Andres Garcia-Amaya of Zoe Financial On The 5 Essentials for Smart Investing
An Interview With Jason Hartman
Typically, most financial illiteracy is attributed to a lack of education. While, no doubt, there is ample need for financial education to be taught in classrooms, I’d also say the financial industry makes it unnecessarily complex to access and understand. In school, people aren’t taught about saving for retirement, how to invest, or even the dangers of credit card or student loan debt. But then, as adults, there is a ton of jargon… “401ks, IRAs” that is very confusing, and the industry.
As a part of my series about The 5 Essentials of Smart Investing, I had the pleasure of interviewing Andres Garcia-Amaya.
Andres Garcia-Amaya, Founder and CEO of the Zoe Financial platform, grew up on a farm in Colombia until his family moved to the US when he was a teen. Andres studied finance at Villanova and obtained an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Before Zoe, Andres was an Executive Director at JP Morgan Asset Management (JPAM), overseeing $1.3 trillion in assets under management. There, he saw a need in the wealth management industry for a new and different financial service — one that is more personal and provides genuine holistic financial advice.
Zoe Financial has been recognized for two years in a row as NerdWallet’s Best-of Awards Winner for Best Online Financial Advisor (2022,2023).
Thank you for doing this with us! Our readers would like to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us the “backstory” about what brought you to the finance industry?
I love understanding how things work. Finance, and specifically the capital markets, seemed complex and ever-changing. I was drawn to that.
Can you share with our readers the most interesting or amusing story that has occurred to you in your career so far?
An amusing story is what happened when I quit my role as an Executive Director at JP Morgan to start Zoe. I rehearsed what I would say several times as I had tremendous respect for my manager George Iwanicki. I was his mentee and was set to take over his responsibilities when he retired in a few years. When I told him I was leaving JP Morgan to start my own business. He first put his hands on his face. He took a good 30 seconds to process how painful it would be for him to start a new search to replace me. He took a deep breath, opened his drawer, and took out his personal checkbook. He asked, “how much do you need to get started?”
Can you share the lesson or take away you took from that story?
I was in total shock. Here is someone that had every right to be angry, betrayed, and try to dissuade me. Instead, he put aside what it would mean for him and focused on how he could help me in my new journey. I will never forget what he did for me. What I took away from it is that when you build strong relationships with managers and peers, they should transcend the company. I tell people in my team that have been with us for a while that I look forward to the day they tell me that they have learned enough at Zoe that they now feel confident in starting their own business. I want to write their first investment check the same way George did on me.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
Yes, actually! On January 18th, we released the Zoe Wealth Platform, an innovative and powerful tool that allows clients to open investment accounts instantly while working with a financial advisor. In addition, the platform features account funding, automated rebalancing, and commission-free fractional trading.
Zoe’s investment platform aims to reduce the current friction clients and advisors face. The start-up created a modern digital investment platform exclusively designed for affluent clients that work with a financial advisor. Unlike existing platforms, Zoe integrates the entire end-to-end journey through one seamless experience.
Other investment platforms have bolted-on experiences that lead to countless frustration points and a disjointed experience for consumers and advisors. Consumers want to be one click away from working with a financial advisor they can trust. From finding and hiring a vetted advisor via the Find An Advisor Tool to having their portfolio professionally managed on the platform — Zoe provides a fully digital & transparent experience.
Ok. Thanks for all that. Let’s now jump to the main core of our interview. According to this report in Fortune, nearly two-thirds of Americans can’t pass a basic test of financial literacy. In your opinion or experience, what is the cause of these unfortunate numbers?
Typically, most financial illiteracy is attributed to a lack of education. While, no doubt, there is ample need for financial education in schools, I’d also say the industry makes it unnecessarily complex to access and understand. In school, people aren’t taught about saving for retirement, how to invest, or even the dangers of credit card or student loan debt. Then, as adults, the industry’s jargon limits many people from understanding how to adequately evaluate the services they are being offered. People deserve better, starting with clarity and transparency.
Ok, thank you! Now to the main question of our interview: You are a “finance insider.” What would you say if you had to advise your adult child about 5 non intuitive essentials for smart investing? Can you please give a story or an example for each?
