Group Vice President, Head of Investment Strategy, Portfolio Construction
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Wilmington Trust’s investment committee met to discuss whether to make a change in the firm’s asset allocation.
At first, the seven-member committee of senior executives did not make any changes. But within two weeks, the war had deteriorated so quickly that Meghan Shue, Wilmington’s head of investment strategy—and the investment committee’s sole woman—decided a change was needed.
Wilmington
“I helped to steer the firm towards making that decision, but that wasn't the end of it by any means,” said Shue, who is also group vice president and head of portfolio construction at Wilmington Trust, a unit of the $155 billion-asset M&T Bank in Buffalo, New York.
Shue then held a series of meetings to decide where to make the cuts. She also oversaw the execution of the trades quickly, before a weekend when the war could take a turn for the worse.
As a contributor to CNBC, Shue also had to communicate the “house view,” to a mass audience, pulling together disparate economic threads.
“We have a post-pandemic economic recovery but with an overlay of war and tightening monetary policy,” she said. “How do you wrestle all of that to the ground and figure out where the balance of risks lie? All these different subjects require experts, and having a really good relationship with my team is what helped.”
Shue got her start working as an assistant client account manager at the New York money manager Bessemer Trust.
“I did everything from managing a portfolio to settling an estate to paying a sewer bill,” she said with a laugh. “I got a really good perspective early in my career on some of the real important client-facing aspects of the business.”
Shue said Wilmington Trust’s culture and her relationships with colleagues make it easier to go against the grain when necessary.
“I feel comfortable disagreeing with others and putting another perspective on the table,” she said. “I often find myself in the position of seeing a different view and setting the tone, and part of that is my willingness to put myself out there. It’s not only about having a view, but about putting all of the different pieces together and seeing where or how they all fit.”
