Women We Admire is pleased to announce The Rising Star Women of Finance for 2024. The women leaders of finance hold a variety of positions across industries. Many honorees work within the financial services sector, including banking, investing, real estate, and insurance. Others lead the financial strategies for top companies in a variety of industries, like technology, renewable energy, and manufacturing.
While research shows that nearly 50% of roles in the finance sector are occupied by women, a mere 15% of those roles are at the executive level. This makes it all the more important to celebrate the women who rise to the top of their field as financial leaders.
We acknowledge the accomplished career of Myriam Nassif, the Senior Director of Financial Analysis at DIRECTV, where she oversees $20 billion in payments annually while leading a team of exceptional finance professionals.
Another recipient, Crystal Acosta, is a finance leader for an equally well-known company – Capital One. As the Senior Director of Fraud Intelligence for one of the largest issuers of Visa and Mastercard credit cards in the US, Acosta pulls from her previous experience as a research physician for the Naval Research Laboratory to defend customers against fraud across customer management stages.
Honoree Cameron Frantz works at the intersection of technology and finance as the Director of Finance at Microsoft. Cameron leads the team responsible for data center and network infrastructure and maximizes the efficiency of data center capacity.
Please join us in celebrating the accomplishments of The Rising Star Women of Finance for 2024.
Diana Lie
Managing Director - Financial Services Risk (West Region), EY
Diana Lie is a Managing Director in the Financial Services Risk (West Region) practice of Ernst & Young (EY). EY exists to build a better working world, helping to create long-term value for clients, people, and society and build trust in the capital markets.
Lie has over 20 years of experience with risk and control engagements with a variety of financial services, technology, fintech, and retail clients. She is a client-centric and technical advisor to C-level executives and boards, focusing on internal audit, control transformations, risk management, and Sarbanes-Oxley 404. She is passionate about building and developing teams and leads the West’s Consulting Development Program counseling family, her practice’s learning and development program. She is experienced in recruiting and is the FSO West executive alumni sponsor.
Lie is also active with the women, leading multiple events with their Professional Women’s Network around mentoring and sponsorship. She also served as President of the San Francisco chapter of the Institute of Internal Auditors in 2019 and served on the Board of Governors for eight years. Lie graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with an undergraduate degree in business administration.
Amelie Dubois
Head of In-Business Risk & Controls, Citi
Amelie Dubois is a financial services professional with over a decade of experience in business transformation and controls. She currently leads the North America In-Business Risk & Controls team for Citi Commercial Bank, which provides global banking solutions to mid-sized companies that are looking to grow rapidly and expand internationally. Citi is a preeminent banking partner for institutions with cross-border needs, a global leader in wealth management, and a valued personal bank in its home market of the United States.
Dubois previously managed projects and remediation efforts within the Chief Administrative Officer team of Spread Products, a global business offering a wide range of products and solutions to institutional clients, and led the Swap Dealer Oversight team for Citi Markets, Securities, and Services. She started her career as a strategy and management consultant at Capgemini Consulting before joining Citi's Internal Audit department. Dubois holds a master’s degree in finance and Strategy from a top French business school, Sciences Po Paris, and is a US citizen.
Beth Bailey
Senior Director Finance, The Coca-Cola Company
Beth Bailey brings over 15 years of experience in financial planning and analysis, financial system implementations, and finance transformation. Bailey is most recently acting as a Senior Director owning the FP&A process for Coca-Cola North America. The Coca-Cola Company is a total beverage company with products sold in more than 200 countries and territories. Their company’s purpose is to refresh the world and make a difference. They sell multiple billion-dollar brands across several beverage categories worldwide.
Bailey combines financial expertise with her strong technical strength and has proven this in successful financial optimization projects. She has had the opportunity to influence and interact with executives and project stakeholders cross-functionally and has demonstrated success through on-time delivery and client satisfaction. In this capacity, she performs monthly close and forecasting processes, associated analysis, and annual planning for a business that generates over $15 billion in revenue annually.
Bailey first got her start in 2004 as a manager at Capgemini. From there, she eventually rose to consultant at TNT Technologies, her most recent position before joining The Coca-Cola Company. Bailey graduated from Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College with an MBA in finance and from Lehigh University with an undergraduate degree in civil engineering.
Niri Gowd
Head of Global Market Readiness, Lucid Financial Services, Lucid Motors
Niri Gowd is the Head of Global Market Readiness for Lucid Financial Services of Lucid Motors. Lucid’s mission is to inspire the adoption of sustainable energy by creating advanced technologies and the most captivating luxury electric vehicles centered around the human experience.