Charlie Munger (Warren Buffet’s partner) has this great quote: ‘Invert always invert. Instead of looking for success, make a list of how to fail instead.’ Then do the opposite. So what is what you want to avoid? Spend a lot more than what you make. Live your life on credit card debt. Spend your money on objects that depreciate in value over time. Do the exact opposite of that, and you will do great.
What are your thoughts about investing in cryptocurrency? Can you explain what you mean?
I have the same advice for investing in cryptocurrency as I do for any new asset class that does not have a long history. If you are an early adopter, then assign a small part of your overall portfolio to get exposure. I do not recommend making it the largest part of your overall portfolio, considering how volatile and unproven the asset class is at this stage of its development.
What are your thoughts about day trading using apps like Robinhood? Can you explain what you mean?
Robinhood is a platform that has been the on-ramp for first-time young investors, and I think that is a great thing. I started investing in individual stocks for fun when I was in my teens, and that was my on-ramp to becoming a student of the markets. Back then, it was very expensive to do a trade, so I could only afford to do one or two trades a month. Nowadays “free” trading does facilitate an environment for day trading. Day trading has very similar traits to gambling. It gives people a thrill, and it’s fairly addicting. As we have seen this year, when markets turn south, most day traders end up losing money as it seemed easy to trade on the way up… not so much on the way down.
None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a person you are grateful for who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
My parents. They left their family & friends in Colombia to move to the U.S. so that we, their children, could have opportunities that they never had. Without that one decision, I would not be where I am today.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
The founder of the Four Seasons, Isadore Sharp, had this saying: “Excellence is often just a capacity for taking pain.” This quote really resonated with me. When I look back at what I am most proud of in my professional life: starting a company from scratch, passing the CFA, the application process to get into Wharton… At none of these periods was I “happy.” In fact, they were fairly painful. I was mostly stressed and had to work long, grueling hours. But those are the achievements in life that have brought the most fulfillment.
If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be?
A movement is a group of people working together towards a common mission. Using that definition, Zoe is a movement. Our mission is to accelerate our clients’ wealth through exceptional experience and innovative technology. Our whole team believes deeply in this mission. If we keep striving towards that goal, we will end up helping millions of families grow their wealth. I can’t think of a bigger impact I can have in my life.
Thank you for the interview. We wish you continued success!
About The Interviewer: Jason Hartman is the Founder and CEO of Empowered Investor. Jason has been involved in several thousand real estate transactions and has owned income properties in 11 states and 17 cities. Empowered Investor helps people achieve The American Dream of financial freedom by purchasing income property in prudent markets nationwide. Jason’s Complete Solution for Real Estate Investors™ is a comprehensive system providing real estate investors with education, research, resources and technology to deal with all areas of their income property investment needs. Through Jason’s podcasts, educational events, referrals, mentoring and software to track your investments, investors can easily locate, finance and purchase properties in these exceptional markets with confidence and peace of mind.
Starting with very little, Jason, while still in college at the age of 19, embarked on a career in real estate. While brokering properties for clients, he was investing in his own portfolio along the way. Through creativity, persistence and hard work, he earned a number of prestigious industry awards and became a young multi-millionaire. Jason purchased a California real estate brokerage firm that was later acquired by Coldwell Banker. He combined his dedication and business talents to become a successful entrepreneur, public speaker, author, and media personality. Over the years he developed his Complete Solution for Real Estate Investors™ where his innovative firm educates and assists investors in acquiring prudent investments nationwide for their portfolio. Jason’s sought after educational events, speaking engagements, and his popular “Creating Wealth Podcast” inspire and empower hundreds of thousands of people in 189 countries worldwide.
While running his successful real estate and media businesses, Jason also believes that giving back to the community plays an important role in building strong personal relationships. He established The Jason Hartman Foundation in 2005 to provide financial literacy education to young adults providing the all-important real world skills not taught in school which are the key to the financial stability and success of future generations. We’re in a global monetary crisis caused by decades of misguided policies and the cycle of financial dependence has to be broken, literacy and self-reliance are a good start. Visit JasonHartman.com for free materials and resources.
