“This didn’t exist when I was a young professional,” she said. “I had to figure it out on my own. I had very few women mentors.” So how did the wife and mother of two navigate the “boys club” and the aggressive, fast-paced, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. workday of Wall Street? A combination of early life experiences backed by an incredible family support system, she said.
Set Up to Succeed
Throughout her career, Doreen Mochrie ’85 blazed a path down Wall Street and continues to do so for those who hope to follow in her footsteps. She is passionate about supporting eager, yet disenfranchised, talent to have a chance to work on Wall Street. For example, she and her husband, Chris Tuohy ’81, a Wall Street veteran turned high school guidance counselor, donated $100,000 to the Student Investment Club at SUNY Oswego in 2015 so that Lakers could manage and invest real money before they graduate. “Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of Oswego graduates on Wall Street, and we thought it was important that graduates of Oswego at least have a level playing field,” she said. “We felt that we needed to contribute additional monies to the investment club, so that the kids who were interested in investing at Oswego would have the same experience that other kids from some of the private schools have. Then they’d at least have similar experiences when competing for those jobs.”
24
OSWEGO
l
SPRING 2020
EGO SW % 100
N GR★E★E ★ OR
IC
Earning Green
O
As the youngest of six (four minutes younger than her twin brother) in the small Adirondack town of Broadalbin, N.Y., Doreen pushed herself to compete with her older siblings in whatever the task—riding bikes, playing basketball or soccer, winning at board games.
GAN
As the only woman partner at the hedge funds where she worked, she is also acutely aware of the dramatic gender gap within asset management. In fact, fewer than one in five hedge fund professionals are women, and only 11 percent of senior level professionals are women, according to a 2019 report by online financial database Preqin. So she also carves out time to support young women who hope to enter or remain in finance and investment management careers. Doreen is an angel supporter of 100 Women in Finance and has served as the senior practitioner events contact for the organization, which is a global network of women professionals in the finance and alternative investment industries. She also serves on the advisory board for the not-for-profit, Girls Who Invest, which seeks to have 30 percent of the world’s capital invested by women by 2030. She co-founded a women’s networking group called #moretogo for senior women in the asset management business.
Her childhood was infused with friendly competition, voracious reading, academic accomplishments and extracurricular activities ranging from student government to theatre to three varsity sports to national honor society. Most of all, she said her childhood was filled with love, laughter and an instilled, unwavering commitment to what was important in life—her family. She credits her parents and particularly her father, Kenneth, a World War II Purple Heart Navy veteran who worked 30 years for the U.S. Postal Service, for keeping her centered. “He loved openly and easily his entire family,” she said. “He did not leave a conversation without telling you how proud he was of you and how much he loved you. So I try to do that for my kids because it gives you a sense that when you fail that—well, what did you really fail at? You still have everything that’s most important in life—your family. He was also all about the simple things in life— just sharing a meal with somebody, taking the time to spend time with your family and to laugh. Those are the things I try to bring into my house and into my family.” Working with a strong moral compass provided the clarity she needed to pursue clients as an investor relations executive at some of the top hedge funds in the world. “Wall Street doesn’t always attract the best-intentioned people,” she said. “You want to find and work for the people with the highest levels of integrity. That’s
