Alumni in the News

Ann Reese, MBA '82

Ann N. Reese is Co-director at the Center for Adoption Policy (CAP), which she co-founded in 2001. CAP’s mission is to provide research, analysis, advice, and education to practitioners and the public about current legislation and practices governing domestic and inter-country adoption.

Prior to creating CAP, Ms. Reese spent more than 25 years in finance.  After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1974, Ms. Reese joined the Bankers Trust training program as one of the few women preparing for a career in commercial banking.  At that time, the only commercial banking positions available were in the Middle East, where women weren’t allowed to travel. Ms. Reese asked to be placed in the foreign exchange trading program, and landed on the foreign exchange desk.  This experience led to a job offer from her client, Union Carbide. 

She later worked as the Treasurer of Mobil Europe and as the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of ITT Corporation. Now, Ms. Reese serves on the Board of Directors of Merrill Lynch & Company, CBS, Jones Apparel Group, Sears Holdings, and Xerox.

Ms. Reese attended Stern part-time while working at Union Carbide and Mobil Oil. “I got a tremendous amount out of the part-time experience,” says Ms. Reese.  The MBA program exposed Reese to people working in different disciplines, giving her a better sense of how to advance her career. “Before, ‘networking’ was just a word; Stern taught me how to network.”

In June of 2000, Ms. Reese and her husband, Stanley, expanded their family of three sons, (now 15, 19, and 22) by adopting two Romanian toddlers.  Their son and daughter were developmentally delayed as a result of their time spent in institutions, and they needed speech and physical therapy.  By the end of 2000, Ms. Reese had left her job to devote herself to her children’s rehabilitation. 

Frustrated by the process of her inter-country adoption, Ms. Reese founded CAP with a lawyer who also has a blended family.  “There are 413 million orphans in this world, with half a million in foster care in the US alone, and 6 million adoptees here,” says Ms. Reese.  “My goal is to find a permanent home for every child who needs one.”

Ms. Reese considers her decision to adopt and to create her nonprofit organization among the best she has made.  “Adopting Ileana and Traian brought so much to our family, opened my eyes to a need I didn’t know about, and [through CAP] helped me find a niche where I could make a difference in the world.” 

Attributing her career success to serendipity, Ms. Reese says, “I was lucky enough to be given opportunities, and smart enough to take them.”  She insists that she didn’t map out a rigid path to reach the top ranks of finance.  “My career was a lot of small steps.  I never worried about titles or money, but focused on interesting experiences; the rest followed.”  Perhaps the best advice that Ms. Reese can offer to those seeking to follow in her footsteps is to “focus on the opportunities, not the roadblocks.”