Sallie Krawcheck, Co-founder/CEO of Ellevest — Wall Street Stories, Building Resilience, & Overcoming Bias
Miguel Armaza sits down with the legendary Sallie Krawcheck, Co-founder and CEO of Ellevest, an innovative digital investment platform built by women, for women, providing solutions for all stages of women’s financial lives to help them invest more, save more, and earn more.
Founded in 2015, Ellevest recently crossed over $1B in Assets Under Management, backed by some of the most impressive names in the industry, including PSP Partners, Khosla Ventures, Mastercard, Paypal, Allianz, Eric Schmidt, Max Levchin, and Mohamed El-Erian.
Sallie is one of the highest-ranked women to have ever worked on Wall Street, is an influential writer and thinker, and one of the most impressive people to join us on this podcast.
We also want to extend a special thank you to professor Adam Grant for his help in making this episode a reality.
We discuss:
A storied career on Wall Street. Sallie joined Salomon Brothers in the 1980s where she describes living through all the stories ‘you read about, but don’t quite believe’. She eventually found her voice in finance after becoming a sell-side analyst at Sanford Bernstein, where she gained a stellar reputation and was even named The Last Honest Analyst by Fortune Magazine. She continued climbing the ranks of Wall Street to eventually become CEO of Citi Wealth Management and then CEO of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management — but both of those high profile roles ended abruptly in two very public firings of Sallie.
“I remember sitting in my office, and seeing a woman on CNBC which was gonna be fired. And I was like, ‘boy, she’s gonna have a tough day.’ And then I realized, ‘Oh my God, it’s me!’ So CNBC knew about it before I did it. That was sort of weird.”
Inspiration behind Ellevest and overcoming cultural beliefs. After leaving Merrill Lynch, Sallie found herself trying to figure out her next step and realized she didn’t want to go back into another big company. Instead, she started to pay attention to people who kept telling her to launch an investing firm for women. And although it took a bit of convincing, at some point it became clear to Sallie that women were not being served well by the asset management industry and that none of the conventional assumptions about female investors were correct.
“And all of a sudden, as I started to realize, we talk about the gender pay gap of 82 cents, the wealth gap is 32 cents. And in between how much she brings in and how much she keeps, she doesn’t invest as much. She has more debt. And I’m looking at saying this is a travesty. How do we fix it? Oh, I have the background to potentially get women to invest. And so maybe my view that [investing] for women is inferior and dumbed down is based on messages I’ve received from a patriarchal society.”
“86% of financial advisors are men… 90% of mutual fund dollars are managed by men. Maybe they built a business for themselves. Look at CNBC — it’s ESPN, but for money! Look at the brand symbol of the industry, it’s a bull. Maybe they built it for themselves as sort of a sport. Maybe I can go out and raise some money.”
The most meaningful moment from her time at Ellevest, and why it still gives her chills to think about it.
I was standing in line a few months ago… And the woman behind me recognized me and my Ellevest bag and then burst into tears, saying ‘thank you’. And the reason it matters is because money is women’s number one source of stress… And the number one driver of confidence for women to achieve their future financial goals, is if they’ve taken action. ‘Did I invest more? Did I save more?’
Why Sallie is concerned about progress of gender diversity in the corporate world and what she’s doing about it. It’s no secret that the pandemic has been disastrous for women in the workforce and the US has lost a lot of the progress that had been made on this front. Moreover, Sallie argues Wall Street has not changed much since she got started in the 1980s — women are still not getting promoted at the same rate as men and they continue stuck at the lower levels.
“Changing those cultures is hard. You have to have a CEO who is dead set on it, and will wait out or exit the people who aren’t on board. Or you do what I did and start your own company. I mean, we’re 75% women, we are close to 50% people of color. We are 20%+ LGBTQIA (identifying)…”
Lessons for leaders and entrepreneurs Grit and determination are important, but Sallie attributes her success to being able to identify problems where others didn’t and having the determination to act on them.
“In addition to the hard work and the risk-taking, a key to my success has been that I have managed to see things differently from other people and have been willing to place the bet.”
Sallie Krawcheck
Sallie Krawcheck is the Co-founder and CEO of Ellevest, an innovative digital investment platform designed to help women reach their financial goals. She is also Chair of Ellevate Network, a professional networking community whose mission is to advance women in business. She is one of the highest ranked women ever to have worked on Wall Street, having held posts such as CEO of Smith Barney, CEO of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, and CFO of Citigroup. She is one of the most-read “Influencers” on LinkedIn, and has been profiled as one of Fast Company’s “Most Creative People” in business, as well as in The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Forbes, and more. Krawcheck attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and holds an MBA from Columbia University.
About Ellevest
Ellevest is a financial company built by women, for women, providing solutions for all stages of women’s financial lives to help them invest more, save more, and earn more. Ellevest’s offerings include digital investing tools, banking services, discounted access to professional coaching, and learning resources, as well private wealth management for high net worth clients who want a customized financial strategy that may include investing for impact. Ellevest has built a community of 3+ million Elle Raisers working toward financial equality. To learn more, check out ellevest.com.
Full interview → Spotify | Soundcloud | Apple
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Miguel Armaza is Co-Host of the Wharton Fintech Podcast and Co-Founder of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas.
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