KRISTINA ALEXANDRA BIO

Kristina was born in Ukraine (Soviet Union), behind the iron curtain. Her family emigrated to the US at the age of 13 as Jewish refugees. They had to start from scratch, with no resources, no capital and just the suitcases they brought on the flight. She didn't speak English, her family had little money for basic necessities. This spurred her on to go find a job to help her parents make ends meet, first by delivering pizza menu flyers door to door for $5 an hour. While in high school she met her first mentor, Sanford "Sandy" Weill who built Citigroup. Sandy grew up in the same neighborhood as she did in Brooklyn who was also a Polish Jewish immigrant and experienced both financial hardship and discrimination at an early age. They bonded over their shared backgrounds and it was because of Sandy that, at 16 she received an internship at one of the largest financial services companies at the time. Sandy taking her under his wing changed her life trajectory forever. Sandy went on to mentor many others including the current CEO of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon

Her career began by making copies, filing, and running to get coffee and lunch for the entire trading floor. It was an Alpha male dominated environment with only two women on the entire floor. It was a tough and intimidating environment. Yet tough times make strong people as Tony Robbins says and this experience although extremely tough and scary was a seminal period which allows her to build strength, resolve and resilience. Having experienced bullying for years has developed her into a person who stands up for the underdog, the underprivileged, overlooked - whether due to race, color, origin, looks, sex or financial status.