Alumna’s Entrepreneurial Spirit Helps Generations of Smith Entrepreneurs

Elana Fine ’97 may not consider herself to be an entrepreneur, but she has the entrepreneurial mindset. It’s what helped her support the next generation of business leaders while she served as the managing director of the now Dingman-Lamone Center for Entrepreneurship from 2012 - 2018. Her support of Smith entrepreneurs continues through her current work as a member of the board of advisors.

“After running a center for entrepreneurship and working with a lot of entrepreneurs, and startups, I’m very careful with that term because I would never want to take it away from somebody who has risked everything to start a business – whether through sweat equity or putting a second mortgage on a home so I would not necessarily say I’m an entrepreneur. I will say, though, that I have an entrepreneurial mindset. If given limited resources and an idea, I can make it happen,” she says.

When Fine arrived at the University of Maryland (UMD) in 1993 as an undergrad she was undecided on her major so took an introductory business class based on an advisor’s recommendation.

“I just found a passion for it. As I took more classes across accounting, finance, marketing, the whole range, I just felt like there might be a path for me there,” she says.

Today, she is the CEO of VWG Wealth Management where she says her firm is focused on supporting multigenerational families, executives and entrepreneurs.  Her top priority is succession planning, which she says is one of the financial advisory industry’s biggest challenges. The average age of a wealth advisor is over 60 years old and “over 90 trillion” will transfer from generations over the next few years, “you kind of have this gap of firms being run by people who are about to retire with all this wealth about to transition from families,” she said.  “The last thing a client wants as they are about to retire is to be told that their advisor is also retiring,” so Fine says across the industry, firms are figuring out how to manage the process.

Fine credits her successful career journey to investing in herself. She pursued opportunities even when a position wasn’t available, knowing that if she showed up and did the work, her value would prove itself. It happened more than once in her career. The first time was with a boutique investment bank who wasn’t hiring when she was first connected with them, but they offered her a role and told her if you want to work here for free, we will give you projects and responsibilities and we’ll help you network. If we close enough deals and we have a job for you we’ll hire you. And they did.

The second time was with the Dingman-Lamone Center. After the birth of her twins and the firm Fine was working for was sold, she volunteered with the center to read business plans. When a part-time job opportunity running the center’s angel investor group opened, she took it. That turned into a full-time role and eventually led to Fine leading the center.

“I’ve always just put myself out there and thought if I do a good job,  it will pay off.”

Her work with the center is one of her proudest career accomplishments. “I think the center grew in so many different ways – not just in the number of students who were engaged and our connections across campus, but also the number of alums and regional entrepreneurs that were part of this broad network and still are today,” she says.

The Smith Terp remains connected with the Smith School through her role on the board of advisors with the Dingman-Lamone Center, adding she was really “touched” to be invited back to sit on the board three years ago. “Half of the current board of advisors have been there for maybe 5 years and some of them even a decade, which I think is really a testament to the Center. I’m really excited to be on that side of the table,” she said.

Fine says the Dingman-Lamone Center has become a vast resource to the university but says that for her, it has always been about the students. “As much as we focus on building great companies we just want lots of great entrepreneurs out there. I just want to make sure we keep to the spirit of the center in that way,” she says.