Girl Finance: A Woman’s Guide to Managing Her Money and Navigating the Financial World
We already make less money than men. Do we really want to lose what money we do have because we don’t know how to manage our finances? In order to better understand the world of finance, I sat down with Claire Huskins, a valuation associate at Carta. Carta is a California-based software company specializing in finance, which includes equity management, issuing stock options, and valuations.
When you picture today’s modern career woman, a few things come to mind. Such words may evoke the image of a thirty-something year old woman in stylish but classy business clothes power-walking in heels through the crowded city streets, strutting off to her super successful job as a CEO of a vastly large company. Today’s modern career woman is confident, driven, high-achieving, and able to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Yet when we think of the modern career woman, we rarely think of financial literacy. Women are often stereotyped as being unable to manage and understand their finances, and this pervasive misogynistic belief has become so deeply ingrained in our psyche that women will neglect to educate themselves about finance, and even refuse to pursue careers in the financial sector. Notably, a 2020 study of financial literacy among American women found that on average, Gen Z women answered only 37% of questions about finances correctly (the lowest relative to millennial women, Gen X, and baby boomers). The observed lack of financial competency among women has significant implications for creating and managing a budget, saving for retirement and the future, making investments — and what is particularly of concern for female university students, managing student loans and credit card debt. This is especially alarming considering the current economic climate. In order to gain further insight into this topic, I sat down with one of WISE’s own executive-turned-valuation associate Claire Huskins to discuss her journey in the finance industry, how to improve your financial literacy, and navigating the heavily-gendered workplace.
How would you describe your line of work? What are your daily responsibilities and tasks as a valuation associate?
I work with a larger team, and we primarily handle 409a valuations which are used for IRS purposes. Essentially, we advise startup companies what they should issue stock options for. We [my team and I] handle — I think — roughly upwards of 20,000 valuations per year, and these include fund valuations, 409a valuations, and HMRC fund valuations. Our overall goal, and the overall goal of Carta, is to make the financing and running of startups — from the cap table, to issuing options, to raising your first safe — as easy as possible without requiring any prior knowledge of finance… and thousands of dollars of legal fees.
How did you decide to pursue a career in finance? Did you have any strong female role models or influences whilst growing up that helped steer you into the industry?
Growing up, a lot of people I knew were in finance, especially women. I have a lot of female family friends who are in finance, and my mom was an accountant, so a career in finance was always on my radar. Plus the finance industry has always seemed to offer a steady job with a lot of job security, and it just seemed to be the natural progression after getting my degree in economics. I’ve been lucky enough not only to have been surrounded by these great women whilst growing up, but also to have many female mentors in the industry throughout my career. Most of my managers and senior directors have been women, and they have all been extremely supportive, willing to help with any issues that I may be facing, and they have always made the effort to establish boundaries in the workplace — drawing the line between what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour. It’s really nice to be able to go to them [my female mentors] with questions or for help with an issue, and with some things, it’s definitely easier to be able to go to someone who is a woman and say, “Hey, this is a career opportunity that I’ve been thinking about, or this is something that I’ve been dealing with.”
Finance tends to be a heavily male-dominated field, and as such, the contributions of women tend to be overlooked, manifesting as a comparatively lower number of opportunities for promotion or career advancement, the gender wage gap, biased clients, etc. Throughout your career, have you ever personally experienced (or witnessed) gender-based discrimination?
I would say that it depends — I mean most of our clients do tend to be men, especially older men, and with any issues or instances of potential discrimination that do arise, it is quite difficult to get our managers/superiors involved. In terms of my overall career, I do think gender and gender-based discrimination have played a role in terms of my journey from an undergrad to a valuation associate. Specifically, when I was studying at U of T, I was originally planning on pursuing a more technical route in finance, but I ended up deciding against doing so. There’s a myriad of reasons why, but one of the main reasons was because I ended up being the one of the only women in most of my classes, and this created a number of challenges, such as difficulty connecting with my classmates, being unable to form a support network, and struggling with being taken seriously as a woman in finance. Not only has my gender prevented me from pursuing a more technical route, but it has also restricted my career growth in other ways. For example, when I apply for jobs, the first thing that I do is look up the board of directors or senior partners of the company that I am interested in, and most — if not all — of the positions that I avoid applying to or turn down have been because there is a significant absence of women in leadership/managerial positions. As a woman, if I don’t feel represented or supported, then that’s not a company that I want to work for.
