Andrea Lisher has had an extraordinarily successful career in asset management, but she didn’t come to the finance industry willingly.
Ms. Lisher said she “begrudgingly” double majored in business at Boston College because her father — an Italian immigrant who “came from the most humble of beginnings” — insisted upon it.
Her father worked in investments after putting himself through Brooklyn College, and saved up enough money to send all three of his children to college debt-free, with one major caveat: They had to major in business.
“He said, ‘I don’t care, you can double major in theater, you can double major in philosophy. I don’t care,” Ms. Lisher recalled. “I think it was because he came from so little.”
She also majored in marketing.
Now a New-York based managing director at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, where she leads the client-facing business for the Americas, Ms. Lisher plans to follow in her father’s footsteps by encouraging her children to take business classes when they enter college.
“I’m not going to be as strict,” Ms. Lisher said. “I mean, my father was militant — like, yes or no, you can go and pay your own way and do work study and everything else or you can study business.”
In addition to studying business, Ms. Lisher wants her children to take psychology classes — something she feels will be equally helpful in their future endeavors.
“I think so much in businesses is psychology, so much in life is psychology, and understanding how people think — developing your EQ — is frankly as important, if not more important, in life and in business than it is to understand how to build financial models,” Ms. Lisher said.
Ms. Lisher is also devoted to uplifting other women in the asset management industry, serving as the executive sponsor for the Asset & Wealth Management Women on the Move employee network, which creates learning and networking opportunities for women. She also launched the Women’s Travel Pairing Program, connecting junior women with client advisers to get a glimpse into life on the road and foster mentorships, according to her nomination.
JPMAM has $2.5 trillion in assets under management.