Gowd specializes in operational transformation, customer success, continuous process improvement, Lean Six Sigma, and project management. She has over 18 years of professional experience leading large, complex service organizations, process excellence transformational teams, and PMOs across financial services. She has significant experience leveraging analytics, coupled with Lean Six Sigma and project management, to identify, design, and execute operational transformations to drive cost savings and revenue growth and improve operational efficiencies across all business functions. Gowd has worked with several leading banks to develop, improve, and implement process excellence capabilities.
Gowd first got her start in 2006 as a senior process engineer at Motorola Mobility (a Lenovo Company). From there, she went on to First American Corporation, before eventually rising to executive director and head of service for corporate client banking at JPMorgan Chase & Co., her most recent position before joining Lucid Financial Services. Gowd graduated from Ohio State University with an MS in industrial engineering and from Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University with an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering.
Anna Peterson
Managing Director, Financial Crimes Assurance, JPMorgan Chase
Anna Peterson is the Managing Director of Financial Crimes Assurance for JPMorgan Chase, a leading financial services firm, with $3.9 trillion in assets and $317 billion in stockholders’ equity. In this role, Peterson provides global testing coverage across all lines of business and global jurisdictions.
Peterson is an executive leader in financial services, inspiring and leading teams and programs in business operations, compliance, and internal audit. She has a proven ability to develop highly effective teams, build risk management functions, design and execute complex business strategies, lead change, improve business processes and control environment, manage critical regulatory priorities, and build long-term relationships with senior leaders, business partners, team members, and regulators.
Peterson first got her start in 2002 as a project manager, where she assisted with financial analysis during acquisitions. She landed her first director role several years later at U.S. Bank. From there, she had several leadership roles at Wells Fargo, starting as a VP in 2012 and ending her tenure there as an executive VP in 2021. Peterson graduated from the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business with an MBA in finance and from the University of Colorado Denver with an undergraduate degree in business and information systems.
Kerry White
Managing Director, Citi Investment Management, Citi
Kerry White currently holds a leadership role at Citi, a preeminent banking partner for institutions with cross-border needs, a global leader in wealth management, and a valued personal bank in its home market of the United States. She’s the Managing Director of Citi Investment Management.
Before her current role, White was the head of Citi’s investment management division for North America with $50 billion of assets under management. She provided direct oversight of the region's custom portfolio solutions, wholesale and portfolio specialists, and client portfolio managers and provided services to family offices, ultra-high net worth individuals, and retail clients. She was also a voting member of Citi’s Global Investment Committee, which sets tactical asset allocation for Citi Global Wealth.
White also served Citi as the chief of staff to the Officer of the President and CEO of Global Consumer Banking. White graduated from Harvard University with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and graduated cum laude.
Jessica Fye
Managing Director, Equity Research Analyst - Biotechnology, J.P. Morgan
Jessica Fye is the Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst for Biotechnology at J.P. Morgan. JPMorgan Chase & Co. is a leading financial services firm based in the United States, with operations worldwide. As a senior equity research analyst, Fye covers SMID-cap biotechnology stocks.
She first joined J.P. Morgan in 2008 as vice president of equity research and pharmaceuticals. The equity research covered the major and specialty pharmaceutical sectors. After nearly seven years in this role, she was promoted to senior analyst. Previously, she was a financial analyst of equity research at Bank of America Securities, where she covered the pharmaceuticals sector, including both the US and European major pharma companies.
Fye earned an undergraduate degree in business economics from Brown University. While in school, she was the Co-President of InvesTogether/Brown Investment Group.
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Cameron Frantz
Director of Finance, Microsoft
Cameron Frantz is a Finance Director at Microsoft, leading the team responsible for data center and network infrastructure. Microsoft enables digital transformation in the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Frantz’s current days are filled with capital funding decisions, strategizing on how to maximize the efficiency of the data center capacity, streamlining supply chains, and delivery of capacity to meet customer demand.
Previously, she held several roles supporting the commercial sales organization. While working in public accounting, she led many individuals on teams for large companies through multi-billion dollar debt offerings, quarterly and year-end filings, mergers, acquisitions, and Sarbanes-Oxley 404 testing. Her experience crosses borders, extending to Chile, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Previously, Frantz was a senior of global IFRS and offerings services at Deloitte.
