Executive coaching for women in finance
You’ve done everything right.
So why has the next step stalled?
Many accomplished women in finance reach a point where working harder stops working.
I’m Valentina Savelyeva. I work with women in investment banking, private equity, asset management, and corporate finance to find the hidden patterns underneath the stall.
Began my career as an investment banker at JPMorgan
Nearly 10 years at Training The Street, teaching 5,000+ finance professionals
Coaching one-to-one since 2016
Free. 30 minutes. No pitch. If I’m not the right person to help, I’ll tell you.
What the work is
What does an executive coach for women in finance actually do?
Most of the women I work with already know the playbook. They’ve said yes to the extra deal, flown out for the client dinner, and carried the client relationship between meetings.
Sometimes what stalls them is something external, yet often, it can be quieter behavior and internal patterns:
Staying quieter in meetings when someone more senior is present and waiting for them to lead
Feeling stressed about not matching up to her peers
Trying to prove her worth through nonstop output and more hours
Not sure how to advocate for yourself so that someone takes on your case when you’re ready for the next level
Downplaying how much your personal and family life requires of you not to hurt your comp
We start with strategy and behavior and only look under the hood when something blocks a specific goal, like a promotion, getting credit for more deals you bring in, or more protected time with family, among many others.
THE INVISIBLE CEILING
I call the set of patterns that hold accomplished women in place the Invisible Ceiling.
five levels working together
01
behavior
What you do and what you hold back from doing
02
body
The stress that you carry and how your body handles difficult situations at work.
03
mind
How you talk to yourself before, during and after
04
emotions
What you’ve learned to hold in at work and how much it’s costing you
05
unconscious
Old rules that still run the show long after they stopped helping
why finance is different
Your number is decided in a room you’re not in.
Finance rewards a particular kind of excellence early on. The models, the numbers and the late nights are how you break in, and the women who rise are usually brilliant at them. Analysts and Associates already go through 360 reviews and get placed in buckets, but nearly everyone judging them is more senior and is watching for the same thing: whether the work is right, and whether it is fast. Then, somewhere between senior Associate and VP, the scorecard quietly widens.
At VP and Director, the process looks the same on paper, with the 360s, the year-end roundtable and the bucket, but what gets judged has changed. Fewer of the people in that room see your work up close, and more of them are forming a view from meetings, client calls and who spoke up for you. By the time review season starts, the story about you has mostly been written, in a room you are not in. At MD, the rules change altogether. You are measured on the deals and revenue credited to your name, and the quiet question becomes whose name goes on the business you helped bring in.
During my time in the field as an analyst and later as a trainer, and even more in my years of coaching, I watched Associates get promoted to VP and discover how much of the new job was relationship building, communication, presenting well and reading the room. The more senior you get, the less of a report card you get, so it is hard to tell whether you are doing brilliantly or falling behind until comp day, and comparing yourself to peers only makes it muddier.
I know what a pitch book at two in the morning feels like, and why a forty-minute coffee with someone senior can carry more weight than a month of flawless work. You won't need to explain the industry to me. Politics and timing may well play a part in where you are, and we take them seriously. We also look for the part you can change: how you are seen in the months before that room meets, who will put your name forward and argue for it when you are not there, and how clearly you have told them what you want.
WHO this is for
You may be hitting an old pattern if one of these sounds familiar.
You are ready for the next title, but it keeps slipping away.
You were promoted, but still feel like you don’t fully belong.
Your career is stalling, and you start thinking that something may be wrong with your job, when it’s an old pattern showing up.
