Mentor of the Year Award
Joan Stack
Firm:OHIO PUBLIC EMPLOYEES RETIREMENT SYSTEM
When Joan Stack was a young girl, her mother told her three things: “You can be anything you want to be, education is the key to all things, and help your little sisters.”
It is the last statement that continues to resonate with Stack, helping her fellow sisters (and brothers, too) excel on Wall Street and in financial services. While Stack’s start as a mentor began with her oversight of her three sisters, it continues to this day as she sits on the trading desk of the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System (OPERS).
“You could say that I got my leadership training taking care of my sisters,” Stack told Traders. “So many people have helped me along my way that I’m compelled to turn around and help others.”
OPERS, where Stack has spent the last 11 years, is the 11th-largest public pension fund in the U.S., with $35 billion in total public equity assets under management As such, roughly one in every 13 people in the Buckeye State relies on her and her desk to make the best trading decisions as possible.
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So how did she get her start?
It came from her father, a CPA, who handed her a copy of Barron’s in the seventh grade. After reading an Alan Abelson column, she was fascinated with business; that led her to attend Mount Holyoke College, majoring in economics. While there, she saw firsthand women helping women with the goal of advancing in a man’s world.
Upon graduating, she joined Manufacturers Hanover Trust, where she worked as a portfolio manager’s assistant, learning the business from the ground up. But her big break came in 1978 when she joined Bankers Trust. There, she began trading as an assistant on the municipal bond desk but soon caught the attention of Jack Guilfoyle, who ran the equity desk and was short-staffed.
“Jack asked the head of the bond department if I could come over and join him,” Stack remembered. “I can’t tell you how excited I was. It was a dream come true.”
Stack credits Guilfoyle with teaching her the market firsthand, showing her the business of trading that no book could ever do. She said he was always positive and saw the good in people. If a trade was bad, he’d tell her to forget it and move on. She’d stay with Bankers Trust for 15 years and moved steadily up the ranks.
Now at OPERS, Stack carries on her mother’s and Guilfoyle’s legacy, taking junior staffers (men and women) under her wing and helping them learn about trading in the current market structure. And she has enjoyed it. Immensely.
“There is nothing more rewarding than seeing someone you know who came from the back office and is now shining as a trader,” Stack said. “It’s a really good feeling.”
