Mary Machado Schammel has spent much of her career as a Global Investment and Corporate Banker and Head/SVP for Standard Chartered Bank, West, where she led the Bank’s initiative to build its west coast business with Fortune 100 corporations in the technology, entertainment & media, aerospace, and other industries through global teams providing investment and corporate banking products and supply chain related services in Asia, Middle East, and Africa. At First Interstate Bank Limited, Mary managed portfolios of sovereigns, multinationals, and banks in developed and developing countries with specialties in distressed debt, aircraft, truck, and shopping center financings.

She is now Co-Founder and CEO of M&A Advisory firm Venture Advisors Business Sales and Acquisitions. The firm, industry agnostic, specializes in working with founder/owner businesses in the lower end of the middle market to prepare and sell them to global strategic buyers, including private equity firms. She also works with global strategic communications firm Financial Profiles and international consultant Greenwich Associates, recently acquired by Indian-based and publicly traded CRISIL. In these roles, Mary advises corporations, endowments, foundations, and unions on institutional investment trends, corporate and investment banking market structural issues, and strategic communications.

Mary is exceptionally committed to community involvement, serving as the AWIU liaison to the US State Department for the International Women of Courage Program, board member of Georgetown University Board of Governors and The Ann Peppers Foundation, Founder and Chair of Georgetown’s Wall Street Alliance West, Ambassador to Georgetown University’ Institute for Women, Peace and Security and National Association of Corporate Directors Los Angeles, and Co-Chair of CFA LA’s ESG Committee. She serves as Chair of Pasadena's City Code Commission and is a former Pasadena Redistricting Task Force member.