MAKER Julie Shechtman’s Unapologetic Ambition

As a little girl, Julie Mamett Shechtman was the CEO and sole entrepreneur of her neighborhood’s lemonade stand and sold the most Girl Scout cookies each year in her hometown of Morton Grove, Ill., a Chicago suburb. Her natural decision to pursue a degree in business would kickstart her career in a once unimaginable way.

Accepted into the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious Wharton School, this “middle-class Midwestern kid in her flannel shirts and jeans” left town to study finance and accounting among a more sophisticated crowd of students from around the world. “I felt like a fish out of water, but I met people from many different backgrounds and experiences,” says Julie. 

Julie grew up as an only child, hailing from a family of ever-present grandparents. Her mom’s dad was “a major influence” and her “biggest inspiration.” “He never had the opportunity to go to college and worked in his family's auto parts business seven days a week to support my grandmother and my mother,” says Julie. “He introduced me to business and the stock market and paid for my college.”

So proud of her was he that he carried her resume around in his wallet and “showed me off” enthusiastically to people around town when he brought her up in conversation. It reflected not only her UPenn degree but her Harvard MBA and stints at prestigious Wall Street firms. Today, he’d be proud to see a new accolade, with Julie being named a Morgan Stanley MAKER, Class of 2024, joining a community of advocates, innovators and groundbreakers for women’s advancement, all nominated by their peers.

Julie worked in investment banking and institutional equities for 10 years, balancing her job as a mom to two children. When she became pregnant again, this time with twins, she took a career break for eight and a half years. “It’s not how I ever envisioned my life, but it was the right thing to do,” says Julie.

With four kids under four, Julie’s work off Wall Street was similarly intense. She was elected to the school board, where she managed a large budget, and founded a local charity called Friends of Youth Services, which supports youth mental health counseling and where she continues to volunteer today. Still, she longed for more. “I would look at the diplomas on the wall, think about how good I was at my job and then look at this pile of laundry,” laughs Julie. “I knew there was a higher and better use for me.”

WALL STREET COMEBACK

The very same day the kids—aged 7, 7, 9 and 11—returned to school in January 2010 after a long holiday break, Julie dusted off her resume and dove into a job search. She interviewed at Morgan Stanley to become a Financial Advisor and a week later had a job.

“I ended up where I was meant to be,” she says of a role that would offer her countless opportunities, but not before starting at the bottom again. She sees it as “the best job in the world” and continues to push to be the best Financial Advisor she can possibly be. “I leaned way in from the beginning to prove to everybody that not only was I going to be successful, but I’d become the number-one advisor in the area,” says Julie. “They figured out quickly that I wasn’t messing around.”

UNAPOLOGETIC AMBITION

Sure enough, in a short period, she built the biggest business in her complex, made Managing Director in 2022 and earned many designations and accolades, including recognition on the following lists for 2024: Forbes’ Best in State Wealth Management Teams, Best in State Wealth Advisors, Top Women Wealth Advisors and Top Women Wealth Advisors Best in State. She’s also a member of Morgan Stanley’s prestigious President’s Club.

While ambitiously advancing in her career as a working parent, she found others who didn’t understand her choices. She remembers one critical mother from her neighborhood asking, “Why did you have kids if you didn’t want to be with them?” Taken aback, Julie retorted: “Your family is always happier when you are living your best life.”

By choosing to go back to work, even if she didn’t yet realize it, Julie was becoming a role model to her children. “They saw me studying for different exams and working with clients on nights and weekends while they were doing homework next to me. I think it sunk in that they could do this too.” Each of them graduated from the University of Michigan and has worked in finance and real estate at different Wall Street firms.

If she could go back in time and tell her younger self one thing, it would be that “the kids are going to be better than okay.” She now knows her parenting approach has given the gifts of resilience and independence to her kids, who express gratitude for letting them figure things out on their own and build confidence to do extraordinary things.

She’s thankful for Bradley, her husband of 27 years, who supported her every decision, knowing that “being my authentic, unabashedly ambitious self is the right thing for our family.” 

NURTURING THE NEXT GENERATION

Today, Julie loves being a role model and mentor. “My philosophy in life is to get to the right room and then try and bring as many people as possible up into that room with you,” she says. In fact, she feels “mentoring is the most important thing we can do as we get older in the workforce. There's what you learn in school, and then there’s the real world. Mentorship is both demonstrating how to do the work and then taking the extra time to explain the whys behind it.”

At Morgan Stanley, “we have an amazing network of senior women who support one another,” says Julie. “We drop everything to help each other, personally or professionally. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen at any other firm.”

At The Shechtman Group at Morgan Stanley, Julie leads a strong team that leverages younger professionals, including partner Reed Griffiths and four client service associates. At least once a day, Julie says to her team, “We can do hard things.” Her confidence and drive inspire them. “I don't have imposter syndrome, and I’m very confident in my ability to put myself out there, take a risk and get the job done,” says Julie. “That’s allowed me to rise much more quickly than if I had played it safe.”

As for what’s next, Julie says, “There’s always another carrot to chase. And at my age, I'm still chasing carrots.”