Around the dinner table growing up, my two sisters and I never discussed money with our parents. I am a fifth-generation Texan and, at that time, there was this attitude that women and girls didn’t really need to know about financial matters. Men handled the money. I went off to college and was one of the early classes in which women were admitted to Dartmouth. I took an economics class but could never get the professor to call on me when I raised my hand, after attending an all-girls high school for 8 years prior. A rude awakening indeed!
It wasn’t until seven years after graduating and having launched a career in retail, I was introduced to a wonderful CFP®, a gentleman who convinced me that I should join this noble profession. I am so grateful for his encouragement. I resigned from being a buyer at Neiman Marcus and started taking CFP® courses at night while remodeling homes by day. It was a leap of faith indeed. I met my future business partner in the CFP® classes. She convinced me to come interview at the firm she had recently joined. I joined Quest as an unpaid intern in 1991.
I started out making the coffee, answering the phone and making copies. After joining RJ as an advisor in 1993, I started working with the two partners of the firm, making sure the clients were happy. The next ten years, I focused on building my practice alongside working on the firm’s clients. With a lot of help from the partners at the time and my business partners today, and with the help of Strategic Coach, I’ve been able to build my practice to what it is today.
I am President of Quest Capital Management. As a firm we manage and custody over $1.1B for about 600 families. I am so grateful to have been steered towards this profession. When I started, I was one of only a handful of females at advisor conferences. The face of the financial advisor must mirror the investing population. The WLA exists to change the conversation and encourage more women to become great advisors.