Post-Dream is a column by Kristiana Kuneva about New York beyond the glitter — where the city is the stage, not the destination, and reality shapes ambition.
I met Eliza on a slushy, foggy afternoon in Midtown Manhattan – on 44th street, between the Avenue of the Americas and the grand 5th. The Penn Club is just a few steps away from Midtown’s chaos, but inside, the city seems to slow down. Dark wood walls, oil portraits in gold frames, and the vivid hum of people talking over coffee. Those little details that make it a place where depth and refinement stand out.
Eliza Prendzov was born and raised in Skopje, where she worked for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Cabinet of the PM. At some point, she moved to New York to pursue a career in diplomacy. While there, she enrolled into the prestigious Columbia University’s SIPA School, where she studied Finance & International Affairs. This choice set her on an unexpected path that ultimately led to Wall Street.
Eliza now leads Prend Capital and the American Balkan Chamber of Commerce (ABCC). Before that, she managed teams and built products for some of the world’s most reputable wealth management and brokerage firms, such as Merrill Lynch and Smith Barney. At Merrill Lynch, she launched and executed the first wrap-fee product, which is still in use today.
In the so-called City of Dreams, at the Penn Club, we sit on a cosy couch to talk about the bold risks, the missed opportunities, the hard-earned achievements, and everything in-between.
From diplomacy to finance
As soon as we start talking, I ask her what the reasons for such a career change were. She recalls her time at Columbia when everyone deeply doubted her transition into finance. Instead, she had been advised to focus on Eastern European affairs.
I wonder what kept her going and if failure was ever on the table. She answers with a smile: “In America, you quickly learn that risk-taking is integral to success; and of course, a part of that success is failure. Over time, I learned that succeeding means learning from failure. Once you fail, you need to get up fast, internalize the lessons, and move on to the next battle.”
I smile back and ask her what traits of her European heritage helped her survive and grow here.
“People in Central and Eastern Europe are incredibly accomplished, hardworking and resilient. The challenge is that you need to be “in the room where things happen”, to develop the know-how and take the necessary risk. I believe that I have sustained and nourished my resilience here—it’s helped most of my journey’s milestones materialize.”
Resilience and risk-taking often go hand in hand with self-promotion. Over the years, Eliza has found that constantly talking about success and oneself feels quite uncomfortable at times. It can come across as inauthentic or overly competitive. “Where I come from, humility and letting your work speak for yourself matter more, so adjusting to that active self-selling mindset took time”, she shares.
Sacrificing financial stability for building something that lasts
As her journey progressed, Eliza gradually became an insider to New York’s business scene and connected with high-level business and political leaders. She swiftly internalized the go-getter mindset and chartered her own entrepreneurial path. “Entrepreneurship is all about constant reinvention, innovation, and adaptation. And a lot of sacrifice!”, she reflects. Balancing entrepreneurship with raising children in a highly competitive school system cost her more compromises than she could have imagined.
Although she has never sought purely profit, Eliza wanted to use the opportunities New York gave her to leave a lasting impact. Ultimately, being an entrepreneur meant sacrificing short- to mid-term financial stability for building something that lasts. This is how she founded Prend Capital to advise businesses on sustainable finance and impact investing.
I question whether it’s possible to create a lasting impact in a city so fast-paced. One driven by abundance and fleeting attention, where true value is often overshadowed. Following my thoughts, she suggests that what evolves the most over time is one’s ability to affect a change. The more exposure, optionality, reputation and network you gain over time, the longer you keep the ambition alive — you are in a much better position to make an impact. On this premise, Eliza founded the ABCC, to connect the brilliant minds of Southeast Europe with the vast resources America had to offer.
Between noise and opportunity
I couldn’t help but ask her if she ever regretted her decision to move to New York: if she had the chance, would she have gone elsewhere and done things differently? When did she realize that New York wasn’t going to give her everything she wanted on her terms?
“New York isn’t going to give you a neatly defined role or outcome. It’s up to each of us to sift through the noise and choose the right opportunities”, she emphasizes. “I don’t think there’s any fixed point of “arrival” at who or what you have believed you would become. If anything, New York taught me to see constant, even seemingly unstable change, as growth — and to adapt. I was able to make a real impact”.
Maybe that is the magic of New York. People come and go all the time, creating a flow where ideas are constantly circulating. The city itself inspires.
