Suits
A Woman on Wall Street
“Ever wish you had a friend who had worked in the Wall Street pressure cooker and could tell you what it’s really like? Meet Suits author Nina Godiwalla. Her candid memoir is a must-read for anyone (especially any woman) aspiring to a career in high finance.” —Anne Fisher, Fortune.com
No class can prepare anyone for a career on Wall Street. While others in Nina Godiwalla’s Persian-Indian immigrant community were content to fulfill their parents’ dreams, Nina’s fierce ambition pulled her from Houston to New York to become a banker. The rarified taste of power left her hungry for more.
Showered with Broadway tickets and ferried around in sleek black town cars, Morgan Stanley recruits led a fast and flashy lifestyle, but at a steep cost. In a world where strip clubs took the place of conference rooms, Nina was driven to fit the mold of her fellow recruits: wealthy, white, and male. But would she have to lose her Southern accent and suppress her family’s heritage to prove her worth on the trading floor?
Nina Godiwalla offers a behind-the-scenes look at the recklessness that ruled Wall Street during the dot-com boom days. But Suits is also a story of the family Nina left behind: a story of fathers and daughters, the pursuit of honor, swapping your grandmother’s shrimp curry for takeout sushi and cocktails. A vibrant snapshot of an immigrant family with big dreams, Suits reveals how much we’ve been conditioned to trade for success.
“Nina Godiwalla has given us a fascinating account of her rollercoaster ride as a young woman of color on Wall Street. At once hilarious and heartbreaking, this book about choices and their consequences is a gripping read.” —Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, author of The Mistress of Spices
“Ms. Godiwalla has written an incredibly readable, cautionary tale of the hurdles that a young woman faces on Wall Street.” —John Rolfe, author of Monkey Business: Swinging Through the Wall Street Jungle
“Nina Godiwalla has managed to combine heartwarming, heartbreaking, and hilarious in one great book. Suits is an absolute must-read for any woman considering a career in finance.” —Lois P. Frankel, Ph.D., author of Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office
“Fresh, funny and utterly convincing. Nina Godiwalla has perfect pitch. In Suits she not only nails the Wall Street culture, she gets inside the skin of a fiercely ambitious young woman caught in the cross hairs of culture and gender.” —Sylvia Ann Hewlett, author of Top Talent
“Suits is a riveting read! [Godiwalla] fiercely exposes the souldestroying compromises of a woman trying to gain acceptance in the male dominated world of investment banking.” —Bapsi Sidhwa, author of Cracking India
Buy This Book
- Buy this book from Barnes & Noble
- Buy this book from Powells
- Buy this book from Amazon
- Find an independent bookseller near you
About the Author
Nina Godiwalla has written for the Washington Post, the Houston Chronicle and the Austin Business Journal. Before founding MindWorks, which teaches professionals meditation and stress management, she worked for Morgan Stanley and Johnson & Johnson. A graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, Dartmouth College and the Wharton School of Business, she lives in Austin, Texas.