Given the experiences that you just described, what changes (small or large-scale) do you think are necessary in order to reduce/eradicate the existing gender disparity in the finance industry?
I think that any changes definitely need to start in schools — we have to start relatively young and encourage women to be in these male-dominated industries (i.e. finance), as well as continue to promote young girls in technical roles, especially senior technical positions (i.e. CEO, CFO, head of technology). While many startups have now begun to have women in senior positions, they’re almost always like, the head of HR or the head of legal…all positions that are less technical and more stereotypically feminine. People have this tendency to be like, “you should be happy that women are in the C-suite at all,” but that’s not how it works. It isn’t enough for a company to just hire equal amounts of men and women — we need to make sure that we’re providing women with pathways to more senior roles, eradicating biased or stereotypical hiring practices, and removing the gender-typing of workplace positions. Women aren’t inherently better at managing the ‘people’ team, and men aren’t inherently better at managing the ‘product’ team. Also, something that I’ve noticed while working with startups is that female-run startups are much less likely to receive funding than male-run startups, and this is something that we really need to address.
As part of an ongoing issue, we are asking all of our interviewees how they navigate the heavily-gendered workplace, in terms of setting boundaries, negotiating for your deserved wages, how to cope with being pitted against other women in competition (i.e. Queen Bee syndrome), etc. Given the current economic circumstances in terms of inflation and the ever-growing gender wage gap, how would you go about negotiating for your deserved salary?
With salary negotiations, I think that it’s very important to remember your worth as a team member, as a colleague, and to not undersell yourself or your contributions in negotiations. It’s really important for you to say, “Hey, I DID this, and I deserve to be appreciated or paid accordingly for it.” Personally I find it very helpful to write down what projects I am doing and what I do every day, even just in a little word document, so that I can keep track of my contributions and how I have benefited the business, so that when it comes time for negotiations or if I’m up for a promotion, I can say “I have done X/Y/Z” or “I have benefited the company in these ways, and this is why I deserve this.” Also, during salary negotiations, it’s very important to focus specifically on what you have done for the business and what you bring to the table, rather than comparing yourself or your wages to that of your colleagues.
Given your expertise, what are your top 3 tips for young women looking to manage their finances?
Firstly, I would say that you should keep track of your spending, even writing it down physically would be helpful. The second thing that you should do is have — at the very least — a solid outline of a budget. Finally — and this is really important — you should remind yourself that it’s okay to spend money. I think that women especially have a tendency to look negatively on our spending and judge certain items that we find joy in as ‘frivolous.’ Of course, I’m not saying put yourself in debt by spending $1000 on a single pair of shoes, but if that latte from Starbucks once a week makes you happy and doesn’t tank your bank account, go for it, it’s okay! It’s very important to get little bits of joy from your spending.
What advice do you have for women who are interested in following a similar career path as you?
I would say…take a lot of opportunities, anything that comes your way, even if you don’t think that it’s applicable to you. It’s really important to open yourself up to new experiences and keep an open mind rather than pigeonhole yourself into one thing. Personally, I didn’t know that I was going to go into valuations, but pursuing this opportunity allowed me to expand and grow in this role, learn new things about myself, and help others in a more managerial role. I also think that it’s important to not berate yourself for not following a specific path or pre-set plan. It’s okay if your plans don’t work out, because your goals will change as you move throughout your career and that’s perfectly okay and even good! I think my final piece of advice is that you should never work in environments where you don’t like your co-workers — it’s very important to enjoy your work and feel comfortable in your work environment.
I hope that Claire’s journey has helped inspire some of you to pursue a career in finance, or at the very least, helped you to better understand finance and how to manage your money. After all, a better understanding of financial literacy is another step towards true independence!
