Four careers, one company: My 28-year odyssey at Vanguard

I’m not sure exactly what led my parents to invest with Vanguard, I just remember the gray envelopes with the red ship coming regularly to our home while I was growing up.

As a lifelong pianist and vocalist, I thought I would become a music teacher after college. However, my plans changed, and during my junior year, I changed my major from music education to business, with a concentration in finance. I decided that I could always perform without a degree in music, but if I wanted to work in business, a degree was necessary.

After graduation, I applied to Vanguard because I wanted a job in finance. Here, my interests aligned with clients. However, I suspect HR didn’t know what to do with the resume of a newly minted college graduate whose professional experience highlights included producing a full-scale musical.

They sent me one of those canned rejection letters that read, “You don’t match any current openings, but we will keep your resume on file.”

Building a foundation in finance

Undeterred, I sought help from my parents. My father had a friend who was head of Vanguard’s Public Relations, and my mother had a neighbor who was a former crew member from Fund Financial Services (FFS). A principal in FFS passed my resume to the leaders hiring new fund accountants. I was invited to an interview and I started as a Fund Financial Associate in July 1997.

Over the next seven years, I progressed from associate to manager, and built expertise starting with domestic equity funds, then fixed income, and finally international.

One of the most memorable experiences of this time was learning all about Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) just two years after they were created. I remember working with the Bureau of Public Debt and our accounting system provider to develop a module that would allow us to properly account for them. I’m still considered a TIPS expert to this day!

However, Fund Accounting wasn’t where I wanted to stay for the rest of my career. I had started to pursue my CFA designation and wanted a more investment-focused role. If I’d worked at a different company, I likely would have had to leave to make the shift from accounting to investments—but that’s not the case at Vanguard.

I reached out to leaders in the Portfolio Review Department, which is responsible for all things product related. From there, I was eventually hired in 2004, leading a team of analysts before leading confidential projects in the Product Strategy team.

Changing course into investments

I learned so much as a project manager. It was exciting to play a role in ensuring the success of new fund launches, changes to existing products, and to be an insider for highly confidential changes. For example, when I worked on then-CEO Jack Brennan’s retirement announcement, and even my boss wasn’t allowed to know! But after five years in that role, I felt like I had started to hit my ceiling for growth. And I love to learn.

Just as I began doing research on roles that might be a good next fit, I learned that there was an opening on the team that did investment manager search, selection, and oversight for Vanguard. This small and unique team had a range of responsibilities and was the most investment-focused role I’d considered yet.

I jumped at the opportunity and spent the next decade covering a diverse range of Vanguard funds and managers, across fixed income, domestic growth, and international/global value. It was one of the most unique roles of my career. I regularly got the opportunity to present to Vanguard’s global investment committee, the Vanguard Board of Directors, and even foreign regulators in Canada, the U.K., and Ireland.

New horizons as a Senior Portfolio Specialist

Following COVID, I had the opportunity to shift my focus again with a choice to move to a more client-facing role in either our Workplace Solutions division, or Financial Advisor Services division (FAS). I chose FAS, believing that my deep knowledge of our active fund range would allow me to have a bigger impact there, and currently work as a Senior Portfolio Specialist.

In this role, I essentially work as a consultant for financial advisors who don’t work for Vanguard, providing market commentary, product insights, and portfolio construction best practices. It’s been such a refreshing change after so many years focused internally. I enjoy working closely with clients and interacting with them every day.

I also love the impact I have in line with Vanguard’s mission. By helping financial advisors do their jobs better, I am indirectly supporting our 40 million clients who invest through financial advisors to improve their chances of reaching their investment goals.

Reflecting on 28 years

When I first started out, I never imagined I’d spend 28 years at the same company. Heck, Vanguard almost didn’t even let me in the door to interview! But looking back, I am so grateful that I did.

I’ve had the opportunity to grow and learn in so many different ways, and every time I thought I’d hit the ceiling or needed a change, there was a path to another role that allowed me to grow in a different direction.

Reflecting on my journey, I appreciate the openness of my supervisors and managers—who not only let me change roles, but actively encouraged and enabled those changes. That ideology is one of the special things about Vanguard. In every role where I managed crew, I’ve tried to pay that forward.

-Liz M.

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