Meet Grace Zhang, our Inaugural Kamla R. Hingorani Fellow

I am honored to touch on my experience as the inaugural recipient of the Kamla R. Hingorani Fellowship, a fund that was created in memory of Kamla R. Hingorani, the mother of Girls Who Invest Founder and Board Chair, Seema R. Hingorani.

 I, along with many GWI Alumni and partners, have been fortunate enough to hear Seema speak about her mother—every time she does, she brings her mother’s memory to life.

As a first-generation immigrant, Kamla Hingorani was a fearless, remarkable woman who championed integrity and community. Her values and influence on GWI are foundational to our mission and serve as a cornerstone of inspiration to the women in our community who have become pioneers in the investment industry.

I am a first-generation college student, and sometimes it feels as if my entire life has demanded I be a pioneer in one sense or another. Along those lines, beginning to explore the investment management industry was no different than navigating my first year of college—I had no idea what I was doing. 

I was lucky enough to learn about the program through my mentor, Aminata, who was a GWI Alum from the Class of 2023. Aminata did not just tell me about the program. She strongly encouraged me to apply, despite my doubts. She was my first introduction to the inspiring, uplifting community that GWI has created over the last ten years—a community that I am proud to be a part of today. For many college students, the investment management industry may seem like a nebulous career field, a feeling that may be especially keen for those from minority backgrounds. For its community, GWI takes that uncertainty and shapes it into newfound confidence and ability that, by the end of our summers, we realized was there all along. I recount these details to emphasize this: if you’re thinking of applying to GWI with little idea of what a career in finance means, or if you’re debating whether or not to take another transformative next step, I’d urge you to bet on yourself. The details of an unknown can always be learned and subsequently solved, but your time to seize on these windows of opportunity is finite—be unflinchingly courageous in the face of the unfamiliar, as Kamla Hingorani was.

Those of us in the GWI community have a dual mandate: to fearlessly push forward in our own careers in the world of investment management while also ensuring that those who come after us feel inspired to do the same. Only when these two pieces come together will our 30 By 30 vision be reached. GWI gives those looking to enter the investment industry support, guidance, and community. In return, it only asks its Alumni to do one thing: to provide the same for others. As such, if you are looking to join the investment industry, my immediate advice to you is this: stop reading this and open LinkedIn. Search ‘Girls Who Invest’ and reach out to any one of the amazing Alumni that show up—feel free to message me, even. We will respond.

To conclude, I’d like to reflect on what it means to have been named the inaugural recipient of this fellowship. Most keenly, I am excited to see what the future of this fellowship holds and the amazing first-generation GWI Alumni that will become Fellows after me. I look forward to seeing the care that these Alumni have for their communities and the ways that their personal values have benefited the people around them.

 In one of my first conversations with Seema, she emphasized the importance of understanding one’s purpose and being able to verbalize your own “why” to others. Take the time to crystallize your purpose and develop the ability to clearly communicate that drive to others. As Girls Who Invest continues to grow, I hope that this fellowship will serve as a signal that courage, perseverance, and passion are not just valued in our community but are critical to the mission of our organization. With the Class of 2025 already heads down in their programming, I look forward to watching our community grow with future investors that know exactly what they want to do and how they plan to do it.