The Future of Finance is Female

blah blah blah

[Music]

[Applause]

in 1870 victoria woodhull was the first

female stockbroker on wall street fun

fact she was also the first woman to run

for the president of the united states

in the 151 years since then we still

haven’t had a female president of the

united states and female advisors

represent only 18 percent of all

advisors

now

i haven’t decided to run for president

yet but i do have decades of experience

as an advisor and leader in wealth

management

this probably won’t shock any of you but

women and men don’t have the same

investing habits women typically

reinvest as much as 90 percent of their

wealth back into their families and

communities that number for men is only

35 percent

when women are economically and

financially empowered

they don’t just buy fast cars and golf

memberships or charter their own rockets

to outer space no

they actually invest in education health

and well-being for their families

as an advisor for nearly 30 years i’ve

seen these differences with my own eyes

our mail clients always wanted to make

sure they were out performing some

benchmark whether it was the s p 500 the

dow jones or even their next door

neighbor

they were very fixated on a monetary

goal

our female clients were more focused on

making sure their money would be

sufficient to meet longer term life

goals

like taking care of their children their

aging parents

perhaps starting a business

the money was never the end goal it was

simply a means to the end

women are projected to control nearly

110 trillion dollars in global wealth by

the year 2025

seem a bit high to you

think about it in this country alone

women have longer life expectancies than

men we have unfortunately a very high

rate of divorce

and then there’s a great wealth transfer

when baby boomers will pass on and women

stand to inherit a lot of those assets

think about it if they invest 90 percent

of that wealth back into their families

and communities

that’s a whole lot of trillions going to

education health and well-being

if all of this talk about trillions

sounds like monopoly money to you

don’t get so caught up in the trillions

instead focus on the concept that women

use their wealth to make life better for

all

so if financial empowerment for women is

indeed better for all of us

how should an industry like wealth

management evolve to meet their needs

there are two groups of women to

consider

women investors

and women who work in this industry

first let’s talk about women investors

when i say the word investment

what images come to mind

probably stocks bonds the bull and the

bear

wall street

crazy hyper competitive environments

fast talking brokers

now think about most of the women in

your life

are they drawn to these images

or do they run for the hill screaming

now let’s look at women in the industry

as i mentioned only 18 percent of

financial advisors are female

but can you blame them

typical female professions like teaching

and nursing involve empathy compassion

educating nurturing

a lot of traits that we naturally

attribute to women

but were these the words you thought of

when i said investment just a few

minutes ago

probably not

the investment firm tia cref

did a study a few years ago that showed

that

two-thirds of women investors don’t

trust our industry

they don’t feel that the investing world

was built for someone like them

when i was an advisor speaking to

recently widowed clients

do you think they wanted to talk about

the s p 500 at that first meeting

do you think they wanted to hear about

the latest hot stock that would make

them wealthy overnight no

they wanted someone to listen to their

fears

they wanted someone who was patient with

them as they were processing their grief

i spoke to women going through a painful

divorce

and the only advisor they knew was

someone who constantly looked at their

husband during meetings but never at

them

and i can’t tell you the number of times

when i was in a meeting with a male

advisor a colleague of mine who was real

intent on showing that client

just how knowledgeable he was about the

financial markets

the goal for that meeting was to make

sure she didn’t take her account

elsewhere now that her husband was no

longer in the picture

but you know what i couldn’t really

blame these colleagues of mine we all

worked in a system that rewarded that

behavior get the assets get the assets

and when the meeting was over

the woman would ask me questions like do

you think this is right for me

what advice would you give me anita if i

was your mother

they were desperate to trust someone

because this was their livelihood

so you might say it’s easy right let’s

just hire more women in the field to

work with these women investors

not so fast

that’s only part of the solution

after all of these years working in this

field

i began to ask myself

does the wealth management industry need

to simply evolve

or does it need a complete gut level

transformation

in other words if the client of the

future

is female

does the bull and bearer approach really

work anymore

now to be clear i’m not advocating a

pinkit and trinket approach in fact i’m

as guilty as anyone when it comes to

launching women’s initiatives

the problem is that women are not a

niche

i found that the advice a woman

entrepreneur needed was different from

what a widow or a divorcee or a female

corporate executive needed

