and a partner launched the firm right around 1999 as the dot-com bubble was bursting. Hughes then bought out her partner on Sept. 9, 2001, two days before the terrorist attacks that had a major impact on the country and the financial markets in particular. Despite these circumstances, the firm continued on.
I attribute our survival to the wonderful people I work with and also to being in a business thats extremely volatile to begin with, Hughes told Traders. You just learn to roll with the punches.
The firms resilience might also have to do with its niche as an independent firm with a horizontal management structure that enables clients to form deep relationships with many members of the team. Divine Capital Markets independence, in fact, may have helped it weather some of the mistrust directed toward the financial industry following the financial crisis of 2008.
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We really are independent. We are not beholden to any big firm that we have to sell products to, so I think that independence has given us the ability to see things in a unique way, Hughes said. We are also extremely entrepreneurial as a group and individually.
With a team of 25 divided into four different businesses – trading, investment banking, wealth management and research – the firm employs a horizontal management structure through which team members in each of the firms different divisions are equals, and clients have working relationships with the whole team.
There isnt one person covering each account. We very much approach our clients as a team – and thats investment banking clients, institutional clients as well as wealth management clients. Each one of us has a different skill set or way of seeing things that we bring to bear in most relationships, Hughes explained. What doesnt work for me and what doesnt work for my team is having one person whose skill set is more valued than others. In working as a team, you have to support each other, and having a holistic approach in that sense is extremely valuable.
Hughes said that the horizontal approach extends to empowering clients as well.
We are very much taught in financial services that these people know more than you because they are in finance. That is something we are out to change, Hughes said. Instead of we know more than you, you can figure it out. You can understand what the financial marketplace is all about without being employed by a big bank.
