Fixed income is at the center of the economy, and Amanda Deckelman sees her job as crucial to the market's functioning.
"How the government funds itself through the Treasury market is critical to how people live," she said. It's one part of how central Wall Street is to the American economy: "People's retirement savings, pensions — it's at the heart of where everyone's savings and wealth originates."
Deckelman has been at the same firm for her entire career. She interned at Merrill Lynch while a college student at the University of Notre Dame, where she studied economics. She joined the firm in 2007 on the repo trading desk in New York City, just in time for the global financial crisis to rattle the fixed income markets.
"I had a front seat to a lot of interesting things that were going on in the market," she said of that period, when Merrill Lynch teetered and Bank of America acquired it. Like many bankers who started on Wall Street in the same era, she learned early how to manage risk: "We all carry it with us."
Today, Deckelman is a managing director running the global front-end financing and short-term interest rate desk, known as STIR. She oversees 34 people with responsibility for sales around the world.
This year, Deckelman's team is working through the looming regulatory deadline for the repo market to move to mandatory clearing, which will stretch into 2026. "It's a large undertaking. We'll be ready day one for that regulation for our clients," she said. "Market structure changes inevitably have impact, and being finely tuned to the details and in the weeds is always how I've approached that kind of thing."
During her years at Bank of America, "there's been this continued elevation of women at work," she said, noting her own manager, Laura Chepucavage, "a really high performing female executive" who is head of global financing and futures.
Deckelman now lives with her husband and two young children in the Chicago area, where she grew up and later returned in 2012 for a sales position. She said she's glad she chose a career where "no two days are the same" and where she can continue to learn.
"This job is something that, if you're passionate and own the opportunity set, it's entrepreneurial, and you can make an impact early in your career if you come to work ready to succeed and deliver," she said. "No matter your age or where you went to undergrad, you can have an opportunity to do well."
