Aprilyn Chavez Geissler is an executive leader at Gateway Insurance and Financial Services.

There was a winter when Aprilyn Chavez Geissler studied for finals from the driver’s seat of her car.

She parked in different corners of campus so no one would notice. “I went to classes. I took showers in the SUB. I ate at Golden Pride Chicken. And I just made it work,” she said.

Today, Chavez Geissler serves in executive leadership at Gateway Insurance and Financial Services, where she advises clients and advocates for broader representation in an industry where she once struggled to see herself reflected. But her path upward began with rupture.

As a freshman at Central New Mexico Community College, then Technical Vocational Institute, Chavez Geissler was engaged to the man she had dated since high school. The relationship escalated into physical violence. “Typically, it takes a woman seven tries before she leaves,” she said. “I finally left.”

When she did, her parents asked her to leave their home, and she moved into her car. Despite the instability and trauma, she continued going to class, determined not to let her circumstances define her.

Eventually, someone noticed her unstable situation and offered her a room to rent at a low cost. That woman also helped her find a needs-based therapist. Chavez Geissler credits therapy as a crucial part of her healing and rebuilding. “I needed it to regain my confidence and move beyond what I was facing,” she said.

Five years later, Chavez Geissler graduated from the University of New Mexico Anderson School of Management with a bachelor’s degree in finance, her tuition paid in full. More than the coursework, she said, college taught her grit and emotional intelligence.

Determined to Belong

Since high school, Chavez Geissler was set on becoming a financial adviser. Determined to get an early start, she entered the industry at 20, taking a receptionist job at what is now Ameriprise Financial. The leap was intimidating. She remembers being “really nervous and scared” as she stepped far outside her comfort zone, determined to reach the goals she had set for herself.

Her determination did not go unnoticed. The financial advisers in the office took her under their wing, paying her to stay late, inviting her to sit in on client appointments and giving her access to lessons no textbook could offer.

But even as she gained experience, she carried quiet insecurity. At that time, she did not see herself as a survivor. She saw herself as someone who had been financially unstable.

She feared her past might undermine her credibility in a field centered on wealth management, so she kept her story to herself. “For years, I never told anybody what had gone on with me,” she said.

The industry added another layer of doubt. In the positions she hoped to hold one day, she rarely saw anyone who looked like her. There was, as she puts it, “no Hispanic financial advisor Barbie.”

So she worked harder, learning every aspect of the business to prove she belonged. Looking back, she describes those years with a metaphor that still resonates.

“Some days, I feel like I’m climbing a mountain and I’m wearing heels and everybody else is wearing hiking boots.”

UNM Alumni Board President Aprilyn Chavez Geissler, center, and other board members enjoy a fun night during 2025 UNM Homecoming Week.

Finding Her Voice

Her trajectory began to shift when she stopped trying to blend in. There was a time, she recalls, when she tried to be like everyone else. But when she started bringing her authentic self into the room, when she stopped being afraid to speak up or share her perspective, was when she began to have the greatest impact. Her mentors did not try to reshape her; they encouraged her. Their acceptance allowed her to stop shrinking herself to fit the room and to own who she was, regardless of others’ expectations.

Aprilyn Chavez Geissler is the president of the UNM Alumni Association and an Anderson School of Management Hall of Fame inductee.

From that shift came her guiding mantra: “Let your struggle be your strength, not your identity.”

In 2015, Chavez Geissler was introduced to the owners of Gateway Insurance and Financial Services. They saw her potential and invited her to join. By then, she had already built her own practice as a financial professional and insurance agent. “I learned every aspect of the industry I could,” she said, determined to always be prepared, “so when I was asked to step into new roles, I was ready.”

She eventually became the first executive vice president of a $30 million organization, a role in which she frames leadership as inspiration: helping others join the mission and engage in ways meaningful to them.

Today, her professional fulfillment comes in two forms: helping financial professionals build practices aligned with their goals and sitting one-on-one with clients to guide financial decisions.

Her philosophy of advising is rooted in lived experience. The past she once viewed as a liability has become one of her greatest assets.

Too often, she believes, financial professionals speak at a high level, when most people simply need someone who can meet them where they are. For some clients, financial literacy begins with opening a checking account or understanding credit. Chavez Geissler meets them there.

Rising to Give Back

She has received numerous recognitions throughout her career, including being named the 2020 Top Woman to Watch by InvestmentNewsNet and a 2019 NAIFA National Diversity Champion.

Yet the moment she fully grasped how far she had come was when she learned she would be inducted into the Anderson School of Management Hall of Fame in 2025. The recognition was “pretty special,” she said, “because they were acknowledging me for the things that I do every day.” It forced her to pause. “Sometimes you just don’t realize what you’ve done or where you’ve come from.”

“You have to rise above it, because everything you need is already inside you.”

She was also named the “Phoenix of Albuquerque” by Insurance News. Initially hesitant to embrace the title, she later recognized it as an accurate reflection of her resilience.

“When you are in the ashes and unsure how you will eat your next meal,” she said, “you have to rise above it, because everything you need is already inside you.”

Chavez Geissler has never forgotten the people who extended a hand when she needed it most. Advancing in her career, she committed herself to giving back.

She chooses her commitments intentionally, serving in spaces that reflect both her values and her story. As treasurer of the Women in Financial Services Association, she works to attract and advance women in a profession where representation remains limited, an effort that mirrors her own early experience in the industry. Her ties to UNM, the institution that shaped her growth, remain just as strong. She now serves as president of the UNM Alumni Relations Board and leads the New Mexico Sports Hall of Fame.

Quoting Mohandas K. Gandhi, she often returns to a guiding principle:

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

Executive leadership, volunteer commitments and motherhood do not exist in separate compartments of her life but overlap in ways that demand constant recalibration. Some days begin before sunrise and stretch long past sunset, and fatigue can be real. Still, she says, as long as there is purpose behind the work, she keeps going. For Chavez Geissler, work and life are intertwined, “all in conjunction, all together.”

If Chavez Geissler could speak to the young woman studying for finals in a parked car, she would not promise ease but purpose. She would tell her: “You’ll change lives in ways you don’t even imagine. Even when it’s not comfortable or easy, you will move mountains.”

Even in heels, she did.

Securities offered through Registered Representatives of Cambridge Investment Research, Inc. a Broker/Dealer, Member FINRA/SIPC. Advisory services through Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc., a Registered Investment Advisor.

Gateway Financial Advisors, LLC., DBA: Quality Life Insurance Agency, DBA: Gateway Insurance and Financial Services, LLC., Cambridge is partial owner of Gateway Financial Advisors, LLC.