Frantz earned an MBA in strategy from London Business School, an undergraduate degree in business administration from USC Marshall School of Business, and an undergraduate degree in accounting from the University of Southern California.
Joann Taylor
Senior Director Finance & Accounting, Comcast
Joann Taylor is the Senior Director of Finance and Accounting for Comcast, serving the DC, MD, and Virginia areas. She serves as a collaborative, influential, and motivational leader with a deep understanding of employee and customer relationships.
Taylor has spent most of her career at Comcast, a global media and technology company. She started as a customer retention supervisor and team lead. She was promoted to customer care manager in 2014, where she established and oversaw performance targets for 100 call center associates. By late 2017, she was promoted again to senior finance manager and was responsible for budgets of over $400 million, forecasts, accruals, data and analytics, and executive leadership partnerships. In 2021, she moved to director of operations and then to senior director of HR in 2022. She was appointed to her current role in September 2023.
Taylor earned an MBA from The University of Arizona Global Campus and an undergraduate degree in accounting from DeVry University.
Yang Liu
Senior Director, Technology Strategy & Governance, Fluence
Yang Liu is the Senior Director of Technology Strategy and Governance at Fluence, a global market leader in energy storage products and services and optimization software for renewables and storage.
In her previous role, Liu was the VP of business applications at Coupa Software, a Nasdaq-listed B2B software company that connects customers with eight million global suppliers and provides visibility to $4 trillion business spend. There, she was responsible for enterprise applications, identity and access management, and IT compliance. Before Coupa, she served in multiple leadership roles at the global consulting firm PwC. She started at PwC as an IT auditor at the associate level and soon moved up to senior associate. She ended her time there as a technology assurance Oracle manager for the London mid-tier market.
Liu earned an undergraduate degree in information technology and finance from San Jose State University.
Erin Haglund
Managing Director, Financial Services, JLL
Erin Haglund is the Managing Director of Financial Services of JLL, a leading global commercial real estate and investment management company. In this role, Haglund leads the design and implementation of dynamic real estate portfolio strategies for top-tier banking clients in JLL’s largest industry sector.
Haglund is a corporate real estate and design professional who is passionate about helping her clients achieve their ambitions. Her expertise is in building and empowering high-performing teams to deliver innovative thought leadership, exceptional operational performance, and trusted partnerships to clients in support of their built environment strategies.
Before joining JLL, Haglund was a senior consultant at HOK. Before that, she was a designer at Moseley Architects. Earlier in her career, she worked with the International Justice Mission as a constituent relations. Haglund graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with an MArch in architecture and an undergraduate degree in art history and architectural history from the University of Virginia.
Jennifer Reyes
Principal l Director, Risk & Loss Advisors, Marsh McLennan
Jennifer Reyes is the Principal and Director of Risk and Loss Advisors of Marsh McLennan, the world’s leading professional services firm in the areas of risk, strategy, and people. She was promoted in early 2019 from the director of risk and loss advisors, where she led a team of highly skilled consultants, specialists, and analysts. She started at the company in 2009 as a risk consultant.
Reyes is a highly effective thought leader and risk management professional responsible for leading the coordination, direction, and implementation of risk and loss services for clients. She leads with a unique set of soft skills. Championing culture, Reyes engages her team, collaborates with partners to develop strategic initiatives, and creatively deploys effective loss control, safety management, and claims advocacy services to client partners.
Before joining Marsh McLennan, Reyese was a loss prevention consultant at Liberty Mutual Insurance. Reyes graduated from the University of California, Riverside with an undergraduate degree.
Anne Simpson
Global Head of Sustainability, Franklin Resources Inc. also known as Franklin Templeton
Anne Simpson is the Global Head of Sustainability at Franklin Templeton. With over 30 years of experience across investment, policy, regulation, and academia, she is also a visiting fellow at Oxford University and a lecturer in sustainable finance at the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Management. Her most recent book is The Financial Ecosystem: The Role of Finance in Achieving Sustainability (Palgrave Studies in Impact Finance), co-written with Satyajit Bose and Dong Guo and published by Palgrave MacMillan.
Simpson is a co-founder and inaugural chair of Climate Action 100+, which has signatories responsible for $68 trillion. She is also a co-founder of the Human Capital Management Coalition and 3D, the Diverse Director Datasource. She sits on the board of Ceres and the Advisory Council to the Official Monetary Financial Institutions Forum. Before this, she served as managing investment director for board governance and sustainability at CalPERS. In prior roles, Simpson led the World Bank's Global Corporate Governance Forum, and she served as the first executive director of the International Corporate Governance Network. She taught as a lecturer and senior faculty fellow at the Yale School of Management. She was joint managing director at Pensions & Investment Research Consultants Ltd (PIRC) for over a decade.
