(bright upbeat music)
- I'd love to start with something
that I think we share in common
which is a frustration with the sophomoric way
that women, particularly younger women,
are advised on personal finance.
- Oh, drives me crazy.
It drives me crazy.
Think about how media engages the genders on money.
For men, CNBC, Bloomberg TV,
it's buy this mutual fund,
buy this stock, sell now, alpha,
standard deviation, outperformance.
And for females in the media
that they most often engage with,
it's the research shows this,
we're about to talk about financial play,
it doesn't have to be difficult,
buckle your seatbelt, it's hard.
The underlying message is,
for men, make money, invest.
And for women, you're a dingbat when it comes to money.
Save, be careful, and the one of course as you know,
given the Fast Company article
that drives me crazy crazy is don't buy the latte,
invest the money instead, which is,
makes you feel guilty for the small things,
the math doesn't come close to working,
and nobody ever says don't buy the six pack.
- Right.
What is the role that the workplace can play
in all of this?
- It's interesting 'cause you asked the question
what can the workplace do
but isn't it funny,
you would have thought that Wall Street
and the investing industry,
the most capitalist of the capitalist,
the most profit seeking of the profit seeking,
would have solved this problem.
Would've said, oh look, over there,
there's a seven trillion dollar
investible asset market called women.
11 trillion, 12 trillion dollars
when you add in the money they jointly control
with their spouses, let's go after this.
- So what do you think has prevented Wall Street
from going beyond the mere marketing message
and actually doing the hard work it takes?
- Well, it's probably not a coincidence that an industry
in which 86% of financial advisors are men,
and 90 percentage of traders are men,
and 90 percentage of mutual fund managers are men,
and 95% of hedge fund managers are men.
- Not to mention the executive suite
at the top of these organizations.
- Oh, the executive suite.
Oh, and then when you have penile responsibility,
forget it.
That when you have an industry that is so un-diverse
no surprise that it does a better job,
I think, for the gender that it represents
than for women.
And that its attempts to engage with women
have been superficial, and frankly,
have been all about women changing themselves.
Again, we're back to the don't buy the latte,
invest in the market.
Don't buy the shoes, invest in the market.
There was one, not so long ago,
an event, facials and stocks.
Now-- - [Stephanie] (laughs)
- I personally love a good facial.
but don't patronize me.
- Right.
- When you speak to women about money,
you might expect,
what is money mean to you?
You think power, and independence,
and strength, and all that stuff.
It actually tends to be loneliness, isolation, confusion.
Money is women's number one source of stress.
- Mm-hmm.
- On the other side, the act of investing and saving,
the act, not how much you have but the act of investing
and saving is the number one driver for women
of their confidence in achieving their future goals.
And in fact, I'll actually tell you the number
of women who said their goal with investing
was simply to make more money was very few.
What compels women to invest is what can my life be?
I'd love to buy a home in five years.
Can I afford it?
I'd love to have a baby in two years.
Can I afford it?
I'd love to retire at 62 and travel the world.
Can I afford it?
And investing rather than being an end or a sport
in and of itself, is a means to an end.
- [Stephanie] Mm-hmm.
- And I could go on and on.
On and on.
Men tend to wanna take on more risk
in order to get a return.
Women, yeah, fine I'll take on risk
but I don't wanna take on more than I have to
in order to get to my goal.