Stephanie Grieser Braming ’92

Alumni Spotlight: Stephanie Grieser Braming ’92

Stephanie Grieser Braming ’92 is a powerhouse in the finance industry – one of Forbes 2024 “50 Over 50,” and a multi-year Barron’s “Most Influential Woman in U.S. Finance.”  She radiates the warm and quiet confidence of someone who has learned to lead successfully in the midst of significant market volatility and economic upheaval like that experienced during the 2008 global financial crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. 

Stephanie built her uncommon success on the liberal arts foundation she developed at DePauw in the late 80s and early 90s. She graduated equipped to see problems through an interdisciplinary lens, considering a breadth of perspectives, and with a savvy for interpreting insightful truths from data. Her agile and adaptive intelligence enabled her to repeatedly lead teams and clients triumphantly through volatile and ambiguous challenges.

Drawn to DePauw by a love of reading and pursuing a psychology minor to explore her fascination with the human mind, Stephanie was an English literature major and a Management Fellow. Her first post-DePauw job was as an examiner at the Federal Reserve Bank in Chicago. Even though the manager was skeptical about hiring someone with an English degree, she says, “I demonstrated to him that my DePauw experience had taught me to think analytically, communicate effectively, and understand data.” 

Later, she took on a new role with Mercer Investment Consulting, completed her MBA at the University of Chicago, and earned her designation as a Chartered Financial Analyst – all before becoming an institutional portfolio manager for $19B in non-U.S. equities at William Blair and rising to lead as global head of William Blair Investment Management and chair of the William Blair Funds. She looks forward to retirement in 2025 when she plans to further use her leadership expertise on the many boards and nonprofit organizations she serves, as well as potentially in corporate governance. She hopes that her example will inspire the next generation of leaders who will follow in her footsteps, and she backs up her hope with action – donating to the university and returning to speak with current students.

To those emerging and future leaders she says, “There will be challenging times in your career when you may want to crawl under your desk, but the tough times are exactly when you need to come out from behind your desk and engage. You're going to come out stronger on the other side, learning some key lessons and finding touchstones for later in your career.”

Stephanie says of the Forbes Top 50 honor: “The most rewarding aspect is the recognition of all the effort, relationships, skills, decision making, teamwork, and tangible results required” to achieve her uncommon success.

Fun Fact: Stephanie was a student in one of the first classes taught at DePauw by English professor Andrea Sununu. “I distinctly remember her galloping across the classroom to demonstrate iambic pentameter. I enjoyed the way professors engaged with the students and how it made our classes so much more robust.”