Women’s Wealth Accumulation Is All About Taking Risks and Starting Early

well I'm so excited to moderate this panel about women and wealth and I have three baller women here that can touch

every part of this topic uh as my opening lightning round I am going to ask you to give self introductions and a

little bit about why this topic is so important I'll set it up just to say and I open the conference with a statistic

around how few uh women are CEOs of top companies including the Fortune 500 I think it's like 10% and then when you

look at the wealth Gap there is a gap uh women earn 84 cents on the man's dollar so why is that and according to McKenzie

it's going to take 50 years to change that that just doesn't sound good in this room let's start with you mik thank you first of all it's such a pleasure to be here thank you for having me and what

an honor to talk about a subject that means so much to me personally um my name is Malik Santini I'm a managing director and Banker at JP Morgan's Private Bank equally as important I'm a

mom to TW twin girls that are 17 years old on their way to their Journey um and it's a pleasure to be here amongst you ladies thank you as well for having me

I'm so delighted I'm Su Kendra Cassy I'm the CEO of zero if you don't know it it's uh about a $3 billion Global business uh it's a cloud account accounting platform that helps small

businesses uh do all their finances uh and we operate in 180 countries around the world uh and I am passionate about this topic as you all know uh I'm I'm a multi-time entrepreneur but I also

believe that if we ever really want to create a Level Playing Field women need to have access to wealth creation opportunities because that's how you're going to see uh I would say a more Equitable world when it comes to women

getting access to Capital uh women getting access to equal opportunity uh everyone else and uh so I believe we need to become much much smarter Risk

Takers and portfolio managers of our own wealth and I'm Jennifer openshaw I uh have lived the experience my mom was a two full-time waitress while I was uh

putting myself through school in a maid at the age of 14 and decided that I wanted to live a very different life I worked in the financial industry was in Silicon Valley where I started a company called women's Financial Network and

sold that and today I'm the chairman of girls with impact which is the leading business preparation program for young women making sure they're ready for day one in the workplace well you each come from a

different perspective and I was very impressed by your bios I think Sue Kinder you talk a lot about risk and how women are less risk-takers versus men uh

Malik you talk about how important financial planning is and Jennifer maybe I can start with you one of the things that I read in your background was that

men get promoted on a promise and women get promoted on performance you talk a lot about hard work and advancement so share a little bit about that with our

audience isn't that amazing that men get promoted more on performance and uh promise and women on performance and one of the things that

we see is that as we go up the corporate ladder the wage disparity uh widens so women who are increasingly at the top might have the same qualifications but

they're not earning the same and why is that there's a couple reasons one is that women tend to be in more soft jobs not as close to the business they also tend to not be uh in those leadership

roles in industries that are the higher paying ones like technology law and finance and so the question is what can we do to make sure more women are getting to the top of these companies which really uh betters everybody and a

couple key things I want to suggest there is um first off research and and know what your worth is and there's been so much talk right now about

um uh women in the workplace this is the time to not shrink from your worth but to lean into it um raising your hand and letting your voice be heard in the boardroom in the corporate room in

meetings is incredibly important um I have a friend who I knew of a a new hire who uh had the same qualifications as she did and he was making more and she

um spoke up and uh that changed her compensation structure right uh and then finally I think having a sponsor in the the workplace is really important so that somebody's looking out for you even

when you're not in the room with them great I I'd love to start by saying that I I feel really proud uh to be a JP Morgan and when we think about kind of

JP Morgan globally and you think about women being represented 49% of our Global Workforce is women 41% of the

firm's operating committee is women 30 about 32% is senior level women and the numbers go on and on and on so the firm is a very large and and and and fierce

advocate of women in leadership positions and women in in the positions available for growth um as we think about financial planning this is again a topic that I obsess about every single

day and I think that at the base and what's most important is education it's Early Education it's understanding Finance from the building blocks and the most simplistic form and and planning

for the future thinking about what debt means and how that feels to you emotionally understanding what debt is Right thinking about retirement thinking about investing thinking about where

your passions are and where those lie I think there's a lot of women that are uh in control of their own finances and take an active role in understanding it preemptively and that's great and

there's other women that are dependent potentially um our view is that all women should have a very solid base so that they can plan for the future because we all know the future creeps up

on us quite quickly and so the fact that you can get ahead of that and really really think about what you want your legacy to look like what you want your wealth to do for you um and how you want

to support your lifestyle goals and and and your goals to be in line with your your financial um well-being so raise

raise your hand ask for it uh work at a great company like yours I do and work with great financial people that can help you sue Kinder you've done a lot of

this work your whole career uh how have you Advanced women um well I I'm going to uh stick to the topic of wealth because I think it's it's such an important one and we don't talk about it

enough I think that the thing I'm really passionate about is helping women be smart Risk Takers um you know I wrote a book on this topic um about just risk taking in your career and um

unfortunately all the objective research suggests that women in almost every facet of Life are more risk averse than men right and I don't think risk is about you going out and batting it all

