ELIZA CUSHMAN

Eliza is an MBA candidate at Columbia Business School, where she was selected as a Feldberg Fellow and Forté Fellow. Eliza is passionate about female empowerment and is excited to use her time at CBS to explore ways to help close the economic and professional gender gaps that exist in society.

Prior to attending CBS, Eliza lived in San Francisco, where she was an Associate at KKR focused on originating and executing creative private debt investments for financial sponsor clients. She was also actively involved in a variety of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion initiatives, including co-leading her team's talent acquisition efforts and serving as an Ambassador for both Girls Who Invest and SEO. During the pandemic, she was appointed as a voting member on the West Coast Philanthropic Investment Committee to help steward KKR's Covid-19 relief efforts via community grants throughout the Bay Area. In her spare time, she served as a Speaker & Coach at Dress for Success San Francisco and volunteered with Echoing Green. She began her career as an Investment Banking Analyst in the Leveraged Finance Group at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Eliza graduated summa cum laude from Wake Forest University, where she received a B.S. in Finance and was a member of the Beta Gamma Sigma and Order of Omega honor societies.

Eliza was born and raised in Wellesley, Massachusetts. She enjoys all things health and wellness, traveling, hiking, wine tasting, listening to podcasts, and cooking vegetarian meals.