Sylvia Kwan

The New CEO Helping Women Build Wealth

When Sylvia Kwan took on the CEO role at the investment platform Ellevest this year, it was a big job in more ways than one. Not only would she continue to serve as Chief Investment Officer, but she was also stepping into the shoes of Sallie Krawcheck, the Wall Street titan who co-founded Ellevest to help women build and manage wealth. Kwan’s previous experience has helped her nimbly manage the tricky transition: As founding member of the investments team at Financial Engines, she developed scalable, robust investment processes to manage more than $14 billion in assets for 200,000+ client accounts. As CEO, her top priority has been working with the Ellevest board on the company’s strategy moving forward, which includes transitioning its digital investing business to Betterment so the company can focus on its growing wealth management and financial planning businesses. The strategy is paying off: Today, Ellevest wealth management is managing $1.1 billion in investment assets, with revenue up 33% year-over-year.

By Audrey Goodson Kingo