Her awards include being nominated by Time Magazine as one of the 15 Women leading the global fight against climate change, by Barron's as one of the top 100 Women in US Finance, and as one of the top 100 most influential people in the boardroom by the National Association of Corporate Directors for each year since 2012.
Leslie Lauer
Managing Director - Private Wealth Advisor, RBC Wealth Management
Leslie Lauer is the Managing Director and Private Wealth Advisor for RBC Wealth Management. With more than 35 years of experience, she and her team are well qualified to assist clients on the various aspects of estate and retirement planning, asset allocation, insurance solutions, lending, and strategic philanthropy. She also advises corporate client relationships and family offices, providing them with cash management, executive compensation, and captive insurance company asset management.
Lauer is a leader in the wealth management industry for business owners and exceptional families. She has dedicated her career to advising owners on their succession options, including employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs). Today, as a multi-credentialed member of The ESOP Group with a diverse professional career in the ESOP industry, Lauer is well qualified to assist owners with the nuances, benefits, and challenges of selling their business to their employees.
Lauere first got her start in 1986 as a bond trustee at National City Bank. From there, she went on to Crowe Horwath LLP, before eventually rising to managing director of wealth management at UBS, her most recent position before joining RBC Wealth Management. Lauer graduated from Western Michigan University - Haworth College of Business with an undergraduate degree in business.
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Sarah Downey
Managing Director, US Financial Services Head of Operations & Blockchain Advisory Leader, Lockton
Sarah Downey is the Managing Director and US Financial Services Head of Operations and Blockchain Advisory Leader at Lockton, the world's largest independent insurance brokerage. In this role, Downey is focused on positioning Lockton as a trusted advisor, thought leader, and solution developer for ensuring blockchain and digital asset companies and the risks they face.
She previously served Lockton as a managing director leading LFS claims. In this role, she was responsible for developing and implementing Lockton’s national strategy concerning complex claims overall and the interaction with colleagues, clients, and prospects. Before joining Lockton, Downey was a managing director at Marsh USA. Before that, she was an attorney at White and Williams LLP. Earlier in her career, she worked with McKinsey & Company as an international recruiting administrator.
Downey graduated from Fordham University School of Law with a JD and from Washington University in St. Louis with an undergraduate degree in psychology, French, and business.
Katie Hughes
Global Account Director, Financial Services, Adobe
Katie Hughes is the Global Account Director for Financial Services at Adobe, the global leader in digital media and digital marketing solutions. Their creative, marketing, and document solutions empower everyone – from emerging artists to global brands – to bring digital creations to life and deliver immersive, compelling experiences to the right person at the right moment for the best results.
Hughes is an experienced sales leader and professional who focuses on helping companies employ technology to overcome their business challenges and achieve their objectives. She has developed a level of credibility with IT professionals and business executives that has enabled her to successfully partner with hundreds of customers of all sizes and across all industries.
Hughes first got her start in 2015 as a sales development at Innotas. From there, she went on to Scout RFP, before eventually rising to enterprise account executive of the high-tech vertical at Salesforce, her most recent position before joining Adobe. Hughes graduated from William & Mary with an undergraduate degree in kinesiology and exercise science.
Myriam Nassif
Senior Director, Financial Analysis, DIRECTV
Myriam Nassif is the Senior Director of Financial Analysis at DIRECTV, leading the content programming payments team responsible for managing external programmer reporting and analysis, overseeing $20 billion in payments annually. She leads a team of 18 finance professionals, playing a pivotal role in audit support, contract review, system implementations, and other crucial ad hoc projects.
Previously, Nassif served as director of financial analysis at AT&T, where she was responsible for external programmer reporting and analysis related to $20 billion in payments annually and led a team of 18 within the finance organization. Before starting at AT&T, she was an accounting supervisor with DIRECTV and returned to the company in 2021 as the director of financial analysis. The senior director role was added to her responsibilities in early 2022.
Nassif holds a Bachelor of Arts in Business Economics from UCLA, with a minor in accounting.
Brandi Hydleburg
Field Director, Northwestern Mutual
Brandi Hydleburg is a Field Director for Northwestern Mutual. She’s a financial advisor on a mission to empower phenomenal women. With the licenses she holds and a decade of experience in the financial industry, Hydleburg has built an advisory practice that specializes in preparation. By making goal-setting the priority, Hydleburg can create a safe, comfortable space, where collaborative efforts are made to build a solid financial plan with her client.
