From the orphanage to the boardroom
The early years of Ed Hajim’s life read like a tragedy. At 3-years-old, Hajim, now 84, was kidnapped from his mother’s home by his father and driven across the country.
His father told Hajim his mother had died, and that he was Hajim’s only family. Then his father left to go to sea with the United States Merchant Marines.
Hajim spent most of his childhood being bounced between foster homes and only occasionally spending time with his father.
The constant change was deeply painful for Hajim, a longtime Greenwich resident who now splits his time between Nantucket, Mass., and a home in Florida.
“Do you know what happens when you go to five different schools between the ages of 5 and 10?” asks Hajim. “You have rites of passage at all those places. You find out who you can beat up, and who you can’t. And it’s hard. It’s really hard.”
Eventually, Hajim went from foster homes to orphanages, which carried their own obstacles.
Yet, even in the midst of so much struggle, Hajim thrived. He did well in school, played sports and made friends. As he grew up, he continued to do well, despite his difficult upbringing.
Today, he’s a seasoned Wall Street executive with more than 50 years of investment experience, who held senior management positions with the Capital Group, E.F. Hutton and Lehman Brothers before becoming chairman and CEO of Furman Selz.
He is now chairman of High Vista, a Boston-based money management company.
Hajim has chronicled his trajectory in his new memoir, “On the Road Less Traveled: An Unlikely Journey from the Orphanage to the Boardroom,” which comes out March 2.
The book details his rise from a troubled childhood to a successful adulthood, and his path to unearthing the secrets of his past.
In a way, Hajim says, his evershifting youth prepared him for a life in business, making him open to change.
“I learned adaptability,” he says. Whenever the time came to change jobs, or travel someplace new for work, “I did it very easily.”
But, he admits, growing up without a real home — and with a father who could be unreliable — was a psychic wound that he allowed to remain hidden for years.
“Many of the kids today let everything hang out,” Hajim says. “When it comes to my past, I made a decision to bury it. I thought, Why do I want to bring up it up to everybody? I don’t want any sympathy.’ ”
As he began to start his own family, Hajim started sharing his past with others, including Barbara, now his wife of more than 50 years.
It was Barbara and their children who encouraged him to write the book. “When I got to be in about my early 70s, my wife and kids said, ‘We want something so the kids can remember
Grandpa,’ ” he says.
It took him years and a few different ghost writers to produce “Road Less Traveled,” but Hajim says the experience was ultimately cathartic for him, even though it forced him to confront the adversity he faced growing up.
“I welled up a lot at the earlier stages (of writing),” he said. “A few times I had to put it down. I just couldn’t handle it.”
Hajim says it was particularly “illuminating” to go back and read old letters between himself and his father. Despite their difficult relationship, he says he never hated the man.
“I love my father,” he says. “He tried.”
Hajim says he’s not sure there is any one thing he wants people to glean from the book, but he does hope his story sends the message that anything is possible.
“But I hope different people get different things out of this book,” he says.