Jennifer Meyerowitz

Managing Director of Business Development , Summit Investment Management LLC

Biography:

Jennifer Meyerowitz joined Summit in 2018 as managing director of business development. Her responsibilities include business development, deal sourcing, marketing and underwriting. Jennifer’s experience in bankruptcy, restructuring and advisory services spans almost 20 years and she has served as an attorney, consultant and company leader in the industry.

Prior to joining Summit, Jennifer led the bankruptcy and restructuring group at Garden City Group, managing both the sales and operations teams. Throughout her career, Jennifer served in operations, business development, and other leadership roles, including serving as vice president of various legal technology companies. Jennifer began her career as a practicing attorney at Alston & Bird LLP where she represented debtors, secured and unsecured creditors, creditors’ committees, banks and trustees in complex workouts, debt restructurings, commercial litigation and Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

Jennifer earned her J.D. from Emory University and her B.A. from the University of Michigan. She is active in several industry organizations, including the American Bankruptcy Institute, the Turnaround Management Association (TMA) and the Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Advisors (AIRA).  She currently serves on the Boards of AIRA and TMA and she is a former chair of the International Women’s Insolvency and Restructuring Confederation (IWIRC) and former chair and co-founder of IWIRC’s Georgia network. 

What advice would you offer to women just starting out in the industry?

Get involved in industry organizations early in your career.  It is easy to think “I’ll do that later when I have more time or when I’m in more control of my schedule.” But, it takes many years and many shared experiences to build a network, maintain contacts and begin bringing in business. The sooner you get started making connections and building a network, the sooner you will see opportunities flow from that network. When you get involved in a professional organization early in your career, you will likely find a mentor in the organization who will be instrumental in helping you progress. It is important to have one or two people to whom you can reach out with questions, who will put you in touch with the right people and who will give you career advice. Having senior people in the industry looking out for you can be extremely beneficial to your success and creating those relationships early in your career will have long lasting results.

Studies have shown women are more reluctant to tout their accomplishments in the workplace. What advice would you give to help women be more comfortable with speaking up?

You have to be your biggest advocate – you should not expect anyone else to do that for you. You have to ensure that your colleagues, your clients and other industry professionals know of your successes, achievements, capabilities and experience. Feel empowered to nominate yourself for awards, recognitions, board appointments or ask a friend or mentor to do that for you. Share with your supervisors and colleagues when you get commendation, win a big piece of business or get recommended by clients.  Do not assume that they already know.  Understand that there is no shame in promoting yourself for your legitimate accomplishments. The fact that you nominate yourself for something does not lessen the actual accomplishment in any way.

How have you approached big career decisions? What is your approach/advice to change in the workplace? 

Stay positive. Change is usually a good thing – you just have to remain positive to reap the rewards.  Change can be hard at first and the benefits of the change may not be apparent until time has passed. Change may also cause disruption and anxiety. That being said, major changes in your career (or even in your life) are usually wonderful opportunities for growth.  I try to look at big career decisions or changes in the workplace with a glass half FULL type of viewpoint, regardless whether those changes were in my control.  

What do you enjoy most about your role? Least? 

As a managing director of business development at Summit, I love that I can get involved in deals at many different stages.  For example, we might lend capital to a company in distress, we might buy distressed debt from a bank, we might provide DIP financing or bridge loans to a company in bankruptcy, or, among other things, we might finance a buyer of assets out of a 363 sale.  I love that we see so many different types of deals at so many different dollar levels, at different stages of a company’s lifecycle and in so many different industries. It keeps things fun, new and exciting.