Grace has spent her entire career at the intersection of financial services and technology. She began as an Investment Banking Analyst at Evercore in their Technology Mergers & Acquisitions Group, where she worked on a variety of sell-side and buy-side transactions across Software, Industrial Technology and Tech Enabled Services. Upon realizing that she was most excited to work with younger, faster growing companies, Grace joined Brighton Park Capital, a late-stage growth equity firm focused on B2B Software, working as an Associate with the investment team. At Brighton Park, she was responsible for sourcing new opportunities, executing deals, and supporting the portfolio. After two years at Brighton Park, Grace transitioned to Edison Partners, a Princeton, NJ-based growth equity firm focused on an even earlier stage in a company’s lifecycle. The 37-year-old firm is currently investing out of its 10th fund, which is $450M, and has a strong track record of scaling B2C/B2B businesses across software, fintech, and healthcare. The firm is largely focused on underserved markets and is often the first institutional or largest shareholder at the time of investment. Edison Partners supports its portfolio companies with comprehensive operational support through its robust value creation platform, the Edison Edge.
Grace's focus at Edison is on evaluating and executing investments in Software, Fintech, and Healthcare IT, as well as new investment origination and existing portfolio company support. Over a third of all of Edison’s investments are in fintech; this includes one of Grace's portfolio companies – K1X. K1X is a SaaS financial technology platform offering the first-ever, all digital K-1 experience for capital markets.
Grace is eager to see how the next generation of fintech companies enable cross-border commerce. International trade is quite complex, dealing with currency conversions, taxes, and tariffs. She’s excited about platforms that simplify these challenges for merchants and retailers, facilitating commerce globally.
More on Grace
Where you currently live: New York
Favorite hobby: Trying new restaurants and wine bars with friends. New York has an amazing food scene. Every week it seems like there’s a new cool restaurant to try.
Favorite show to binge: Grey’s Anatomy (The 14 year old me thought I wanted to be a surgeon…turns out I get light headed at the sight of blood).
What is one piece of advice someone told you that resonated with you that can give to other women in FinTech?
If someone you don’t know is brought up in a conversation, don’t be bashful to ask for an intro. You will always be pleasantly surprised by what you can learn by meeting new people.
Can you tell us about a time someone encouraged you to try a task or take on a project you didn’t think that you would know how to do/or be good at?
I can credit my entry into financial services to a mentor of mine from college. Freshman year I thought “i-banking” stood for “internet banking” until this mentor of mine who had just finished his junior year internship at Goldman sat me down to teach me about investment banking. I was fascinated by what he told me and excited about the challenge, but also genuinely nervous I was starting from behind and had a lot to do to catch up. Sitting here nine years later I’m so grateful he pushed me to pursue a career in financial services and start my career in investment banking.
What is the most important lesson you have learned from a mistake you’ve made in the past?
One of the hardest things I’ve learned as an adult is the importance of self-advocacy. While I believe merit is still important, unlike in school where everyone is taking the same tests, in the real world there isn’t anyone keeping tally on your behalf of what you’re doing at work and how you're contributing. If you’re not advocating for yourself, how can you expect others to do the same?
Do you have any productivity hacks? What keeps you motivated? How do you maintain a work/life balance?
Dex is a game changer for personal relationship management. I genuinely love what I do. Spending my day meeting new people and helping founders/management teams think about how to scale their businesses is exhilarating. It makes me wake up every day excited for work. I think work/life balance implies one is taking away from the other. Work and my personal life give me energy for different reasons and have blended to be one. I’ve made some of my closest friends through work, and people in my personal life inspire what I do for work each and every day. There’s no separating the two.