A Boyfriend Led This Harvard Grad To Leave Tech. Now She Manages $700 Million.

Elisabeth DewaillyName: Elisabeth DewaillyFirm: Merrill Wealth ManagementLocation: New York, New YorkTeam Custodied Assets: $727 millionBackground: Elisabeth Dewailly grew up near the southernmost tip of Texas ...

August 11, 2026

Name: Elisabeth Dewailly

Firm: Merrill Wealth Management

Location: New York, New York

Team Custodied Assets: $727 million

Background: Elisabeth Dewailly grew up near the southernmost tip of Texas in a rural, low-income town she compares to Friday Night Lights, where everyone knew the starting football players and students drove tractors to school. Her father grew up on what she calls “the wrong side of the bad part of town” in Paris, while her mother was raised in French Guiana. Dewailly spoke French at home, but learned some Spanish and grew up in a community where financial advisors were virtually nonexistent.

Financial aid allowed Dewailly, who was a top student in high school, to attend Harvard College, where she studied biology and computer science, worked in five research labs and planned to pursue cancer and developmental biology. After graduating in 2015, however, she had student loans to repay and joined a 10-person fintech firm. Meanwhile, her boyfriend’s mother and grandmother, Susan Novick and Sybil Sternlieb, worked together as financial advisors at Merrill Lynch. When they mentioned needing another advisor, Dewailly suggested herself. She joined the team in 2018 and currently works alongside her now mother-in-law Novick. “I guess they trusted me enough,” she jokes.

Investment Philosophy: Dewailly’s team primarily builds diversified portfolios of individual public stocks, which she says give clients a clear view of a company’s earnings, balance sheet and operating history. Private equity and other alternative investments make up a smaller share of portfolios, she says, and are reserved for clients who can tolerate the added risk and years-long lockup. Dewailly is also wary of portfolios becoming too dependent on companies like Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Apple, and balances them with midsize businesses. Having used machine-learning tools throughout her career, Dewailly believes AI will change how people work, though she warns that some companies are attracting more investment than their businesses can support

Competitive Edge: Dewailly says scientific research taught her how to quickly understand difficult subjects, whether she is studying a healthcare company, learning about a new technology or explaining an investment to a client. Her low-income upbringing also shapes how she views the fortunes she manages. “When you grow up in a low-income environment, you’re especially attuned to the value of money and the impact it has on people’s lives,” she says. She pays close attention to what clients are charged, whether they are receiving value and whether an investment actually serves their goals. “For me, it’s all a lot of money,” she says.

Building Relationships: Dewailly believes clients are less likely to panic during market downturns when they understand what they own and why, making open communication and transparency central to her approach. She extends that same attention to clients’ children and grandchildren, speaking with family members as young as 14. New households generally need between $500,000 and $1 million to work with her team, but Dewailly says those minimums do not apply to younger members of existing client families.

Best Advice: “Your team is so important,” says Dewailly, adding that her mentors’ influence shapes the advice she gives younger professionals today. “It completely changes how you work and helps you become the most authentic version of yourself.”

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