LISA CAPUTO
‘Ideal audience’ in Hub
Women who desire more financial empowerment and independence with their money are more often seeking financial professionals at their local banks and investment companies to help educate them on real estate, tax planning, retirement and savings. It’s a trend representing opportunities that the founders of Women and Co. quickly spotted.
The 1-year-old company has provided women in New York, Chicago and South Florida the education and resources needed to make banking and financial planning decisions easier, and now the company is making its way to Boston.
“Boston is an ideal audience because there is a tremendous number of professional women for whom this offer will be a benefit,” said Lisa Caputo, president of Women and Co., who launched the company after suffering significant legal debt during the Clinton investigations as part of her tenure as press secretary for First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. “Many women don’t focus on their finances and our membership is designed to help them gain control and address this aspect of their lives.”
The organization is turning to local bank and investment associates to join in the crusade.
“If banks don’t take advantage of this service for their customers, they would be missing the boat,” said Jeffrey M. Kotalik, a financial consultant and financial planning specialist for Smith Barney in Boston. To date, Kotalik is one of two financial planners in Massachusetts who have joined Women and Co. Sherry Olson-Lusandi, a financial planner for Smith Barney in Worcester, is also affiliated with Women and Co.
“Banks should be picking up this niche. The percentage of women that are wealthy via hard work, estate and divorce comprises an expanding group of people,” Kotalik said.
While many Bay State banks offer products and services targeted toward specific audiences, no banks in Massachusetts currently offer Women and Co. services through their financial professionals. A large part of the Women and Co. service includes one-on-one consultations with financial professionals, approved through Citigroup Investment Services, and Caputo says she encourages ideas from local banks to provide a better service to the Boston clientele.
“Boston is important to us, and the response has been terrific,” said Caputo. “Our financial professionals have been trained to work with our women clients … and from a business standpoint this is very important.”
Banks and financial planners become associated with the services provided by Women and Co. by becoming a member of the organization, and associates are responsible for receiving the appropriate sign-off from their companies.
With the help of financial institutions in Boston, Women and Co. provides women and men personal financial consultations and counseling, educational seminars, discounts on financial offerings and an online newsletter subscription for an annual fee of $125.
According to Linda Boff, director of marketing and communications for Women and Co., the annual fee includes everything from helping members find a financial professional to no-fee credit cards and discounts on mortgage rates, automobile and home insurance.
While members do not pay their Women and Co. financial advisors directly, the company collects fees from members buying financial products.
‘Long-Term’ Thinking
According to the Women and Co. statistics, a majority of the Boston clientele is comprised of professional women in their forties who are married with children and acting as the primary financial decision maker in the household and “it’s important that women feel financially independent and also financially secure,” according to Caputo.
“Women outlive men by seven years and more and more women are getting out on their own financially – one out of every four women are going to be on their own professionally at some point in their lives,” said Caputo. “What Women and Co. is doing is preparing women to deal with real estate agents, plan for their parents retirement or plan for the children, and think long-term about money, vs. the short-term [financial] thinking by men.”
And offering financial planning to women is a whole different point of view, according to Kotalik, who said that through conferences and diversity training he was introduced to the different aspect of a woman’s financial needs as opposed to man’s.
“A woman thinks very differently – women recognize facts but don’t necessarily act on those facts,” said Kotalik. “Women have an emotional tie to [financial] facts and how it affects her and her children and all the ramifications … if something happens. She has to deal with her husband, children, business, and she doesn’t have time to be kept up to date on estate planning and tax planning.”
According to Kotalik, in most households men take care of the finances, and statistics show that 50 percent of those couples get divorced, leaving a woman with financial decisions she may not understand.
The area of financial planning is new to many people, including women, according to Susan O’Donnell, a senior vice president at Clarke/Bardes Consulting in Duxbury.
“In terms of the specific market niche, this is an interesting concept and there is certainly a market for this,” said O’Donnell, who works with banks and financial institutions throughout New England on bank practices and services. “Truthfully, women don’t have this kind of service and this type of resource would provide women a place to obtain information … and could become a venue where people feel they can trust their financial advisors.”
O’Donnell said that town and community banks could easily get involved in a project dedicated to women because it focuses on a specific market, which O’Donnell said is a different approach from the other non-traditional banks.
And because women live longer than men, Kotalik and Caputo stress that it is essential for women to know how to manage their money.
According to O’Donnell, a company such as Women and Co. is tiered to those women who do not have a financial planner but want more of a role in managing their families.
Caputo says women – single, married, with or without children – need to “understand what is going on with their money and how to manage their money.”
“Women contributing what they are contributing to the economy today, there is a significant opportunity for them to manage their finances and be in control of their finances. The most important thing is to find a financial planner at your bank or investment company that you trust,” said Caputo. “Why take a risk on your money – it’s not worth the risk of losing it all.”
