Olivia Coffey, a senior associate at One Equity Partners, is set to represent Team USA in the women’s eight rowing competition at the Paris Olympics next week. Her personal best on an ergometer, an indoor rowing machine, for 2 kilometers is 6 minutes and 36 seconds.
Speaking to Bloomberg News from Erba in Northern Italy, where US rowers trained before traveling to Paris earlier this month, 35-year-old Coffey shared how she has built a career in the alternative asset management industry while pursuing her rowing dreams.
After graduating from Harvard in 2011, Coffey joined One Equity Partners in a back-office role. Her parents trained with the firm’s founder Dick Cashin—he and her father Cal rowed for the US at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, where the elder Coffey won silver in the pair’s event.
Early in her career, Coffey missed selection for the London 2012 Olympics and was a spare for the Rio 2016 Games. She worked on the firm’s research and valuations team while rowing and obtaining her MBA from the University of Cambridge, graduating in 2018.
That year, after winning the world championships in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, Coffey returned to work at One Equity Partners and aimed for a spot on the Olympic team. Her efforts paid off with a berth in the women’s eight, which placed fourth at the COVID-postponed Tokyo Olympics.
“It was a really awful feeling to walk away without getting to my ultimate goal,” Coffey said. “I was ready to be done with rowing, but found my life wasn’t balanced, it felt like something was missing,” she added.
She resumed workouts in the office basement gym, attended CrossFit classes, and began training with a group who communicated on an aptly named WhatsApp chat: ‘Rowed to Paris.’
Coffey, who divides her time between Princeton, New Jersey, Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and Watkins Glen in upstate New York, spent the most recent winter in Sarasota, Florida, logging 14 to 15 exercise sessions per week.
Awake at 5:30 a.m. each morning, she rows 20 kilometers to 30 kilometers, and in the afternoons, she spends about 90 minutes on another cardio or cross-training activity, whether running or cycling—sometimes in Central Park—or using the rowing machine or lifting weights.
“I typically cover 250 kilometers a week, averaging 40 to 50 kilometers a day,” said Coffey, who rarely consumes alcohol while training. “I eat a ton of carbs—things like cookies and sweet drinks, which are not great for me long-term,” she explained.
“When I’m not training, I’m recovering or working,” Coffey added, noting that she aims to be asleep by 10 p.m.
In her role at One Equity Partners, Coffey sits on the board of Dragonfly Financial Technologies, a digital banking platform, and is a board observer for Montgomery Transport, a flatbed trucking operator, as well as staffing firm Prime Time Healthcare.
One Equity Partners’ flexibility allowed Coffey to schedule work around her training. “I’m thankful, the firm couldn’t have been more supportive,” she said. “I feel really fortunate to have understanding deal teams and colleagues who can accommodate my schedule.”
Because of her rowing commitments, Coffey isn’t subject to what she describes as a typical 80-hour work week. “I work as much as I can within the confines of training,” Coffey explained, noting that she generally logs on by 9:30 or 10 a.m. each morning. During the fall, when she was training intensively for team trials in March, she averaged 40-hour work weeks. As the Paris Olympics approached, that number reduced to about 20 hours, as she focused on portfolio management and opted out of originating new business.
The US Olympic Committee provides rowers with a stipend of $1,000 to $2,000 a month in addition to health insurance, which many athletes supplement with full-time work, said Coffey. On a regular day, she can switch from working on a financial model in Microsoft Excel to preparing a board presentation.
In her role, she handles everything from origination to due diligence to negotiating terms of a credit agreement and especially enjoys meeting founders.
“I know what it feels like to be super passionate and the amount of sacrifice and perseverance it takes to put everything you have into something,” Coffey said. “They love what they do.”
In Paris, she will be supported by her family, including her husband, Michael Blomquist, a managing director at renewable energy project finance brokerage Open Energy Group. Blomquist has made blue tops emblazoned with “Go Liv!” for her cheer squad. He understands Coffey’s drive all too well—he quit Morgan Stanley to focus on qualifying for a spot on the London 2012 US Olympic team.
Also present will be Jamie Koven, a partner at One Equity Partners, co-chair of the National Rowing Foundation, and former Olympic rower who competed in the 1996 and 2000 Olympics in Atlanta and Sydney, respectively.
Koven and Cashin are not the only co-workers with Olympic experience. Senior adviser Fritz Hobbs, partners Charlie Cole, Matthew Hughes, Ante Kusurin, and associate Jack Lopas all rowed in previous Summer Olympics. Additionally, principal Mario Ancic is a former professional tennis player who won a bronze medal at the Athens 2004 Games.
