How Stacy Havener, a Blue-Collar Girl from Berkshires, Became a Successful CEO
Stacy Havener, now a successful entrepreneur, comes from really humble beginnings. She grew up with divorced parents in a blue-collar family from a working-class town. "I never saw myself in the investment world," Havener said, revealing that she was a writer, a poet, and a storyteller.
Havener whose soccer career took her to Wall Street talks about her story from being an underdog to a successful entrepreneur in a Sioux Falls podcast, "Common Cents on the Prairie," where she sat down to discuss her journey with host Adam Cox. It all started when she was approached by her former high school soccer coach with a job offer. The coach who ran a billion-dollar small-cap equity boutique was launching a new fund and wanted her to work there.
"Help me launch the fund, save some money — then go back to grad school, get your degree, and you’re on your way," he said to her. However, she never left the industry after that. "It’s crazy, in many ways, that I ended up where I ended up," Havener said, "because it wasn’t my backstory." Today, she is the CEO of a sales and marketing agency, Havener Capital Partner.
"While I never expected to build a career in sales and marketing and certainly not in the investment world, I found my calling and my tribe," she writes on her website.
Havener is a blue-collar girl from Berkshires who "combined a lot of grit with a little glitter" to become a successful female entrepreneur, she mentions on her website. In the podcast, she says how she was afraid of success because she doesn't come from money. However, today, she is a successful woman entrepreneur who runs a company with more than 20 employees. She shed light on the importance of striking a balance while admitting that it's difficult. "Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart, but I get to build a life and a business with my favorite person. To me, that’s awesome and that’s fun even though it’s difficult."
Another thing that has kept her going is her faith in hard work. "I like some of the difficult things. I’d never wish them on someone, but I think they made me who I am," she says in the podcast. When asked about the advice she wants to give to her fellow female entrepreneurs, she says, "I would say: you’re not alone, even though you feel lonely sometimes."
Havener is the founder of an agency dedicated to helping boutique asset managers build, launch, and grow funds. Lastly, Havener says she has immense faith in being underdogs and rebels. "Doesn’t matter who we are; we all start from the bottom. We’ve all been underdogs, myself included. Guess what? We can win," she writes on her website. She also talks about how she gets really "esoteric" when it comes to cheering for underdogs. "I don’t want to be an underdog my whole life; that’s not the point. The point of cheering for the underdogs is to go from fighting to winning," she adds.