Honoree: Manishi G. Parikh

Market Executive / Managing Director
Wells Fargo

Manishi Parikh was raised in Laguna Niguel and completed her undergraduate degree from UCI, and later received her MBA from USC. She then started her career in investment banking with the Silicon Valley Bank Securities up in the Bay Area. She then decided to move back home to Orange County and take on a relationship manager role with Wells Fargo. She moved quickly up the ladder to become a market credit leader and penultimately to a credit approver role for the Orange County and San Diego markets.

In 2018, she was promoted once again to the market executive role for Orange County. At Wells Fargo she is now responsible for a group of 30 banking professionals; the team’s mandate is to earn and keep the business of firms in the $20 million to $2 billion in revenue range; the group is agnostic to industry and whether or not a firm is public or private but is geocentric to Orange County. Over the last few years, Parikh’s team has helped many Orange County firms through the COVID pandemic via PPP and MSL programs and worked with companies through the pandemic-related downturn. She has stated that her professional pride and joy is the team of outstanding bankers that she surrounds herself with daily and has taken careful steps to cultivate that workplace environment.

One of Parikh’s favorite quotes that shape this strategy is, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast!” She believes that happy employees equal, ultimately, mean-happy customers at Wells Fargo. Additionally, she has been able to grow her office at a double digit clip for the last few years while raising two boys, balancing a very demanding job and sitting on three different nonprofit boards in Orange County. Furthermore, Parikh is a champion for diversity and inclusiveness within Wells Fargo as a mentor for the next generation of talent; and is an avid supporter for women in business as well as other underrepresented minority groups within the firm. She works to create positive social impact in the communities she serves by supporting housing affordability, small business growth, financial health and a low-carbon economy.