The San Diego 500, The Book of Influential Business Leaders, is the market’s most comprehensive product of people you should know in the business community. The 500 includes business leaders and executives who have founded or are running significant companies in terms of number of jobs, key products and services, experts who raise the level of the industry here and beyond and those who lead in the business community. The 500 is selected by the San Diego Business Journal newsroom.

Valorie Seyfert

CEO, CUSO Financial Services

Valorie Seyfert has been in the finance industry since 1989, when she worked independently as a legal consultant in San Diego. In 1996, she and Amy Beattie founded CUSO Financial Services and later launched sister company Sorrento Pacific Financial LLC, full-service broker-dealers that focus on a wide array of investment and insurance solutions. CUSO Financial Services LP and Sorrento Pacific Financial were recently sold to a private equity backed New York company. Seyfert and chief operating officer Beattie, were to continue to lead the partner firms, which will remain locally headquartered. Seyfert is a member of the California State Bar Association and has run her own law practice. In 2008, she won the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur Award in Business Services for San Diego County.

ALMA MATER: University of Southern California (B.A., International Relations), University of San Diego Law School (Juris Doctorate).

CAR YOU DRIVE: Tesla

FAVORITE GETAWAY: Italy and France