Stephanie Borynack Clark ’96 - Mentoring young people
by Brianna Diaz

Founded in 2010, the Trinity Women’s Leadership Council continues to build momentum by holding events that give successful graduates an opportunity to connect with current students and young alumnae who are just starting their professional careers. One graduate who has played an instrumental role in the council’s development is Stephanie Borynack Clark ’96, who has made it her business to mentor young people both inside and outside of the Trinity network. “Our goal with the Women’s Leadership Council is to help young women find their strengths and give them the tools and support to help navigate whatever twists may occur in their own roads to success,” she says.

Clark’s record of service to Trinity spans over a decade. In addition to hosting alumni receptions with President Jones at her art galleries in New York and Palm Beach, she is a member of Trinity’s Board of Fellows and Long Walk Societies, serves on the Founder’s Council for the Women’s Leadership Council, and volunteers as a career adviser. “The most important thing for recent graduates to understand is that careers are rarely linear,” said Clark.

Clark’s own career serves as a case in point. After earning degrees in art history and psychology from Trinity, she worked in finance, spending four years in London with ABN AMRO Investment Bank and Caspian Securities. She returned stateside to work at Lehman Brothers in New York City. After six years in equities and after becoming senior vice president, she was tapped to build a cross-divisional team and run a new strategy called University Relations. University Relations worked closely with the eight Ivy League universities to form unique commercial and philanthropic partnerships between Wall Street and academia. Most recently, Clark reconnected with the art world, joining her family’s business at Wally Findlay Galleries International. There she is currently vice president and director of the New York City gallery.

During her first years at Lehman Brothers, Clark worked on a male-dominated equities trading floor and was heavily involved in the Women’s Initiatives Leading Lehman (WILL) diversity network. While she was running the University Relations team, she visited university campuses on a regular basis and through WILL participated in résumé and interview workshops designed especially for female students.

This was where Clark’s interest in career mentorship sparked. “I found there were many resources for students interested in pursuing finance and consulting, but that there were fewer structures for those interested in careers in less traditional fields, including the arts,” she said. “Outside of special programs led by the diversity networks at hiring firms, there did not seem to be an adequate network to support women—or encourage women—to explore these roles. Institutions like Trinity should have an internal mechanism to support female students in their career search.”

Clark has put this experience to work at her alma maters. In 2001, she helped co-found the Groton Women’s Network for alumnae of Groton School in Massachusetts; she has also worked with the Founder’s Council for the Women’s Leadership Council at Trinity since 2010. The group recently began new initiatives that include holding workshops and panel discussions on and off campus where current students and young alumnae could network with Trinity graduates in the work force. Clark was involved in the latest of these events, a panel discussion entitled “Fashion, Philanthropy, Finance, and Fine Arts,” moderated by Trinity College Fund Chair and Board of Trustees member Cornelia Parsons Thornburgh ’80.

The panel gave Clark a platform to communicate advice to young women in the Trinity community. “The most important thing is to be prepared for anything. Don’t be afraid to use the element of chance to your advantage, and never say no to an opportunity, especially serving in your community,” she recommends. “It could give you amazing opportunities and take you on turns in your career that you never could have planned for or imagined.”

The student response to these events has been strong, and signifies to Clark and others a genuine need for continued programming. “I was really inspired by these young women. They came up with good questions, followed up with e-mails, and really took advantage of the opportunity,” Clark said. “There are so many smart, successful women at Trinity, and we want to encourage them to strive for excellence, get prepared, and go for it.” For more information and to get involved in the Women’s Leadership Council, please contact Aliza Finn-Welch, associate director of alumni relations, at (860) 297-4054 or at aliza.finnwelch@trincoll.edu.