Barron’s Magazine featured Blair Trustee and alum Victoria Bailey ’97 in a recent article this March titled, “Morgan Stanley’s Victoria Bailey: Why I Stopped Trying to Be Perfect,” highlighting her successful career as a wealth manager in Silicon Valley.

“I honestly think the moment I stopped pretending to be something I’m not was the moment I actually started being successful,” Victoria told the magazine, ringing true to one of The Five Fundamentals of Blair Academy—know yourself and practice honesty.

In fact, the article details how Victoria has built her career on one of the principles of Blair: the people and the connections you make are what matter the most. After a chance encounter with a friend led to an analyst job at Barclays Capital more than a decade ago, Victoria climbed the financial industry ladder and now serves as managing director of Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management’s 415 Group in San Francisco, helping to manage $6.5 billion. Speaking with Barron’s, Victoria explained how she built her network of venture capitalists by constantly making new connections and nurturing those relationships.

“I kept in touch with every single one of them and built this database where I was also providing them with information,” Victoria said in her interview. “It was trying to provide value in as many creative ways as possible so that when they needed something, they called.”

In 2022, Victoria and her firm were also featured as one of Barron’s “Top 100 Private Wealth Management Teams: Serving the Complex Needs of Silicon Valley’s Elite.” That feature highlighted more of her successful, humanistic approach to a mostly data-driven industry.

Victoria’s optimism, energy and commitment to Blair are noted by many fortunate to work with her at the School, both as a student and dedicated alum. After graduating, Victoria matriculated at Princeton University where she studied economics and received a bachelor’s degree in 2001. After a brief stint in New York City as an opera singer, she turned to the financial world and never looked back. In her current role based in Morgan Stanley’s Silicon Valley office, Victoria is a managing director and private wealth advisor to the company’s Private Wealth Management division. She currently lives in Woodside, California, with her husband, Peter, and her three sons, Will, Andrew and Christopher. Mrs. Bailey was appointed to the Blair Board of Trustees in April 2018.