Suzanne Shank is a principal of the General Partner and a member of the Investment Committee. She also focuses on investor relations. Ms. Shank is also President, CEO and a co-founder of SWS. Ms. Shank is a 30+ year veteran of the financial services industry and has positioned the firm to hold the distinction of being the top ranked minority- and women-owned investment banking firm in the country and the first to lead a bond transaction over $1 billion in par amount. Ms. Shank is active in various industry and civic organizations and serves on several boards. She serves as a Director of Rocket Companies, Inc. (NYSE:RKT), CMS Energy (NYSE:CMS) and Consumers Energy’s Boards of Directors and is on the boards of the Skillman Foundation, Detroit Regional Chamber (Executive Committee), the Bipartisan Policy Center Executive Council on Infrastructure, Wharton Graduate Board of Trustees, and Spelman College Board of Trustees among others. Ms. Shank serves on the SEC’s Fixed Income Market Structure Advisory Committee.

 

Ms. Shank has won numerous awards and honors throughout her career including being named a Woman Who Moves the Nation by Comto in 2020, receiving the Savannah College of Art and Design 2020 Woman of Vision Award, the 2019 TechTown Entrepreneur of the Year Award, named a 2019 Newsmaker by Crain’s Detroit, receiving the 2017 Shot Caller Award presented at the BET Black Girls Rock! Ceremony, the Austin Koenen Career Achievement Award by the Municipal Forum of New York in 2017, and the 2016 Freda Johnson Award for Trailblazing Women in the Private Sector by The Bond Buyer. Ms. Shank was inducted into the Academy of Distinguished Engineering Alumni at Georgia Institute of Technology. Ms. Shank has also been named to NBC’s Grio 100 list, which honors African American leaders nationally, has been recognized by U.S. Banker Magazine as one of the “Top 25 Women in Finance”, by Essence Magazine in their Power List, by Black Enterprise Magazine as one of the “50 Most Influential Black Women in Business” and one of the “75 Most Powerful Blacks on Wall Street” and by Women in Public Finance as “She’s Our Hero”. Ms. Shank was selected by the Wharton School of Business from among 100,000 graduates as one of its “125 Influential People and Ideas”. She has appeared on Wall Street Week, CNBC and Bloomberg TV.

 

Ms. Shank is a graduate of the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, with a Master of Business Administration degree in Finance, and the Georgia Institute of Technology, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Civil Engineering.

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