REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION
REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION
September 9, 2024
Chavon Sutton
Senior Investment Director, Sustainable
and Impact Investing Research, Cambridge Associates
Growing up, Chavon Sutton said she “wanted to be 18 different things.” A doctor. A singer. She played varsity lacrosse and field hockey. She ran track. She studied journalism. She’s a classically trained soprano.
So how did she end up as a senior investment director at Cambridge Associates with a 15 year career in finance?
“I like to tell people that my career hasn't been a straight line, but the right thread,” Sutton said. “And I didn't
grow up thinking that I was going to be in finance. I didn't have people close to me or in my family who were investment bankers or anything of the sort. But I was keenly aware of money moving things and making a difference in people's lives and in communities. And
so I grew to want to understand how money was made, how it was kept and how wealth was transferred from
generation to generation.”
While an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, Sutton said her college adviser “told me that I can still help people without being pre-med,” and so she studied economics. After starting her career as
a credit analyst, Sutton gravitated toward investment management because she saw how she could apply
her knowledge of how markets work toward helping people.
In addition to getting her MBA at New York University, Sutton also studied journalism there and wrote about finance for such outlets as Forbes and Reuters because she said she wanted written and verbal communication “to be my superpower.”
“I really wanted to be known as a person who can take really complex ideas and explain them in plain English,” she said. “And what I found is that through my career, having that skill set and being very straightforward and speaking plain English really builds trust with people and builds trust with clients and has been really additive to my career.”
Cambridge Associates had $582 billion in assets under advisement and $78 billion in assets under management as of March 31.
— ERIN CHAN DING
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