Currently affiliated with Northwestern Mutual, Hydleburg has been recognized as the first Black woman in the history of her firm to ever achieve its Pacesetter First 40 honor, having broken the firm’s record in her first six months of affiliation. While she takes pride in her accolades, her ultimate focus is overcoming the social stigma of financial conversations being taboo in Black and Brown communities, while promoting generational knowledge and wealth.
Brandi is a first-generation Trinidadian American, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. She’s a graduate of Delaware State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies and concentrations in Music (Operatic Vocal Performance) and Women’s Gender Studies. She’s a proud member of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Incorporated, and a full-time mom.
Heather Richardson
Executive Director, Treasury & Strategic Investments, UnityPoint Health
Heather Richardson is the Executive Director of Treasury and Strategic Investments for UnityPoint Health, an integrated healthcare system with approximately $4.6 billion in revenues that provides high-quality, low-cost healthcare services.
Richardson is responsible for ensuring adequate capital and liquidity for the organization, including oversight of the investment portfolio, capital market activities, and cash management. Her responsibilities also include management of the insurance program, which transfers risk exposure from the organization to various third-party commercial insurers, along with streamlining various real estate functions. She fosters relationships with banking partners, investors, rating agencies, brokers, and a variety of key stakeholders to influence and execute the organization’s strategy and financial objectives. She also serves as Chair of the Retirement Plans Investment Committee.
Richardson is an experienced director of treasury with a demonstrated history of leadership in the hospital and healthcare industry for over 15 years. She is a strong finance professional, skilled in treasury management, debt financing, capital planning, asset management, insurance and risk management, and financial planning. Richardson earned a BBA degree in Finance from the University of Iowa and a master’s degree with a concentration in Finance from her alma mater.
Sarah Toney
Senior Director Finance, Publicis Sapient
Sarah Toney is the Senior Director of Finance of Publicis Sapient, a digital business transformation company. They partner with global organizations to help them create and sustain competitive advantage in an increasingly digital world.
Toney has held multiple positions with Publicis Sapient since she started there in 2015 as a revenue manager. She was soon promoted to the North American lead of global revenue operations. She was appointed to her first director role in 2018 as the director of controllership and contracts to cash.
Toney was a member of the board of directors for 2020 Vision Quest, as well as the volunteer social media coordinator. Before joining Publicis Sapient, Toney was a senior financial analyst at RSA, The Security Division of EMC. Before that, she was an accounting manager at Aspen Technology. Earlier in her career, she worked with RentGrow, Inc. as a manager of processing services. Toney graduated from American Military University with an undergraduate degree in business administration and international business management.
Maryanne Starosa
Director, Finance Technology Programs, Healthfirst
Maryanne Starosa is the Director of Finance Technology Programs for Healthfirst. She has over 20 years of extensive experience with accounting rules, audit and compliance, financial reporting, analytics, and procedures, including the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). Starosa cultivates an environment of empowerment, accountability, innovation, inclusion, and diversity within her team through her servant leadership style.
Starosa is an enterprise thinker who leverages her experience and expertise to improve existing business processes within finance and related departments. Partnering with Healthfirst's Corporate Business IT Program, she drives technological innovation, building solutions to solve critical and business challenges, simplification, standardizing processes, and modernization with a holistic and strategic approach. She champions agile methodologies, including the use of appropriate technologies and leading behavior change by example to create empowered, client-centered teams, and solutions. Driving value-based delivery, she translates business strategies and needs into delivered solutions.
She served as Healthfirst’s President Advisory Council Assistant Chairman and Chairman from 2004-2006. She was also commissioned to co-chair the Women In Search for Excellence (WISE) Employee Resource Group (ERG) in 2023, where she grew membership by 263%. Starosa is also Co-chair for the Metro New York Regional User Group for Workday. Workday provides unified finance, human resources, and student/faculty lifecycle management cloud applications designed for the way people work in today’s organizations. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting.
Barbara Germaine Whitehorn-Elser
Director of Finance & Management Services, City of San Bernardino
Barbara Germaine Whitehorn-Elser is the Director of Finance and Management Services for the City of San Bernardino. She has a passion for public service that drives her to seek what others may perceive as problematic or uncertain opportunities, positions with high turnover, and challenging communities. Communities that have been underserved or have faced significant challenges in the past and need the most help. She believes that the role of a public servant is to provide the community they serve with the best service, to be a steward of assets, and to provide the highest level of transparency possible.
