Panel examines opportunities for women interested in wealth management
Firm co-owner notes coming lack of wealth advisors as retirements approach
Panel examines opportunities for women interested in wealth management
Lisa Howe says her wealth management firm, Nest Capital, puts a lot of emphasis on the firm’s culture because in that field, it really matters.
“We're big believers that the way that the people on our team feel is the way they're going to make clients feel. You have a smile on your face when you answer the phone. You know how you can tell right away, if you're talking to your friends, if they're in a good mood or not? That's how we want our clients to feel,” she said.
Howe, a 1996 Finance alumna and a co-owner and senior finance advisor at Nest, brought coworkers Leslie Arnold and Julia Paslawski to the Farmer School of Business Career Commons to talk with students about their careers in wealth management and their day-to-day work in a panel presented by Moxie Platforms and hosted by Moxie CEO and founder Candice Richards.
Howe said she got her first taste of the wealth management world while she was in high school, accompanying her father to work. “When I would go anywhere with him, I thought ‘Oh, they all look like my dad, all the advisors, that's exactly what they look like,’ and here we are many years later, still with only 20% of female advisors,” she said. “Things that are starting to change, and its things like the wealth management program that Miami is putting into place and having events like this that fires me up. I want the industry to change like that. That's what gets me out of bed every day after being in this industry for 30 years.”
“When I first got in the industry, I had absolutely no idea what it was about. I thought it was like banking, but what has kept me is that I get to focus on taking care of clients, taking care of people,” Arnold said. “As I'm taking care of clients, I'm also helping take care of advisors, and that continues to fill my cup.”
Paslawski joined the firm after graduating from college, where she changed her major from Marketing to Finance. “I did a shadowing opportunity with Lisa at Nest Capital and realized this is something that I can do, where I can be of value to other people and help people,” she said. “I think that that was really a pivot point for me, to see the amount of joy that it brings. It's just really empowering to know that you have a voice as a woman in the space.”
Howe said that a good portion of an advisor’s role deals with the psychology of money and how clients think about it – and telling the advisors what they are thinking. “Clients will tell you everything, because you cannot help them without all the information and that level of honesty,” she said. “Money itself is not really what people are after most the time. It's more about what can money do for their security, their sense of independence, their family, and maybe the philanthropies of their choice. Those understandings of the connectivity between people and their money are huge.”
Another portion of the role is making sure clients are as knowledgeable as possible about what their investments are doing. “When things are rough in the market, that's really where you earn your keep, and it's mostly though about educating clients, even during the good times. We pride ourselves a lot in client education,” Howe said. “The more we can get a good relationship with them before the financial markets get rough, the more inclined they are to stay on the path with us.”
Arnold said that students seeking internships in the wealth management field should really buy into that role if they get it. “When you do the internship, truly show your true self. Grace came in as an intern and completely wowed us,” she said, pointing to one of the FSB students in attendance. “She wasn't there just to be an intern. Whatever she was doing, she owned it, she did it. I think that will make you stand out more than anyone, especially if that's a company you want to work with in the future.”
“It made us want to engage, because what we realized before we started engaging purposefully, being here for these events, having these conversations is that the people who are showing up are the people that are most interested,” Howe said. “We're being smarter about how we're fishing for new talent.”
And that need for new talent is only growing, she said. “50% of the financial advisors that are out there today are expected to retire in the next 10 years. We do not have enough people to fill their spots, and the demands of the clients are changing,” Howe said. “We can actually make a really big difference, meeting female clients where they are by supporting female talent, and that is what's getting me out of bed in the morning now.”
