Joanita Ricketts is a Strategy and Transformation Executive with more than 20 years of experience advising global corporations, private equity sponsors and institutional leadership on capital strategy, complex transactions and enterprise transformation.

Over the course of her investment banking career, she has led and executed more than 100 transactions totaling approximately $100 billion in value, spanning mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings, follow-ons and global debt financings in pursuit of corporate carve-outs, spin-offs, leveraged buyouts and recapitalizations, consistently translating capital strategy into durable organizational advantage.

She launched her career at Bear Stearns before going on to hold senior roles at Jefferies & Company, Canaccord Genuity, and MUFG (Japan’s largest financial institution and a significant equity stakeholder in Morgan Stanley) where she served as Managing Director in the Corporate Advisory Group, advising CEOs, CFOs and boards on balance sheet optimization and strategic growth initiatives. At Jefferies, she was a founding member of the CleanTech Investment Banking Group, scaling the practice from inception to a league-table-leading franchise, and building core platform infrastructure including establishing sector frameworks, execution standards, and training and development of junior talent.

Her academic foundation includes a Master of Science in Applied Economics from Johns Hopkins University, a Bachelor of Business Administration in International Business from Howard University, and executive education certification from The Wharton School. Now completing a Doctorate in Engineering in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning at George Washington University, she is focused on applying her institutional depth to the frontier of artificial intelligence and enterprise transformation.

Joanita is developing frameworks for how organizations close the gap between strategy and execution in the age of AI,  with particular focus on Decision Velocity: the integration of speed, judgment and accountability as the defining competitive advantage of the AI-enabled enterprise. Her work sits at the intersection of financial discipline, organizational strategy and intelligent systems, addressing the fundamental question facing every enterprise leader today: how do you build an organization that decides well, executes with precision and adapts at the speed the market now demands.

Named one of the 25 Influential Black Women in Business by The Network Journal and honored as an Exemplar by Howard University School of Business on its 55th Anniversary, Joanita brings the hard-won instincts of a capital markets practitioner who has operated at the highest levels of global finance and the clarity of someone who has spent years thinking rigorously about what comes next.