By Lacie Blankenship
Adam Sansiveri wears several hats at AllianceBernstein, serving as Senior Vice President, Managing Director, Head of the Nashville Private Wealth Group, and Co-Head of Sports and Entertainment Group.
In September, Sansiveri joined Dean Johnson for the Distinguished Speaker Series (DSS), a student-led initiative where business leaders share lessons and advice with the Vanderbilt Business community. Below, we share 3 key takeaways from their discussion.
“You cannot take for granted the power of optimism.”
Sansiveri considers optimism crucial to everyone’s success in the business world.
“When you are in a high-stress environment, an intensity of business or bureaucratic organization of any kind, when you bring optimism to the table every single day, problems get solved easier, and people want to work with you.”
Nashville’s sports and entertainment scene creates opportunities in finance.
When asked about the opportunities in sports and entertainment in Nashville, Sansiveri noted the intersection of music, sports, and entertainment.
“We’ve seen the explosion of our city and what that meant for sports. We’re talking about a new stadium right now, obviously the Preds, there’s a rumor of baseball coming, and there’s a lot of soccer excitement,” he says. “For us, now headquartered here and being the 800-pound gorilla in the finance world based in Nashville, it just creates further opportunity for us to expand our presence in an already dominant field of working with sports and entertainment professionals.”
Don’t shy away from non-traditional paths.
While he has an MBA, Sansiveri also has a non-traditional background for a finance professional. He joined AllianceBernstein after pursuing opera, Broadway theater, and entrepreneurship. When asked about his career journey, Sansiveri notes an atypical path makes you unique in a very competitive industry and can deepen the understanding of clients’ real-world experiences.
“I was a business owner, building and selling 2 companies, I have been a passionate art enthusiast and philanthropist, and venture capital investor,” says Sansiveri. “All of my non-traditional experiences of raising tens of millions of dollars for theater led to experience that was instantly translatable into the world we are in now.”
“People coming from non-traditional backgrounds, my advice is don’t shy away from what has made you successful already or what makes you different,” says Sansiveri.
You can watch a recap of the conversation on the Vanderbilt Business YouTube here.
To read Dean Johnson’s perspective on his conversation with Sansiveri, click here.
The DSS speaker series is partially funded by The Alec and Susan Taylor Visiting Speakers Fund.
