For Emily Sax Bender, Mentorship Means So Much

When the COVID-19 pandemic forced the world into isolation in 2020, Financial Advisors were no exception. Rather than retreat, Emily Sax Bender, CFA, a Portfolio Management Director and a Financial Advisor with The Pelican Bay Group at Morgan Stanley, stepped forward to launch a mentoring program for women in the New York Metro region.

Called FAME, an acronym for Female–Active–Mentoring–Engagement, the mentoring program was born from another advocacy, mentoring and business development program for Morgan Stanley female Financial Advisors in the Northeast known as WIW: LIFT (Ladies In Finance Together). Emily is WIW: LIFT’s current president and last year was its vice president. She co-chairs FAME with fellow Financial Advisor Chelsea Bernstein.

“FAME focuses on building two-way, mutually beneficial relationships for long-term career movement,” she explains, where the mentor (a senior advisor, male or female), focuses on developing the mentee (early in her career), and the mentee provides fresh, new perspectives to the mentor. Previously, no official mentoring program existed in the region, and she and Chelsea were determined to get it done—and done right. “We are two driven people who said yes to an opportunity!”

Building the program from the ground up, their work was intensive, from the nomination and pairing processes to building out the program structure and goals. Nonetheless, the detail and effort they put into FAME resulted in 24 pairs of mentors and mentees in its first year, creating a mentoring blueprint to be used for years to come. Now in its fourth year, FAME can be credited with about 80 mentoring relationships. “We’re so proud of what it’s become,” beams Emily. “Creating the program has been one of the most rewarding opportunities at Morgan Stanley.”

It's also one of the many reasons why Emily has been named a Morgan Stanley MAKER, joining a community of advocates, innovators and groundbreakers for women’s advancement, all nominated by their peers.

MENTORSHIP MATTERS

Mentorship has been crucial to her career, just as it is for every career, Emily insists. “Mentors will give you unbiased, unfiltered advice. I’ve been fortunate to have many mentors who gave me that thoughtful and honest guidance.”

Among them are her late parents, two thriving entrepreneurs who “taught me to approach life with a positive outlook.” Her dad was in commercial real estate, and her mom, Ronnie Lapinsky Sax, was a Financial Advisor for over 40 years. “I joke that both worked eight-day work weeks, 20 hours a day,” Emily laughs. “But they really instilled in me that self-reward comes with hard work and dedication.”

Emily remembers discussing stocks with her mother at a young age, learning the basics of finance from her, and later realizing that the Roth IRA her mother had set up for Emily had accumulated a higher balance than her personal savings account. “I’m so thankful she helped me get started saving so young—something I pass on to my clients and their kids,” says Emily.

As a high-school senior, Emily got a summer internship at Smith Barney (a predecessor firm of Morgan Stanley), where her mom worked. That’s when she fell “in love with the corporate setting.” As a Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs student, she continued to work at Smith Barney during her summers, living at home with her two siblings in Potomac, Md. During the summer of her junior year, she interned in New York City at NBC Universal, which GE owned at the time. That experience helped her land a job after graduation in corporate finance at GE Capital as a rotational analyst.

Many assume that working at Morgan Stanley was a natural progression for Emily, given her mother’s path, but she calls accepting a sales position at the firm a “left turn.” At the same time, as an “insurance policy in case I didn’t stay on as a Financial Advisor,” she started working on earning her Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.

AN ENTREPRENEUR AND TEAM PLAYER

Today, after 11 years of being an advisor, she can’t picture herself doing anything else. In contrast to her mom, who was a solo practitioner, Emily is part of a 35-person team that manages more than $4 billion in assets. “I bring our clients a team approach with team expertise and team opportunity,” she says. “We make sure they have a plan for what they want their wealth to do for them, their families and the legacy they want to leave.”

In addition to colleagues, Emily finds inspiration in her two sons. She and her husband are raising them in Larchmont, N.Y., where she gives back to the community. Emily is president of Larchmont Friends of the Family, a volunteer organization that supports neighbors with dependent children facing a medical crisis or loss. She also sits on the Anita M. Perlman Women’s Leadership Initiative Advisory Council of the BBYO, the global Jewish teen movement. She still finds time to cook, read and run—proud to have participated in the New York City Marathon.

Reflecting on motherhood, Emily embraces how her boys “are so pure, kind and genuine. They remind me to be softer, patient and open to new ideas.”