New Globonder - Grace Vandecruze

A Globonder based in Scott Depot, WV, Grace Vandecruze is a well-respected authority on mergers and acquisitions and capital raising in private and public markets for financial institutions around the world. She has earned a stellar professional reputation because of her uncompromising integrity, intellectual rigor, competitive drive, innovative solutions, multicultural/international sensitivity, leadership responsibility, and personalized attention.

Grace is the founder and CEO of Grace Global Capital (GGC), a consulting firm offering financial advisory, restructuring, valuation and capital-raising services to corporations and public organizations worldwide. GGC’s core principles include practicing sturdy ethics to instill confidence and trust, tailoring services to each client’s unique needs, utilizing high-tech to access financial information to react quickly for client benefit, and offering unbiased advice to develop prudent strategies.

GGC provides services to a wide variety of both financially sound and distressed organizations – including insurance companies, healthcare organizations, Fortune 500 companies, and medium-sized businesses. GGC’s services consist of growth capital – supporting geographic expansion, product enhancement, mergers and acquisitions, recapitalization and turnarounds; mergers and acquisitions – conducting initial market valuation, strategic alternatives review, business profile preparation, potential buyers identification, and transaction negotiation; sell side advisory – assisting on selling individual- and family-owned companies; and bankruptcy and restructuring – responding to difficult business situations caused by economic downturns, competitive influences, poor decisions, etc.

Grace’s life values were shaped in her childhood, first in Guyana, South America, where she was born and until she was 14, and next in New York City as part of a nine-member family.

For more than 15 years, she was outstanding as a Wall Street investment banker, mainly handling business origination and transaction executions for the insurance and financial services industry. In her drive to excel, she was known to work 90+-hour weeks. Her employment path has included the following experiences: Managing Director in the investment banking group, specializing in insurance at Fox-Pitt, Kelton Inc., owned by Swiss Re; private equity assignments with Head & Company; M&A and capital raising assignments at Merrill Lynch; and auditor for financial institutions at Ernest & Young and Grant Thornton.

Among the notable achievements of her career have been her providing valuation and testimony regarding Conseco, valued at $5 billion, the insurance industry’s largest bankruptcy; giving advice concerning all of North America’s major conversions to public corporations, notably Prudential, MetLife and Anthem; and consulting with numerous insurance companies having market caps up to $40 billion, including Allianz Eurasia HealthCare Company in Russia.

She earned a BBA in Accounting from Pace University, and graduated with a MBA in Finance from Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania. She has a CPA License and NASD License in Series 7, 24 and 63. She was featured in Joann Gordon’s book 100 Women Who Loved Their Jobs and Why and Donna Ballard’s book Doing It for Ourselves: Success Stories of African Americans in Business. She has been interviewed on financial topics by, and written and published articles in industry publications. She belongs to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and University of Charleston Business School Advisory Board.

Grace is the Founder and President of the Beyond Billions Investment Club at Ferguson Memorial Baptist Church where her husband, Bishop Emanuel A. Heyliger, is the Pastor. With this club, she is helping to change the way the African-American community views money and investing. According to Grace, “The club’s purpose is to change our conversations at the dinner table. When our youth start working, they want to acquire things that they have never had before. Our aim is to shift that focus to what we can acquire today that will not only grow now, but that we can leave behind as a legacy for the next generation.”

Grace enjoys traveling, mountain climbing, sailing (having a coastal navigation certificate from the American Sailing Club), and playing her prized baby-grand piano.

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New Globonder - Grace Vandecruze