Lothrop Award

Marlis Fritz

2012

This year’s Lothrop Award winner was Marlis Fritz. Like many previous winners, Marlis was not known to many of the attendees present. She retired after a long career in 2006. However, like all previous award winners, her message of inspiration struck a chord with every attendee present.

Like many of us, Marlis ‘fell’ into the institutional asset management sales business. She graduated from college as a biology major and found herself taking on more and more client facing responsibilities until she wound up taking over a sales role. Despite the chorus of naysayers who thought she was nuts to take on a career changing challenge, she conquered her early self doubts and jitters and found that selling, even in in this space, is really quite simple: be honest with your clients and yourself, try to lend a hand where you can, don’t take ‘no’ personally and keep getting up.

Marlis favorite quote, “You don’t choose your life, you make your life.” appropriately summarized her remarks, her career and her life.