Work Wisdom: Maggie Abeles ’17

By Peter Gartrell ’05

Growing up abroad with parents working in finance, Maggie Abeles ’17 arrived at Macalester expecting to major in political science and enter the Peace Corps: “After sixteen years living across Japan and Singapore, pursuing a job on Wall Street was the last thing I thought I would do.” Those plans changed after taking her first economics class. “The raw passion I ended up feeling for economics really took me off guard,” Abeles says. “I attribute a lot of that to my professors and the way they approached subjects that I grew up doubting my capacity to learn and enjoy.” Later, a junior-year internship at the investment bank Piper Sandler & Co. (previously, Piper Jaffray & Co.) cemented her path. Abeles returned to Piper after graduating, moved to a private equity fund, and today is a vice president at NewBound Ventures, an investment firm founded by an early-career mentor. At NewBound, Abeles leads the firm’s Beauty and Personal Care investment sector, among other roles. “My role encompasses the responsibilities of an investor, operations specialist, and a chief digital officer,” she says. In a male-dominated profession, Abeles credits fostering—and maintaining—supportive mentors for her success. Now living in Chicago with her husband, Danny Halloran ’16, Abeles supports entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds through her work at NewBound, as well a angel investments and advisory work, and uses her expertise to open doors for people of underrepresented identities who are traditionally locked out of the finance industry. Here is some of what she’s learned in her career journey.

Find mentors…

The best advice that I can give is to find people you can be vulnerable with and to continually build your relationship with them throughout your career. Regardless of your environment, lean into people who appreciate what makes you, you.

…and nurture them.

Something that has served me well is to seek out people that invested in me personally—and it takes years to build those relationships. My partner at NewBound was my first boss and we weren’t necessarily close back then. He was head of the group and difficult for me to access as a young junior banker. We had a couple of projects where we spent personal time together, and I remember being purposeful about trying to get to know him. It built the foundation for a relationship that eventually became a strong partnership through our work together at NewBound.

Invest in yourself.

Find small ways to invest in yourself. Remember that you are more than your job, and you deserve to dedicate time to your personhood as well as to your career. Sometimes it’s easier than others—and I did not always feel this way—but I’ve continued to build that muscle throughout my career.

Take a walk.

After I sign off from work every Friday, my favorite thing to do is to go on a long walk before I start my weekend. It gives me time to digest the week. Not just the work I did, but how I did. Did I have the opportunity to teach somebody something? How does what I learned impact my next moves? Taking that time to take stock and leave the week with that in perspective has been transformative.

Follow the plot.

The best life advice I’ve received is to “remember the plot.” Stanford University professor Deborah Gruenfeld talks about this in her book, Acting With Power: Why We Are More Powerful Than We Believe. I’ve had other people frame this in different ways, but basically it means to be self-reflective, take stock of everything going on around you, and remember the context of the role that you’re playing in the broader theater of life. Doing this has helped me better understand where other people are coming from, to find a lot more common ground, and, over time, build significantly more empathetic partnerships.

Trust your gut.

Most of the bad work advice I’ve received boils down to this idea of “play it safe” or “stick to the script.” I say, never forget that no one knows you as well as YOU—trust your gut, take the leap.