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Clara Sierra

EVP, Director of Strategic Alliances

Throughout a distinctive career earning her executive management positions at some of the world’s largest financial services institutions, Clara Sierra has always stood apart: for her extraordinary professional relationships, her remarkable passion for sales\/marketing, her unique personal background and, most of all, for her unrelenting drive to achieve the best-possible results for her employees, employers and her clients.Over the course of two decades Ms. Sierra has emerged as a dominant figure in financial services.As Executive Vice President and Director of Strategic Alliances for Sentinel Investments– a position she assumed in 2007 – Ms. Sierra has global responsibility for Sentinel Investment’s relationship management team, sustainable investing research team, and advisor training and development through Sentinel Investment’s University. Throughout her diverse financial services career path, driving training and development programs has been a consistent element of her ever-evolving professional responsibilities.Prior to Sentinel Investments, Ms. Sierra held a series of progressively more senior positions at AIG Advisor Group. Recruited in 2002 as Senior Vice President and Director of Advisory Services, Ms. Sierra was responsible for the company’s entire fee-based advisory business, with over $40 billion in assets under management across five broker dealers.In this role, she oversaw all crucial elements of the advisory business ranging from sales, training, marketing, technology operations and compliance; Ms. Sierra also successfully integrated the five previously competing broker dealer advisory divisions, This included launching the first shared advisory platform among each of the five brokers dealers (Vision 2020 Advisor) raising one billion in assets under management, in the platforms first two years.During Ms Sierra tenure at AIG Advisor Group; she also became director of Marketing, and Meetings\/Events for all five of the AIG broker\/dealers, and was the only woman to serve on AIG Advisor Group’ executive management team (launched in 2006).Ms. Sierra entered the financial services industry in 1990, when she joined the former Alliance Capital (now Alliance Bernstein) and began establishing the blueprint for her financial services career. Over the course of nearly 13 years, she became involved in virtually every element of asset management – including customer service, internal and external sales, marketing, and portfolio management research.“I’m fond of the quote, ‘Prepare for the worst, plan for the best,’” says Sierra. “Above all, my work – and my life – has been driven by relationships. Each of these relationships has enabled me to grow, and helped me advise my employers, my employees and our clients through every possible sales, marketing and asset management scenario.”Ms. Sierra holds Series 6, and 26 licenses. A graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University with a bachelor’s degree in business management, she is an active member of the Women Unlimited (WU) Mentorship Program (NY\/NJ Chapter). She is Latina, married with two children and resides in Central New Jersey.