[8] She attended the all-girls Roman Catholic Woodlands Academy of the Sacred Heart in Lake Forest, Illinois.

[11] Callahan Erdoes started her career with boutique asset manager Stein Roe & Farnham in Chicago, in a role she described her position there as a "glorified mailroom job".

[12] She then joined Bankers Trust as an analyst in 1989, where she worked in corporate finance, merchant banking, and high-yield debt underwriting.

[12] She moved on to Meredith, Martin & Kaye, a fixed-income specialty advisory firm, where she was responsible for credit research, trading, and portfolio management.

In 1996, she joined J.P. Morgan Asset Management as the head of fixed income, aged 29, advising high-net-worth individuals, foundations, and endowments.

Since March 2013, Business Insider included Callahan Erdoes on its list of the 25 most powerful women on Wall Street.