Fixed income, evolving career: Perryne D.’s journey at Vanguard

I began my career as a fixed income sales support analyst at a small Wall Street bank during the tail end of the financial crisis. After a few years, I moved to selling equity risk models to hedge funds—all the while thinking I’d like a spot on the other side of the table, managing money.

I went to business school with the goal of moving into investment management, and after graduation, joined Vanguard through its MBA Rotational program. My goal was to land in our Investment Management division and ultimately become a portfolio manager—but life had other plans.

Paving a path in product development

I was fortunate that a few senior leaders took an interest in me, and suggested I explore a division I had never heard of before: The Portfolio Review Department (PRD). I assumed I’d learn some valuable skills in five months and move closer to my goal, but instead, I fell in love with the work.

In this role, your job is to work alongside portfolio managers, sales, legal, tax, and operations to develop products. You drive the debate (which my inner high school debater was delighted about), articulate the rationale, and deliver the final product to senior staff. I was a generalist researcher—I could work on equities, fixed income, alternative assets, etc.

After roughly a year and a half, I knew I wanted to develop my leadership skills. I took the opportunity to help develop junior crew into senior roles, all while staying close to the product development life cycle. It was exciting to mentor future peers and deepen my knowledge across multiple asset classes. During this time, I also welcomed two children, and Vanguard and my leadership team supported me as my home life evolved.

Finding her way back to fixed income  

I believed my new career path would lead me to become the head of this team one day. However, sometimes life takes unexpected turns—the Product Development team was asked to focus on various asset classes.

I chose to harness my skills as a product developer, to be a part of the organization that was beginning to expand. Vanguard, already overseeing about $2 trillion in fixed income assets, had a wealth of opportunities to create new offerings for clients seeking things like active ETFs or municipal index ETFs. I was also excited to come back to fixed income and continue to deepen my technical expertise.

In my new role as the Head of Fixed Income Product Development, we rode the wave of emerging trends, like active fixed income exchange-traded funds (ETFs). We had to tackle new ways to deliver the same high-quality outcomes in a different vehicle, and determine what changes across the team, technology, or processes, were needed to get there. After two years, I moved to a new role as the Head of Index Fixed Income Product, where my team is directly responsible for three things:

1. We are the voice of our portfolio managers and engage directly with clients.
2. We ensure our lineup is best-in-class by monitoring and engaging in changes to our products to meet clients’ evolving needs.
3. We remain tightly aligned to product development, acting as the voice of our clients when shaping our products.

I’m incredibly fortunate to have a talented team who report to me, and our stakeholders in fixed income are some of the best talent in this business. My team and our stakeholders have a meaningful impact on our end clients every day as we respond to changing dynamics in the markets, evolve our lineup, and help clients meet their investment goals. This dynamism in your day ensures we never get bored!

Embracing constant change

My experience has been anything but linear, and I think that’s OK. My best advice is to learn as much as you can in the roles you have access to, because you never know when new opportunities might arise that can leverage those skill sets.

Vanguard may be 50 years old, but it’s constantly changing and evolving to better serve our clients. Being open to change can unlock opportunities for career growth and development.

-Perryne D.

Explore available roles in fixed income.