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Samantha Trebesch

Senior vice president and head of sustainable investing, private client group, Raymond James

As a teacher, Samantha Trebesch learned a life-changing lesson: With an education in financial literacy, people can change the world.

She was living in Hanoi, Vietnam, teaching high school math and computer science at the United Nations International School, when she realized her students lacked the basics in money management. She founded a microfinance organization to teach them, while also positively affecting Vietnamese women farmers. It planted a seed in her, too. “I wanted to make a larger impact, a scalable impact,” she says.

So Trebesch earned her MBA from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and then began working at Raymond James, first as assistant to the chairman, then as vice president of strategy and planning for the private client group, where she co-founded and chairs the Sustainable Investing Advisory Council. She loves working with advisers and their clients to make a difference. “We have the opportunity to help these clients be part of the change that they wish to see in the world,” she said.

Trebesch, 36, also prioritizes making positive, lasting changes within the company, supporting women through her work as national co-chair of the Women’s Inclusion Network.

“I am passionate about the need for diversity in our industry,” she says, “and ensuring that our associates and our advisers are as diverse as the clients that we serve.”

— Kate Silver