About Us
Mission:
Overcoming the obstacles in your career & business empowering you to take the next step forward
Sally George - Founder:
In 2019, Sally founded iForward to help senior executives take the next step forward in their careers, address employee development opportunities, improve their own coaching skills, and implement effective decision making, team management, and change management processes.
In addition to coaching executives, Sally also consults with sales & marketing leaders to help them develop talent and build more effective sales & marketing teams, improve communications, launch campaigns, and build and moderate successful sales meetings.
Sally is an accomplished leader in the asset management industry. She has a long, consistent and proven track record of results and is highly regarded by those who know her and have worked with her. Most recently in her corporate career, Sally was a senior executive in BlackRock’s US Retail business.
Over her 30-year career in the financial services industry at BlackRock, Merrill Lynch and Mercury Asset Management (in London), Sally excelled in the areas of Marketing, Product Distribution, Strategy, Executive Leadership and in all aspects of building, leading, deploying and motivating Sales Teams. She hired scores of future executives and built highly effective teams – she developed a reputation for hiring and developing the best talent at all levels of an organization and was referred to as “a magnet for talent”.
Sally's Professional Experience
Sales Leadership: Led BlackRock’s retail internal sales team of 200+. Restructured compensation plans and incentives, instituted annual analyst hiring program to source junior talent, retooled management team and significantly increased employee survey satisfaction scores. Earlier in her career, sourced asset management mandates from high net worth clients, primarily through their intermediaries in London, Northern Europe and the Channel Islands.
Marketing Leadership: Led Retail Marketing organization for BlackRock. Launched numerous successful, integrated Marketing & Sales campaigns that drove engagement & sales for all products (funds, ETFs, SMAs & Alternatives) such as BlackRock Global Allocation Fund and BlackRock Municipal Bond SMAs. Consistently posted among highest employee survey satisfaction scores.
Organizational Change: Led multiple functional integrations following mergers between Mercury Asset Management and Merrill Lynch (Global Private Client Group integration), Merrill Lynch Investment Managers and BlackRock ($40B SMA platforms & complex alternatives business) and, most recently, between BlackRock and iShares (Marketing integration & integration of BlackRock’s legacy retail sales desks across multiple locations).
Strategy: Developed strategy for and hired BlackRock’s first Value Add Team. Launched programs comprising investment insights, portfolio construction, and several wealth management topics including BlackRock’s well-known Social Security program. Built strategies across product, sales and marketing for several product lines, including SMAs and mutual fund retention. Developed strategy & launched SMA ‘wrap’ program at Merrill Lynch Investment Managers which grew to $15 billion.
Executive Leadership: Presented to the BlackRock Global Executive Committee (headed by Larry Fink) on a number of occasions. Invited to meet with the BlackRock corporate board and was often asked to meet with various BlackRock mutual fund boards. As a senior leader for BlackRock’s Retail business, hosted numerous ‘US Retail Days’ for executives from around the world - from BlackRock or for clients of the firm – to provide an in-depth view of the US Retail business and strategy.
Talent Development: Motivational leader with a long track record of hiring talent at all levels. Many hires have become senior executives and leaders. Led BlackRock’s Global Retail Talent Committee that launched programs to identify high performing junior talent and provide short term exchange programs to BlackRock offices in different regions (Americas, Asia or EMEA) for the purpose of knowledge exchange and future career opportunities - resulted in career mobility for several Associates.
Event Leadership: Led the production of many major client events (e.g. due diligence events with ~500 top Merrill Lynch financial advisors). Built engaging agenda, selected speakers and managed overall brand experience. Tapped to speak at several high-profile internal events and sales meetings. Hosted BlackRock annual Retail Sales meeting (~600 employees and senior leaders).
Diversity & Inclusion: One of first BlackRock female executives to be selected for its ‘Women’s Leadership Forum’ (a yearlong program for highest potential female leaders). Spoken about diversity at a number of events. One of 50 high potential women leaders from Merrill Lynch, globally, to attend a week-long residential executive leadership program at Harvard Business School.
Personal
Sally lives in Colts Neck, NJ with her husband and their twin sons. She enjoys investing in small businesses and start-ups, cooking (especially with vegetables from her own garden) and relaxing with family and friends at the beach. Sally and her husband have several philanthropic interests and were on the Advisory Committee to the Emergency Department at Princeton Hospital for several years.