but while their needs were different

the one thing they all had in common

was the need to be understood

be informed and be a partner in

financial decision making

i learned that the skill that resonated

most with them was not some rote

memorization of ratios and statistics

but the art of listening

i found that rather than holding the

meetings in a conference room with dark

wood and leather chairs and awards and

trophies on the wall

it was so much more effective having

meetings in coffee shops or over dinner

or even better at their home

it allowed us to better understand the

person

their aspirations and goals

rather than reducing them to this

month’s sales goal

the problem is

that these softer skills which we

attribute to being feminine like

relationship building and listening and

patience

aren’t always rewarded in this field

it’s a big shift for an industry that’s

been built on commissions and fees and

egos

where more is better but what would

happen

if leaders started rewarding quality

over quantity

what would happen if we focused on

educating the client rather than rushing

through a powerpoint presentation

and contrary to what many leaders at the

top believe and trust me i know of you

this approach does not have to come at

the cost of lower profitability think

about it if our approach results in a

stronger relationship with the client

that’s a higher client retention

perhaps additional wallet share may be

referrals

i discovered that the key to success

was in the human connection

strong human connections result in

trusting relationships and who’s better

at building trusting relationships than

women

the media loves to portray successful

advisors as the wolves of wall street

bernie madoff the fictional gordon gekko

because that’s sexy right

but what about real life

what about women like sally kroczek who

ran two global wealth management firms

and is now launching her own to help

women invest

what about melody hopson in our own

backyard of chicago president of aerial

investments

or carla harris a senior executive at

morgan stanley who also happens to be a

professional gospel singer on the side

these are some of the most successful

people in financial services right now

and while they do bring strong feminine

attributes to their work

i can assure you no one thinks they’re

soft

transforming our industry will not be

easy

because the soft skills

are some of the hardest for people to

develop and master

and yes the transformation must involve

the hiring and inclusion of more women

and people of color

when i’m out there encouraging young

women to consider this career path i

often hear

i’m not good at math and i’m not good at

sales

well i’ve got news for you neither am i

in fact i joke often that i’m one of the

few indians on this planet who isn’t

great at math

i’m living proof that financial advisors

do not have to look a certain part i

mean look at me

i’m a brown skinned female immigrant

from india

i couldn’t be further from the prototype

when i was in college and i decided at

some point that i wanted to become an

economics major

my advisor took one look at me with my

aquanet spiked hair

black lipstick black nail polish long

black trench coat

combat boots

and he suggested i go into fashion

design instead

well thank god i didn’t listen to him

i believe my success in this field came

about because i leveraged my uniqueness

i have never had a desire to be like

everyone else in the room

my relationship building skills

my compassion for people whether it was

my clients or my team

the fact that i made it okay to show

vulnerability as a leader in a very

male-dominated environment

all these things made me different

was i always rewarded for it

depends on how you define reward

sure i made a great living

but the real reward goes back to how i

began this presentation

what do women do with their wealth

they reinvest back into the community

right

well i’m now reinvesting back into my

community by developing and preparing

other women to be successful in this

field and helping firms to also meet

this moment in history because it’s an

important moment in history

why don’t we just call wealth management

what it really is

financial life management

we have to start by making sure the

front lines look as diverse as the

clients we serve but again

it doesn’t stop with hiring the right

people

we need a paradigm shift within the

industry itself that’s the only way

we’re going to change the system and the

culture

the people who currently hold the power

need to commit to this change

but it doesn’t have to be a zero-sum

game

everyone will be better off think about

it

diverse companies are 35 percent more

likely to perform better than

non-diverse companies we’ll be able to

attract and retain women employees if we

can describe the work we do as helping

others and not about meeting sales goals

and if we can show more gender diversity

in the field

it’s more likely that women investors

will become more trusting of our

industry everybody wins

so whether we call it wealth management

or financial life management or anita’s

rant

we know this system was built over the

course of a few hundred years with a

very traditional model

so we’re not going to change this

overnight

but whether we’re male or female

we each play a part in its inevitable

transformation

so let’s not wait another 150 years

i for one am not waiting another day

thank you

you