This as-told-to is based on a conversation with Caila Moed, 35, founder of Rikud Movement, an innovative dance studio in Brooklyn, New York. Business Insider has verified her previous employment at Goldman Sachs, enrollment at Oxford’s Said Business School, and current revenue. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
After years working in the arts and getting my MBA at Oxford, I joined Goldman Sachs during the pandemic, living in my in-laws’ attic and five weeks pregnant.
Nobody knew about the pregnancy. I interned as a summer associate through my first trimester, turning my Zoom camera off, throwing up, and turning it back on. I got a return offer and eventually had to tell my teammates, who were super supportive.
I returned to Goldman’s wealth management business with a five-month-old, breastfeeding through working and studying for the series tests, but I loved it.
In the private wealth unit, you’re expected to pound the pavement and build your own book of clients, which includes ultra-high-net-worth individuals and nonprofits. You start by apprenticing on a more senior team, and then, once you have a certain amount of assets under management, you’re on your own.
I became pregnant again — and was still doing coffee in the morning, networking at night, volunteering, and board meetings. I got really sick, though, and doctors didn’t know what was wrong with me. I stopped feeling like the high performer I knew myself to be.
Work-life balance wasn’t going to cut it
Over maternity leave, I took a genuine look at my life. The journey to becoming a successful asset manager is steep and competitive, and when I got back to the firm, I started to think I might have to write my own rules.
Laila AnnMarie Stevens for BI
I realized that my life at home wasn’t up to my standards — I couldn’t do school pick-up and drop-off, or cook most meals, and during the week I often missed key moments like dinner and bath. Our nanny was putting my daughter to bed some nights.
My time at Goldman came to an end, and I explored opportunities in banking, philanthropy, and family offices, but two roles went to more junior applicants, and the more senior positions didn’t offer the work-life balance I needed. It became clear I had to forget traditional work-life balance — I needed a lifestyle where I could take my kids to school, pick them up, be on the playground, and hear about their day.
Entrepreneurship seemed like the only answer.
Long before Goldman, dance was my first community
Though I’m now based in Brooklyn, I grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, and my early community was really my dance community. I did everything: ballet, jazz, tap, lyrical modern, but I ended up focusing on hip hop and contemporary. I’d spend hours after school and weekends in the studio, doing my homework in the costume closet and getting frozen pizza for dinner.
After not getting into my top-choice college, I auditioned for “So You Think You Can Dance,” made it to Vegas auditions, and kick-started my career in the commercial dance world. Eventually, though, I went to college and did a year at Fordham before transferring to NYU.
Laila AnnMarie Stevens for BI
By then, I knew I wanted a corporate job. I’d already stopped dancing as consistently in college, and I walked off stage for the final time during my senior year, after booking a performance with Nicki Minaj in Times Square. Social media meant there would be videos of me shaking bits on stage, and I — like pretty much every millennial woman — was hyper-aware of the internet.
I worked in arts operations, corporate fundraising, and philanthropy after college, which gave me a view into family offices and foundations. A whole world of finance opened up through the lens of the arts, and I saw how interconnected it all was, which eventually led me to get an MBA at Oxford’s Said Business School and apply to Goldman’s internship program while I was enrolled.
I’m bringing Goldman’s “client-first” ethos
And now that I’m no longer at Goldman, I’m turning to the arts again as an entrepreneur. I used to walk past an empty storefront on a block near my daughter’s school in Brooklyn every day, and learned it was a pop-up space.
Many pop-up spaces have more flexible terms, like not paying months of rent in advance, and are great incubators for new small businesses. After a few moms at my daughter’s school promised they’d help me get a studio off the ground, I had a website and was launching pre-registration within a week. By January 12, we opened the doors of Rikud Movement.
It’s a disruptive dance studio: no mirrors, no ballet, no recitals. We have five teachers, and focus on street and club dance for all ages.
I’m using many of the things I learned at Goldman, like how to find new business. I wake up every day and pursue new clients, price points, and revenue streams.
Laila AnnMarie Stevens for BI
Knowing the market cycles also comes in handy — when I look at consumer behavior and why someone may or may not renew their membership, I’m thinking about the economic backdrop of spending on kids’ recreation. Goldman’s ethos of listening to clients and their pain points has been key, inspiring things like snow-day programming and summer camp.
When I worked in the corporate world, people told me to slow down and have more thoughtful decision-making, which was the flipside of being an open, friendly person.
The feedback was 100% true, and now, as an entrepreneur, I face it in real time, instead of in a performance report. Consequences are higher and more immediate, and I’m being pushed to change.
It’s still early, and there’s a lot more changing to do, but we’ve done six figures in our first 100 days. There’s an on-ramp, though, and we’re bootstrapped right now. My years on Wall Street taught me how to judge the success of young businesses, since I’d treat founders as potential clients and determine what their early numbers could lead to in the future.
I’m nowhere near the metrics that people in finance would take seriously, but I know what the roadmap looks like, and I’m pretty sure I have paths to get there.
