Looking at an old family photo reminded Michelle Black of when she first became interested in finance.
Her father, an engineer, is sitting in an easy chair reading The Wall Street Journal with a very young Michelle looking on.
“The best way to learn is by reading,” Black recalled her father saying, including prospectuses. Black paid careful attention to finance as an undergraduate business major at the University of Southern California.
At first, she thought about a career in marketing or financial public relations but shifted her focus, becoming an investment-planning analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. before starting a 21-year career at Capital Group, which had more than $2.7 trillion in assets under management as of June 30.
She started in wealth management, and she is currently principal investment officer of Capital Group’s American Funds Target Date Retirement Series and chair of Capital Group’s target-date solutions committee.
Black said she has benefited from an assortment of mentors whose advice went well beyond the mechanics of finance. When she started at Capital Group, one person reminded her “we are running a marathon — not a sprint.”
Another counseled her to “always have a plan,” adding that “how you get there is just as important as what you get.”
Black said her themes for mentoring include how to work with others, how to communicate and the importance of knowing one’s audience. She puts theory into practice as a founding member of the Capital Solutions Group/Capital Strategy Research/DEI committee.
Her father’s advice about reading paid off outside of work, too.
A few years ago, Black was reading about dinosaurs to her twin boys, a favorite topic of theirs. She accompanied them on a visit to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, home of the LaBrea Tar Pits.
She was recommended to join the museum’s board of trustees, where she is a member of the investment committee, which manages the endowment and retirement plan. “It was a natural place to gravitate,” she said.