When someone asks Lindsey Coleman to get coffee with their kid, a simple ask will tell her a lot about the young person’s level of interest in her job: read three articles or studies that we can talk about.
“People want to take the free coffee. They want some advice. There are only some people who actually want to do the work to understand someone’s role, background, and business,” said Coleman, the head of fixed income client coverage for the Americas at Morgan Stanley.
Coleman, who was one of Business Insider’s inaugural Rising Stars of Wall Street in 2017, has risen over more than two decades at the firm partly because of her relationships, which she said weren’t cultivated over one coffee. She now manages around 250 people from an office dotted with photos of her three kids and is responsible for bringing Morgan Stanley’s fixed-income business to institutional clients.
“The word that gets thrown out here on Wall Street is networking. I hate that word,” Coleman said. “It sounds very transactional. Relationships aren’t built through networking. They’re built through repeated evidence that you care, that you understand someone, and that you can be trusted, and that takes time.”
That emphasis on relationships may matter even more as AI reshapes analysts’ jobs. Junior employees in sales and trading can use AI to save hours that would have been spent aggregating data, freeing them up to do more challenging work, like covering clients, earlier in their careers.
By democratizing information, AI also raises the bar, putting a greater premium on interpersonal skills. Those who grasp that distinction will rise up, Coleman said.
“If everyone has the information to do the job, and everyone has the tools, simply knowing the facts is not enough. The differentiation now is your human judgment and your relationships. Who really understands the client?” she said. “Who can get the client to come to dinner?”
Discipline helped her stand out
An economics and history major, Coleman remembers being intimidated when she joined Morgan Stanley as a full-time analyst in 2005, sitting next to peers who graduated from business schools and already knew how to build discounted cash flow models.
“I felt behind. It motivated me to put in a lot of extra work, write questions down throughout the day, and then get those questions answered,” she said.
She credits her success to intellectual curiosity, adaptability, and discipline, which often meant reading more research than was required or getting in early and calling traders in London to understand market moves. Adaptability was especially important when she was 24 and working through the financial crisis — accepting, even embracing, volatility and change helped her survive.
Now, as a manager, Coleman said many of those same skills help today’s juniors get a spot and stand out on the trading floor.
“90% of the resumes I look at, people have the credentials to do the job,” Coleman said. “The more important question is, do they have the qualities to thrive in this job? There are a lot of smart, ambitious people, so it’s actually very basic — do they love the markets?”
She can usually gauge whether someone is a good fit after four or five interview questions, mainly by getting them to talk about their interests. Among the analysts who do land a job on Coleman’s team, she tends to notice those who approach her with new insights or questions about clients and the market.
Key pieces of advice
Coleman, who has stayed at Morgan Stanley for her entire career, would give her younger self and today’s analysts the same five pieces of advice.
Stay curious for longer: Even from her current perch at the top of the sales and trading business, Coleman said she’s unafraid to ask seemingly trivial questions.Make yourself useful before you make yourself important: “So many people try to optimize for the next promotion, or they’re very focused on what’s next. Make yourself indispensable in the job you’re in before you think about the next opportunity.”Get comfortable being uncomfortable: When opportunities arise, Coleman said it’s important to jump at them, even through hesitation. Often, hard assignments and big jobs come when you don’t feel fully ready.Build relationships before you need them: Coleman said relationships, both internally and with clients, are often built on honesty, consistency, and usefulness. Those relationships will compound, she said, until eventually, you’ve created a network.Play the long game: Every employee will have career dips, especially when their reputation is tied up in the markets. “Do not overreact to one bad year, one bad boss, one missed promotion, or one bad piece of feedback. A 20-year career has a lot of cycles, and you can’t let short-term impatience drive a long-term career decision,” she said.
