Private equity employees are regulars in the basement gym at 510 Madison Avenue in Manhattan. Among them is an athlete preparing to wear the red, white and blue at his second Summer Olympics.
Meet Olivia Coffey, a senior associate at One Equity Partners, who will represent Team USA in the women’s eight next week. Her personal best time on an ergometer or indoor rowing machine over 2 kilometers is 6 minutes and 36 seconds.
Speaking to Bloomberg News from Erba, northern Italy, where the U.S. sailors trained before heading to Paris earlier this month, Coffey, 35, described how he pursued a career in the alternative asset management industry while pursuing his dreams on the water.
After graduating from Harvard in 2011, Coffey was recruited by One Equity Partners in a back-office role. Her parents trained with the firm’s founder, Dick Cashin—she and her father, Cal, rowed for the U.S. at the 1976 Montreal Olympics (the elder Coffey won silver in the pair event.)
Early in her career, Coffey missed out on selection for the London 2012 Olympics and was a standby for the Rio 2016 Games. She worked in the firm’s research and evaluation team and rowed while obtaining an MBA from the University of Cambridge, graduating in 2018.
That year, after winning the world championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, Coffey resumed work at One Equity Partners and aimed to make the Olympic team – an effort that was rewarded with a spot in the women’s eight that finished fourth at the Covid-postponed Tokyo Olympics.
‘Road to Paris’
“It was a really bad feeling to leave without reaching my ultimate goal,” she said. “I was ready to retire from rowing, but I found that my life wasn’t balanced, it felt like something was missing.”
He resumed exercising in the office’s basement gym, attended CrossFit classes and began training with a group who communicated on an aptly named WhatsApp chat: ‘Roved to Paris.’
Coffey, who lives between Princeton, New Jersey, Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and Watkins Glen in upstate New York, and who recently spent the winter in Sarasota, Florida, does 14 to 15 exercise sessions per week.
Waking up at 5:30 a.m. each morning, she spends about two hours on the water, rowing 20 to 30 kilometers, and in the afternoon, she spends about 90 minutes doing another cardio or cross-training activity, whether it’s running or cycling — sometimes in Central Park — or on a rowing machine or lifting weights.
“I usually run 250 kilometers a week, or 40 to 50 kilometers a day,” Coffey said. Coffey rarely drinks alcohol while training. “I eat a lot of carbohydrates — things like cookies and sweetened beverages, which aren’t good for me in the long run,” she says.
“When I’m not training, I’m relaxing or working out,” says Coffey, who aims to be asleep by 10 p.m.
As part of his work at One Equity Partners, Coffey sits on the boards of Dragonfly Financial Technologies, a digital banking platform, and Montgomery Transport, a flatbed trucking operator, as well as being a board observer for staffing firm Prime Time Healthcare.
One Equity Partners’ flexibility allowed Coffey to schedule work around her training. “I’m grateful, the firm couldn’t have been more supportive,” she said. “I feel really fortunate that I have an understanding deal team and colleagues who can accommodate my schedule.”
Because of her sailing commitments, Coffey doesn’t have to work what she calls a traditional 80-hour work week. “I work as much as I can within the confines of training,” explains Coffey, who typically logs on at 9:30 or 10 a.m. each morning. During the fall, when she was training intensely before team trials in March, she averaged a 40-hour work week. Heading into Paris, that number has been halved to about 20 hours, as she focuses on portfolio management and avoids starting new business.
Olympians Everywhere
The U.S. Olympic Committee gives sailors a stipend of $1,000 to $2,000 a month in addition to health insurance, which many athletes cover by working full-time, Coffey said. On a typical day, Coffey might do anything from working on financial models in Microsoft Excel to preparing board presentations.
In her role, she handles everything from origination to due diligence and negotiating the terms of the loan agreement, and she particularly enjoys meeting founders.
“I know what it feels like to be extremely passionate and how much sacrifice and perseverance it takes to put your all into something,” Coffey said. “They love what they do.”
In Paris she will have the support of her family, including her husband Michael Blomquist, managing director of renewable energy project finance brokerage Open Energy Group, who has created blue tops that read “Go Live!” to cheer her on. Blomquist understands Coffey’s passion well – he left Morgan Stanley to focus on qualifying for a spot on the London 2012 US Olympic team.
Also present will be Jamie Cowen, partner at One Equity Partners, co-chairman of the National Rowing Foundation and former Olympic rower who competed at the Atlanta and Sydney Olympics in 1996 and 2000, respectively.
Cowen and Cashin are not the only colleagues to have attended the Olympics. Senior consultant Fritz Hobbs, partners Charlie Cole, Matthew Hughes, Ante Kusurin and associate Jack Lopus all sailed at previous Summer Olympics, and principal Mario Ancic is a former professional tennis player who won a bronze medal at the Athens 2004 Games.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