Whitehorn-Elser holds an MBA with concentrations in Finance, Accounting, and Operations Research from the University of Texas at Dallas and a BA in the history of art from Bryn Mawr College. Whitehorn-Elser has worked in tax, healthcare financial management, and the not-for-profit sector. She gained governmental experience serving as accounting manager and controller for the cities of Corinth and Arlington, Texas, before moving to Asheville, North Carolina, where she served as finance director and chief financial officer for seven years. In February 2021, she accepted her current role with the City of San Bernardino.
Whitehorn-Elser was born in Washington DC and grew up in beautiful Colorado Springs, Colorado, with a view of the Rockies and majestic Pikes Peak from her backyard. Never a fan of downhill skiing, she enjoyed the leisurely pace of cross-country skiing with her dad, a retired Air Force pilot and English professor at the Air Force Academy, who inspired her love of nature and continues to inspire her with his poetry and passion for life.
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Michelle Zhang
Investment Director, Crewcial Partners
Michelle Zhang is the Investment Director for Crewcial Partners. Born and raised in China, Zhang has always been deeply fascinated by the diverse cultures and histories of the world. This passion for global perspectives fueled her extensive reading and travel habits, eventually leading her to pursue higher education in the United States. Zhang graduated from Columbia University (specializing in International Economics and Politics) in 2013, when her career in Finance began.
Zhang’s journey led her to Crewcial Partners in late 2015, a New York-based investment consulting firm that offers OCIO (Outsourced Chief Investment Officer) and advisory services to endowments and foundations. Here, Zhang’s work aligns with her mission-driven ethos, particularly when it produces tangible benefits for society's most vulnerable. At Crewcial, Zhang’s role involves enhancing asset growth for endowments and foundations through her comprehensive expertise in fund manager selection and evaluation, utilizing her extensive network to identify new asset management talents, and applying a profound understanding of manager selection principles and practices. Zhang has also championed investment in previously overlooked areas by conducting thematic research, thereby enriching the investment portfolios with new countries, sectors, and asset classes. Zhang’s duties extend to managing the firm’s manager pipeline and roster, which entails sustaining relationships through regular communication, conducting onsite visits worldwide, and monitoring activities via formal quarterly reviews.
Living in the vibrant heart of midtown Manhattan with her husband and two daughters, Zhang’s passion for exploration continues to thrive, adding depth and richness to both her career and personal experiences. In her moments of leisure, Zhang and her husband cherish quality time with their young daughters, guiding them through a diverse array of activities that the city offers. Additionally, Zhang indulges in her love for opera, proud to be a long-standing member and patron of The Metropolitan Opera, where she immerse herself in the transcendent world of music and performance.
Veronica Reed
Director of Retirement Plans, DJM Financial
As Director of Retirement Plans for DJM Financial, Veronica Reed oversees the operations of qualified retirement planning for business owners and individual clients at DJM Financial, a top-rated financial service firm that focuses on retirement planning, insurance and investment strategies, estate planning, and executive/employee benefits.
With more than 20 years of experience in the financial services industry, Reed brings extensive knowledge and a unique skill set that enhances her ability to create holistic planning solutions, solve challenges, and provide guidance along the way. Proactive and dependable, Reed enjoys building long-lasting relationships with the firm’s clients and serving as a resource on retirement planning best practices.
Reed holds the California Life and Health Insurance license, Long-Term Care Insurance license, Series 6, 7, 63 securities licenses, and Retirement Income Certified Professional Designation. She studied business administration and marketing at California State University, Long Beach.
Christina Tran
Director of Finance and Project Management, Contender Development, Inc.
Christina Tran is the Director of Finance and Project Management for Contender Development, Inc., one of the Southeast's foremost development companies founded and headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina. Contender is a full-service land and community development company serving South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.
Before joining Contender, Tran spent seven years in wealth management and finance, where she provided holistic relationship management using portfolio analysis, financial forecasting, and a goals-based approach to ensure clients’ financial success. She started her career as a teller for Wells Fargo, and within a year, she was promoted to lead teller. Less than a year later, she was promoted again to personal banker. She ended her tenure there as a senior branch premier banker.
Tran attended Arizona State University, where she earned her undergraduate degree in international business and finance. Outside of the office, you can catch her hiking with her dog, reading a good history book, or at a cycle class.
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