on black I think it's about building a smart portfolio right so you have the opportunity as I said to create wealth because if you create create wealth it is one access to creating you know more

opportunity for yourself and for others so I I believe in it deeply but there's a very simple kind of story I'm going to give you that that maybe elates this so um my daughter is a hard worker she has

saved every penny I'm sure like many of your daughters and she is a saver she has she ref refes to tell me what's in her bank account but she keeps saving and she sends me a bill all the time for

what I owe her I get a list like itemized mom $18 for you know this door Dash I blah blah blah blah okay my

son my son my son um you know my son is not a saver but here's the difference he's on a greenl account and I was like Kieran you know I force him to save and I'm like you should invest and so my son

was like okay I was like pick three stocks and so he picks three stocks and he's on Green light and he's up 50% okay my daughter still has it all in her bank

account I'm like Kenya you're a saver you need to become an investor she's like maybe I'm like no no give me $1,000 I'll set you up on Greenlight pick three stocks right pick what you know so my

son picked Nvidia apple and he and he picked um a Bitcoin fund knows nothing about Bitcoin by the way the kid is up okay but he is becoming an investor and

she's a saver there's a problem with that he's accumulating wealth and opportunity right now I I struggle think what he's going to do with his money when I'm not

around I want him to be a smart investor but I want her to be an investor so I just say early on is you know the thing I'm passionate about is helping women be smart Risk Takers that's about building a portfolio starting early um I'll say

if you you don't have to guess about what you don't know make money in what you know you know my very first job was an investor investment banker at maril Lynch and I was in the financial institutions group working on the lease

sexy business of all Savings and Loans thrifts and big Banks um but guess what I learned a lot about thrifts the first two stocks I ever bought were Thrift

stocks I made money in Silicon Valley I moved into e-commerce I joined the board of J crew I became an e-commerce investment all my private Investments were in e-commerce I spent eight years

running a business I I could understand and see the patterns in businesses that had winning characteristics and so I invested in those as an angel and that turned out what very well so I I think if there's one thing to leave you with

is like it's great ear a saver become an investor too right pick a portfolio of choices right from very safe like an ETF to investing in what you know if you

want to try a stock try it in something you know but I think this idea of wealth creation starting early is about we all have as women saver mentalities think about building an investor mentality on

that topic financial literacy is critical uh women of a certain age and M now maybe of every age they say death or

divorce causes you to gain financial literacy how do you work with your clients on that topic and it you you're talking so much about the younger generation there's a lot of incredibly

young women here what advice would you give them and can you share I mean you have two daughters twins they may be here in the audience um that's a great point I think

you know you you have to back to what I think we were all saying is you have to start Young and it's never too late that's also a message and also this concept of investing and and getting into the

markets or feeling comfortable um is is really important and it's also crucial to feel like you have the right team around you to support you so at JP Morgan I have the great pleasure of

working with Incredible subject matter experts and we work with clients around their entire balance sheet so we don't only look at assets we don't we look at we look at assets we look at liabilities

we look at estate planning we look at retirement we look at how all of the pieces of the puzzle fit together and what that means if you pull different levers because pulling levers just on

their own sometimes can be dangerous if you don't have that team around you so feeling really equipped that you know we're not alone in this investing can seem a little scary if you haven't done

it before um I think you raised a beautiful point that you know there's um some passions that people may have or sectors that they may they gravitate to so they'll feel kind of um drawn to

invest in in one area over another because they feel confident in that area but it's about diversification um it's a key word in kind of finance and in all of our worlds I would believe so you know thinking

about how do you diversify um your financial assets and how do you get really really good smart advice and a team around you I think we all know as women we have kind of a team spirit kind

mindset and you know we all do better when we're together and we we lean on some subject matter experts so that's how we support our clients Jen over to you I was just kid you know we work so

hard earning money right that paycheck and so you want to make it go as far as you can and just to give you a great example of the power of starting earlier

if you want to get to a million dollars uh at by the time of 65 a 30-year-old would have to put away $35,000 one time over compounding interest that would

grow to that a 50-year-old would have to tuck away $239,000 right so there is such a benefit in starting early and being regular about it you know one of the

things I did with with an old friend of mine is I is I created something called the money buddy system and it could be with your partner or with a friend but um looking at your finances on a regular

basis um going back to what Sindra was saying about risk you know I was in silicom Valley I sold a company I made a little bit of money and um I put my

money in real estate and while there was some risk there for sure I tripled my wealth in about five years right so we as women we have to take risk but we

have to do it smartly and there's so much innovation in uh Financial Services day today with products or working with a financial adviser but you have to take

charge of it let's get a little bit personal but career personal did you ever think you would have a title of CEO and be in these

positions that you're in high-profile working with Incredible clients authors investors selling companies and being on Boards of companies share a

little bit about you why don't you I'm happy to start I've had uh great mentors in in my career and over the you know 16 years that I've been at JP Morgan every

position that I've moved to has been a position that I never imagined I could actually do when someone told me to do it and it was scary to take the the the leap um but somebody else believed in me

and that's why it's called a promotion and I did it and I think that you know that gives you such self-confidence to fall into a role that you were not comfortable in because that you know if

you have intellectual curiosity you're going to you're going to do really great at that because the person that knows what that role is actually probably isn't the best suited for that seat um

so mentorship I think also is extremely extremely important we as women um have that ability to kind of take the younger generation under our wing help them to grow um and help them to find what their

care career trajectory should look like and what the path to success is and also just not be afraid we all innately have I heard our previous panel that was phenomenal talk about impostor syndrome

