PBN 2023 Business Women Awards
FINANCIAL SERVICES WOMAN TO WATCH: Elizabeth Desautel | JPMorgan Chase & Co. vice president
WHEN IT COMES TO HELPING clients grow and manage assets of $10 million or more, one investment banker boils it down to faith.
Elizabeth Desautel doesn’t mean she leaves financial success to happenstance. She’s talking about how good manners, strong morals and contagious motivation can make more dollars and sense with multi-millionaires and their portfolios.
“It goes back to how you treat people,” the Boston-based JPMorgan Chase & Co. vice president said. “Meeting them with kindness; trying to be as effective as possible, continuously learning, being surrounded by great people, being in my community and being of value in my community by volunteering and giving of myself.
“I lean on my faith,” she said.
The Narragansett native admits her younger self didn’t share that perspective when her parents enrolled her in the all-girls St. Mary Academy – Bay View in East Providence.
“I went kicking and screaming,” she said, reflecting on that period as a time that “righted my path.”
From there, Desautel earned her bachelor’s degree in finance and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Rhode Island. She also secured credentials as a certified financial professional.
Before joining JPMorgan in 2019, Desautel had served as equity analyst and managed portfolios for a full book of clients at America’s second-largest bank and worked as senior portfolio manager for a Fortune 100 private-wealth-management company.
At JPMorgan – which has a Providence office – Desautel offers “high-touch” concierge-style banking to a select group of fewer than 50 clients: planning “across the balance sheet,” including estate and tax planning, banking and credit, and lending and investing.
“I’m taking on the role of investor and adviser,” she said. “I’m wearing a few different hats for each and every client.”
Desautel, who completed JPMorgan’s 12-month executive leadership and mentoring-program for vice presidents in mid-May, embraces volunteer work, her charitable focus often helping women. A past Bay View board member, Desautel sits on its finance committee and serves on URI’s Women’s Leadership Council.
Last year, Desautel helped the Greater Newport Chamber of Commerce host a Women in Business event. In March, she discussed “The Power of Partnerships: Strategy and Success” as a Bryant University Women’s Summit panelist.
