Syrinda Paige on Providing Opportunities

On a cold November night in Washington, D.C., Syrinda Paige is sleeping outside on a piece of cardboard. It’s the annual Executive SleepOut for Covenant House and the conditions are rarely comfortable. Over the years, Paige has spent nights outdoors in freezing temperatures, in rain, in sleet, even with the sound of rats moving through a nearby dumpster, or the sound of police and ambulance sirens speeding through the nearby intersection at 2 a.m.

Paige has been doing sleep outs since 2014 to raise awareness and funds for youth experiencing food and shelter insecurity. She first started as a board member and later became Board Chair of Covenant House DC. The experience has changed the way she thinks about hardship, gratitude, and what people take for granted.

As a Senior Vice President, Global Sports and Entertainment Director and Financial Advisor in Washington, D.C., Paige was named a Morgan Stanley MAKER in the Give Back Champion category because service is not something she does on the side — it’s one of the organizing principles of her life. “I am the benefactor of grace and opportunity,” she says. “If someone is willing to give you a little help, you can be great.”

The Meaning of Hard Work

That belief began long before her career did. Paige grew up in a trailer, raised by a family that did not have much materially. Her paternal grandparents lived on a farm with very little, something she did not fully appreciate as a child. As a kid visiting her grandparents in the summer, she remembers the idyllic things — not the hardships. Helping herd cows across a pasture, gathering eggs from the hens, watching her grandmother churn fresh milk and making butter. Only later did she understand that everything they were doing was tied to survival. Even then, they met life with dignity, discipline, love and generosity.

She is, she notes, one of four Syrindas in her family — each named for the same paternal great-grandmother, a lineage she carries with quiet intention. “I just feel an accountability and a responsibility — in a good way — to do my very best to honor who they are and where they came from,” Paige explains.

The same was true of her father. Determined to become a first-generation college graduate, he took seven and a half years to earn his degree while working and playing football on the small football scholarship he received. Making just 45 cents an hour, he signed his modest paycheck over to the bursar’s office each pay period. Later, when Paige was older, she watched him do it again — teaching high school full time, then driving hours to get to his weekday night graduate classes at Virginia Tech, all while taking handyman jobs on the side. Through all that, as the parent who raised her, he made sure her homework was done, chores were finished and her clothes were clean and neatly ironed. Still living in a trailer after Paige went off to college, he also provided for others wherever he could. If a student needed money for a field trip, he found it. Many a holiday season, her father could be found volunteering for the “Feed the Community” event, ensuring that those less fortunate had food to eat.

These life lessons shaped who Paige became. She mirrored her father’s own determination from an early age. Growing up with a minor speech impediment, she overcame speech therapy and bullying and went on to win national public speaking competitions as a teenager in the Technology Student Association. No doubt it took courage. But, Paige says, “fear is very often false evidence appearing real.”

Trusting Her Instincts

The confidence that experience instilled in Paige came to mean a great deal. Early in her career, Paige was working in hospitality management in Charlottesville when her hotel general manager told her she should move to a larger market.

Paige moved to Alexandria, VA, to sleep on a friend’s sofa until her lease was up and the pivotal moment came when she was called for an interview at what is now Truist Bank. She joined Truist as a Platform Customer Service Representative and was later promoted to branch supervisor.

Later, at what is now M&T Bank, Paige continued to shine, spearheading a groundbreaking program to coach bank tellers on client needs and referrals. The approach had a dramatic impact on revenue and drew the attention of the bank’s CEO.

From there, Paige moved through several financial institutions before landing at Morgan Stanley, where she has built a thriving practice. As SVP, Financial Advisor, she’s worked on performance-based advisory services and commissions since 2003.

When Morgan Stanley’s Head of Wealth Management, Jed Finn, called to tell her she had been selected as a MAKER, the moment landed hard. Not just because of the recognition itself, but because Jed had supported her volunteer work before — contributing to her Covenant House sleep-out efforts and making clear that giving at Morgan Stanley mattered. For Paige, that made the call feel personal in the best possible way.

The Next Generation

Since being announced as a MAKER, Paige has started to see her story for what it is: big. “I’ve gone from the outhouse to two blocks from the White House,” she says. But she couldn’t have done it alone. Paige often talks about the shoulders she stands on. Sometimes that means her grandparents and father. Sometimes it means the teachers and leaders who took a chance on her. And sometimes it means those generations before her who she learned about when she became an inaugural 2015 Society major founding donor of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC).

Paige sees it all as a reason to keep extending opportunities to others. She learned “if you can see it, you can be it.” Paige shares, “often people don’t need a handout, but a hand up in the way of a small opportunity.” To that end, she established a $50,000 need-based, four-year college scholarship in her name.

“For someone who comes from socioeconomically challenging circumstances, with no other way to get to college, it's designed to open that door and give them an opportunity,” she says. “And I do intend to fund it for as long as I'm here on this planet.” Paige notes that a collegemate of hers speaks of receiving “uncommon favor” often, noting that the uncommon favor allows you to pour back into others, to community, to humanity. 

For Paige, that is what giving back really is. Not repayment. Not optics. Not obligation for obligation’s sake. It’s what you do when you know, with absolute clarity, that someone once did the same for you. In Paige’s words: “it’s the inheritance of excellence.”