Nina Godiwalla

Nina Godiwalla is CEO of MindWorks Leadership and the author of Suits: A Woman on Wall Street.

Godiwalla was born and raised in Houston, Texas. She is an Indian-American of Parsi background. Godiwalla attended the University of Texas at Austin where she acquired a Bachelor of Business Administration. She later went on to Dartmouth College where she earned a Master of Arts degree in creative writing. She also has a Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Godiwalla began her career in investment banking with an internship at J.P. Morgan. Upon graduation from UT, she accepted a full-time position at Morgan Stanley in the corporate finance group. After Morgan Stanley, Godiwalla continued her career at a variety of other corporate institutions including Johnson & Johnson and Oxygen Media.

Godiwalla is now the CEO of MindWorks Leadership, which provides leadership, diversity, and stress management training for organizations and their employees. Godiwalla has partnerships with organizations that span the areas of government, education, and corporation. These include the US Department of State, the University of Chicago, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Deloitte among others.

In addition to running MindWorks, Godiwalla is on The Wall Street Journal Executive Task Force for Women in the Economy, a leadership instructor for The University of Texas MBA Program, and a writer for Wharton Magazine. She is often featured in major media including USA Today, Forbes, CNN, ABC, FOX, and NBC.

Along with Barbara Bush and Sandra Day O'Connor, Godiwalla was honored into the Texas Women's Hall of Fame. In 2012 she accepted an invitation by the White House, Office of the President, to serve on their Leadership Roundtable. She also serves on Governor Rick Perry's Business Council.

Writing

Godiwalla's immigrant upbringing, her two years as an analyst at Morgan Stanley, and the issues she faced as a woman on Wall Street are the major subjects of her first best-selling book, Suits: A Woman on Wall Street. The book reads as an insider's perspective on women working on Wall Street from the outsider’s point of view of a second-generation Parsi Indian immigrant.

Speaking

Godiwalla speaks internationally to a broad range of audiences and venues including The White House, NASA, The World Affairs Council, Smithsonian, Harvard, and TEDxHouston Conference. Her speaking topics include Women and Minorities in Corporate America, Leadership, Diversity, and Stress Management.

Awards

• Texas Women’s Hall of Fame (Texas Governor's Office)
• Austin’s Top 40 Under 40
• Austin’s Top 20 Professionals
• Houston Top 100 Creatives
• Houston’s Top 40 Under 40
• Outstanding Young Houstonian