Marcia Elizabeth Favale has nearly two decades of experience in finance, and is currently based in New York having completed the EMBA in September 2011.
She has accrued vast and complementary experience in investment banking, allowing for the value-added advice she gives clients today. She was a portfolio manager at Advent Capital and Brevan Howard. At UBS she was a Managing Director, and Head of the LATAM and CEMEA corporate bond research teams. She has also worked for Merrill Lynch in the equity research department and the high yield/emerging market research team. Marcia Elizabeth began her career at Banker’s Trust in the Japanese M&A team and the Latin America corporate finance group. In 2006, Institutional Investor Magazine ranked Marcia number one in emerging markets corporate bond research.
During the financial crisis, Marcia Elizabeth advised the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan directly and through her firm M.Favale-Tarter, LLC, acted as an Independent Restructuring Advisor to BTA Bank, Alliance Bank, Temir Bank and Astana Finance. BTA Bank was the largest ever restructuring of an emerging market corporate and was named Euromoney’s 2010 CEE Deals of the Year. Her firm M.Favale-Tarter, LLC was recognized alongside Lazard and UBS.
Having worked so closely with the Kazakh Prime Minister, who she describes as “visionary”, Marcia Elizabeth became his Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister. In this capacity, she was able to present to him her idea for a People’s IPO programme (privatization) for Kazakhstan, which also formed the basis of her Entrepreneurship Project while on the Oxford Executive MBA course. “The People’s IPO is an opportunity for Kazakhstan to develop its domestic capital market,” says Marcia Elizabeth. “The country is undertaking the People’s IPO from a position of fiscal strength, not weakness. It’s a structural initiative.”
She adds: “Its goals are creating an environment where the public is involved in the stock market, thus developing an investment culture within the country that will spur stock market development and confidence in the financial sector. The social dividend is the macroeconomic benefit that accrues from vibrant diversified economies. The objective and opportunity of the IPO Program is then to encourage an active investment culture based on individual choice and conscientious participation.”
Marcia Elizabeth didn’t come up to Oxford to further her career or change path. “I came to fine tune existing skills and have the opportunity to delve deeper into material I ordinarily wouldn’t – to think outside the box,” she says. “Oxford attracts leaders who want to be challenged academically and intellectually, and the course brings together theory with practice in a unique way. There is no patent on the basics of finance, they are the same everywhere but what Saïd offers students is more than just reading finance. This is a place that fosters leaders and gives them a forum for further discussion.”
With a degree from Oxford and NYU already under her belt, Marcia Elizabeth came to the EMBA to re-challenge herself. “Doing an EMBA of this calibre exposes you to things you’re not used to, and to people who are leading rather than people who are aspiring to lead.” The highlight of the course for Marcia Elizabeth was the access it has given her. “To be in a room with phenomenally successful people is the greatest resource. As is the School’s focus on social entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility: this is what world leaders think about. This is why we’re at Oxford.”
It’s this access that Marcia Elizabeth would govern prospective students to take advantage of. “Use all opportunities available to meet people, to network not only with your classmates or those in finance, but also with academics,” she says. “Some of the leading researchers, in all areas of academia, are at Oxford. It’s the interchange of all those people that’s the benefit.”
Read Marcia's recent interview with Bloomberg on her work on the People's IPO in Kazakhstan >