DETROIT (WXYZ) — A lifelong Detroiter, Gail Perry Mason is a senior director of investments at Oppenheimer & Company. She started her career in the financial industry over 30 years ago as a receptionist at a brokerage firm.
“People were coming in through the front door, and I didn't see anyone who looked like me. So I said, wait a minute. No women come through the front door, no African-American people come through the front door. They don’t come from here,” Perry-Mason said. “Wait a minute, we have to change this narrative.”
Perry Mason went back to school to study finance while caring for her first child.
As he climbed the corporate ladder, Perry Mason made it his mission to teach others, especially children, about finance.
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In 1996, Perry Mason founded Money Matters for Youth Camp, a Detroit-based financial literacy program for Detroit children.
“I call them all my children connected by love, and I love all of them, all 7,000 young people… They're doing so well. They now own a VC firm. ” Perry added. “Whether they've worked at venture capital firms and Huntington Bank or elsewhere, they've done incredible things.”
Perry-Mason also likes giving back to local children in foster care. She is a former foster child herself, which she says has shaped her into the woman she is today.
“When I was in foster care, they wouldn't buy me new shoes because they said I was just sitting there, but now I'm buying other people's shoes.” Mr. Perry Mason. “I have Soulmate Day in Detroit, where kids write about what it's like to walk in your shoes, and adults write about what it's like to walk in their shoes, and they write about what it's like to walk in your shoes. exchange.”
Perry Mason's service to the community has been celebrated over the years. In 2022, she received Governor Gretchen Whitmer's Lifetime Humanitarian Award.
Perry Mason says her greatest accomplishment in life is being a mother to her three sons.
“I can't do anything on my own…My children, all three of my sons, have shown me that I bring other people into the house, that I always do things for others, that I really get from them. He gave me permission to take and give to others.”
