LESLIE GREIS

Who is Leslie Greis: Why work in financial services? Among the successful athletes in financial careers is a former collegiate golfer named Leslie Greis.  Leslie learned valuable lessons playing on men’s teams, both in golf and in other sports.

Biography: Drawn to athletics at an early age, she proved adept at a number of different sports.  Among her favorites was ice hockey, back in an era long before the advent of girls’ teams, and back when girls were generally not accepted onto boys’ teams under any circumstances.  She became one of those rare exceptions.

Leslie Greis took up golf at age 13, and within four years became state junior champ in Massachusetts.  A 1980 honors graduate in economics from Harvard, Leslie had joined the men’s varsity golf team because there was no women’s team.  She still is the only woman to do so, and probably will retain this honor, since a women’s varsity team was founded in 1993.  In 1979, Leslie won the Massachusetts women’s intercollegiate championship.

While at Harvard, Leslie Greis also played varsity basketball and JV squash.  Additionally, she was one of a few female players in the otherwise all-male intramural ice hockey league.  At the time, women’s intercollegiate ice hockey was in its infancy, and Harvard was forming its first varsity team.  Already juggling so much else, including being social secretary for her residential “house” at Harvard, Leslie stuck with intramurals.  The Harvard class of 1980 named her a class marshal, a high honor from her peers.

For her achievements in varsity golf, Leslie Greis is a member of the Harvard Athletic Hall of Fame.  After a brief career as an LPGA touring pro, she spent nearly two decades as a senior executive at a bank in Worcester, MA, then founded her own investment management firm.  Nonetheless, she has become active in the governing circles of golf, as a board member of the PGA, and later of the LPGA.

Leslie has extensive volunteer work with nonprofits, as a trustee, director and investment advisor.  She has been especially active with the Harvard Alumni Association, the Harvard Club of Boston, the National Association of Corporate Directors, and the Boston Museum of Science.  She also been a gubernatorial appointee to a state advisory board on the management of its real estate.  In 1998, Leslie Greis won the Rolex Achievement Award given to former collegiate golfers for noteworthy contributions to society.

Lessons: Leslie Greis turned her competitive spirit in collegiate athletics into a competitive advantage when she embarked upon her financial career.  Moreover, she learned especially valuable lessons about competing with men on an equal footing from her experiences as the lone woman on so many men’s teams, in golf and in other sports.  On a personal level, she wins respect for her air of quiet confidence and competence.