Silver Anniversary Honoree Profile: Lisa Landau Carnoy '89CC
5/4/2009 5:00:00 PM | General, Track and Field
The 2008-09 year marks the Silver Anniversary of the Columbia-Barnard Athletics Consortium. In a year-long celebration, Columbia Athletics will pay tribute to the administrators, coaches and student-athletes who have brought distinction to Columbia Athletics. During the next few months, gocolumbialions.com will post profiles on the former student-athletes named to the "25 Most Influential" list and the Silver Anniversary honor roll. The next in the series is former track and field standout Lisa Landau Carnoy '89CC.
They call it “star quality” and it can be a most elusive quarry. Hollywood talent scouts constantly look for it, as do baseball scouts. Business has its scouts, too; they fan out across the nation searching for the young college student who will grow into the next corporate magnate, the next financial wizard.
Jerry Sherwin did not have to be a scout to spot “star quality.” He recognized it right away, sitting across the table from him, in Lisa Landau.
Lisa was going through her first informational interview as a Columbia College senior, exploring the field of advertising, always one of her prime career possibilities. And she couldn't have found a much better person to speak with than Columbia's dedicated alumnus, who had spent most of his professional life in advertising.
As Sherwin fielded her questions and discussed the profession with her, he found himself more and more impressed. In the months and years ahead, he would come to know Lisa, now Ms. Lisa Landau Carnoy, better and better. But he never swayed from his first impression ? he had found someone with star quality.
“If Lisa had wanted to, she could have been a star in advertising,” Sherwin (?55CC) said recently. “She was very honest and very smart. She would have done exceptionally well.”
But after talking with Sherwin and exploring the possibilities, the American studies major eschewed advertising in favor of business, another field in which she always had a strong interest. She joined Drexel Burnham Lambert, which almost immediately folded.
Undaunted, Carnoy worked briefly at two other firms and then entered the MBA program at Harvard Business School.
Few schools attract a greater concentration of talent scouts than Harvard Business, and it took little time to recognize a person with Lisa's talent. Shortly after graduation, she was hired by Merrill Lynch, an association that now spans 13 years.
She began working on the desk in equity capital markets. She did that for six years before moving up.
Carnoy now heads her own group as co-head of equity capital markets in the Americas at Bank of America's Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Specializing in the healthcare and insurance fields, she works on deals, both formulating and executing them. IPO's, Add-Ons and Converts, almost any kind of equity deals come under her purview.
“It's very dynamic,” she says, “and very hectic.”
When not immersed in business, the former Columbia sprinter still runs. That and her family occupy much of her time.
She and her husband, David Carnoy, lived just 10 blocks apart, but had never met until taking a vacation in Cancun in December 2001. They were married in 2003 at New York's Chelsea Piers, and now live on the Upper West Side with their two children, Natalie and William.
Don't be surprised to see two future sprinters by the name of Carnoy some years from now, as Lisa notes. She ran in high school, at Northern New Jersey's Dwight Englewood School, near her hometown of Teaneck, and for Columbia, while David was a standout dash man for Wesleyan, even winning the New England Small Colleges 100-meter dash.
And it's likely that they'll run wearing Columbia's colors. David Carnoy, a journalist for CNET.com, almost went to Columbia, and Lisa ... Well, Jerry Sherwin says, “Lisa has always been involved in Columbia, she's still very excited about Columbia Athletics. Lisa bleeds Columbia Blue.”
Lisa Carnoy somehow has carved out the time to be an extremely active Columbia alumna. She is one of the co-founders of the Women's Leadership Council and is a member of the Columbia Campaign for Athletics Leadership Committee. During the 2008-09 academic year, she has been honored as one of the 25 most influential women in the 25-year history of the Columbia-Barnard Athletic Consortium.
She continues to attend Columbia football games, noting that she's “been to all the close calls,” sometimes working around conflicts with her beloved Mets. And like so many other devoted Columbians, she holds out hope for an Ivy League football championship.
“I told [head coach] Norries Wilson that if he wins the Ivy League, I'll get a Columbia Football tattoo,” Lisa says. “He said he would get one, too.”
? Bill Steinman