I think we all have it um in Social settings in work settings but if you really Embrace that somebody may see something in you or actually take that leap and have courage and believe in

yourself magical things can happen um so I grew up in Canada and my parents immigrated from from East Africa when I was two and they restarted their

careers as doctors and so they ran a joint medical practice but my dad loved what he did he loved serving people but he also loved being a small business owner he loved it so that meant that he

took all three of his daughters and he made us do his taxes every year he did not have an accountant you can think how ironic this is I now run a financial accounting Cloud software platform for small

businesses but somewhere around seven or eight we would madly start like literally logging things in his Ledger uh around March 1st for like a 15th I think April 15th filing deadline in

Canada and so by the time I was 11 or 12 I knew how to do fill in my dad's books um but he not only loved running a business to me it was very normalized because it was just like you know Ledger

of like expenses and pro you know and um revenues and he also loved investing so my dad was in his he was an older father so he was almost 50 when I was born but

he I would see him get on the phone and call his broker and he would use a magnifying glass and look in the newspaper and pick stocks and I literally remember him and like 1980

Something being like hey Tom let's buy some AOL um and he loved it and he loved it so I think I am the daughter of two small business owners and entrepreneurs

and a father who loved business and he loved serving people and he thought they were the same thing and that is my origin story so well I um watched my mother's I said

worked two full-time jobs as a waitress growing up and that had a huge impact on me and I was always putting myself through college I I I don't know if many young women were doing this but I would be doing my budget numbers because I

found so much satisfaction in understanding my money where it was going where I wanted it to go and really being in in charge of it and after I uh Advanced my career you know one of the

things I notic is that when we come out of uh college or high school we are woefully unprepared to step into the business World nobody tells you how to operate the first day how do you

communicate with your boss how do you organize your day how do you problem solve all of those things and so we started girls with impact really to level the playing field so that young

women are more ready for day one and have that confidence that we uh tend to experience a huge gap in um when we're young I know I experienced confidence

gaps um for incredibly long and it had such a huge impact on me right and I didn't know how to operate um uh for example I I sold you know sold a company

and had some pretty significant heady meetings after that but I I didn't know how to go into those meetings right I didn't know how to be in my power and so that's what we're trying to do with

women because if you are in your power I mean there's so much more that you can do right and one of the things that we do with girls with impact is uh as we

partner with companies is allow women and men to enter these young people so that they can uh hone their leadership skills um but also we're taking our

Academy into companies so that uh women like yourself can innovate on the job uh and by innovating you might come up with a new idea in your company that uh could open doors for you right in so many ways

so there's a lot of ways that you can really advance to leadership I want to see women get to the very top so that we have um Power uh in the boardroom across

America I love that power I always think about money equals power and then power uh connects to making an impact uh so I

love that last and final question because we are almost out of time what advice would you give your younger self

today knowing what you know now it would be to be in your power I remember and my husband and I talk about this but I remember a time where I was

working and uh for a company and I would get nervous walking in to meet the it was a married couple that ran this company they made lots of money and I would get nervous and I and you know

then what I would do is talk to myself to be in your power and it just changes your whole dynamic I'm also a huge believer in visualizing what you want I did that when I was 12

13 visualize yourself going into a meeting or whatever or what you're going to become makes a huge difference let's see i' say com C down it's all going to work out trust me it

will all work out I was pretty intense I still am but imagine me I would say imagine me unmarried without three children to give perspective it's a bad scene um uh besides calm down I would

probably say come back to where I started like don't just think saving think I would say you know think investing um and for me I once upon a time did take all my money from a

startup called Amazon and I put it in a stock for a broker who I knew from Adam asked me how that worked out for me so I'd say early on invest in what you know

or get great advice and again build that basket of risks I was like oh I'm going to take it all from here and put it in here one stock to one stock idiotic move um so I'm really a believer that you

know you want to start building uh that in smart risk portfolio early um I would agree confidence I take risks take chances and I also think to

my younger self I think think you know become a subject matter expert in one area become that person that is irreplaceable because once you do that um the chances that you know you'll go

from A to Z in subject matter experts increases with the statistics tell us this so just go deep really deep in the area that interests you so it's authentic uh believe in yourself and

take risks well that was that went really fast you are amazing we can't wait to see what you do next we'll keep watching

andk thank you so much great conversation women and wealth