Help women become the CFOs of their own lives

“Your future self is already grateful for the decision you’ll make today.”

That is one message that Grace Vandecruze includes in her newsletter, “Thrive,” which is aimed at women.

Vandecruze is managing director of Grace Global Capital, a New York consulting firm providing mergers and acquisitions financial advisory, restructuring and valuation to insurance executives, boards and financial regulators. She is the author of “From Homeless to Millionaire: 6 Keys to UPLIFT your Financial Abundance.”

But outside her practice, Vandecruze works to empower young women through financial education. She believes women must understand “that they are the drivers of their financial destinies.”

“As young women pursue their dreams, it is more important for them to be less of a consumer and take more of an ownership of their finances, think more long term and be entrepreneurial about their life’s goals,” she said. 

Vandecruze said she believes younger women’s financial education would benefit not only from professional advice but also from observing the financial realities of older women.

“They’re not seeing older women who are in their later years and what the reality of that is,” she said. “The reality of women in their later years is that much of their time is spent on medical care and expenses, and it is a painful time for them. Many women finish their lives in a way they had not envisioned, and it’s not a positive thing.”

Older men often have an easier time than women in the final stages of their lives because men are more likely than women to have a partner or companion to help them navigate the challenges of older age, Vandecruze said.

“Some women don’t have the luxury of having a partner, and they often don’t have the finances to afford the medical care that they need. And what’s missing in this discussion is that we’re in the middle of a longevity revolution, living longer than any past generations. However, financially, we are so lagging behind.  In a woman’s lifespan, she will have more financial detours than a man will. Childbearing years may bring a financial detour to her life, potential illnesses and diseases, caregiving to her children, plus caregiving to her parents — the challenge for women financially has never been higher.”

Another challenge to women’s financial security is that younger women often think they have more time to prepare than they actually do, Vandecruze said.

“When you’re a young woman in your 20s and 30s, your thinking of time is elongated,” she said. “You think you have time. You think, ‘60 is old; it’s going to be a while before I get there.’ But time goes by quickly. When you’re in your 20s and your 30s, you’re probably focused on launching a career, finding your footing in your job, repaying your student loans or getting your first car and your first home. Those are great goals to have; however, they bring a financial burden on you. So one of the things I talk about is there are some debts that will add value to your life and add value to your wealth, and there are some debts that will deplete them. For example, it’s important for young women to distinguish between credit card debt and mortgage debt.”

Young women also must understand what Vandecruze called “the time value of money.”

“It’s about how saving incrementally — saving what you can when you can on a consistent basis over time will make a substantial difference in the way you’re able to spend your latter years and the quality of your life as you age.”

Although Vandecruze provides financial education to young women outside her practice, she believes the industry must understand a few things about that demographic in order to serve them.

“First of all, young women are savvy,” she said. “They understand and grasp the basics of investment. What they’re lacking is education. But I think once you teach young women the benefits of investing, the benefits of securing a future by insurance, the benefits of compounding savings over time and how that makes a substantial difference in the quality of our life, it will accrue substantial benefits to young women.”

Why work with young women?

Women in younger generations are poised to receive about $47 trillion in inherited wealth by 2048 as part of the great wealth transfer, according to Bank of America Institute’s most recent “Women and Wealth” report.

As a result of the great wealth transfer, which is already underway, “women will soon control more money than ever before,” the report said.

In addition, the report said, women are achieving increasing levels of education and working as much as if not more than their male counterparts, which has resulted in their rising wages and greater representation in senior leadership positions.

“Increased wage gains, coupled with the ‘great wealth transfer,’ position women to be key drivers of economic growth,” Bank of America Institute’s report said. “As wealth increases, women’s prosperity will help to ‘grow the pie’ of total affluence.”

In her newsletter, Vandecruze said the U.S. is entering what the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis specifically identified as a “significant wealth restructuring period” with particular opportunities for women investors 

Three forces are creating a once-in-a-generation wealth opportunity.

1. The volatility advantage: Market swings are creating undervalued assets that large institutions are overlooking. According to Bloomberg Financial Analysis, these inefficiencies particularly benefit smaller investors who can move quickly. 

2. The $84 trillion transfer: We’re in the early stages of the largest wealth transfer in history as baby boomers pass down assets. The National Bureau of Economic Research projects $84 trillion will change hands by 2045, with the largest portion transferring between 2025 and 2030. 

3. The women’s wealth revolution: For the first time, women control more than 51% of U.S. personal wealth, according to McKinsey’s 2024 Women in Finance Report. This is creating new financial products and opportunities specifically designed for women’s needs.

“This 24-to-36-month window offers rare wealth-building opportunities that could literally change your family’s financial future for generations,” Vandecruze wrote in “Thrive.”

Working with ‘accomplished women’

Cathy Mendell enjoys working with two types of women she describes as “accomplished women.”

Mendell is founder of Theia Financial in Jacksonville, Ore.

The first type of accomplished woman she works with is in a career transition. 

“She is transitioning from one job to another. Maybe she has company stock, and she might have a nice 401(k) that she’s been putting money into for the past 10 years or so, and she’s looking at her next job. But she also is saying, ‘Let me set myself up for the future.’ She doesn’t want to save haphazardly. She really wants a plan that says, ‘All this money that I’m accumulating will someday result in a lifestyle that I want to live when I retire.’”

The second type of woman Mendell serves is still working but is thinking ahead to retirement.

“They are ready to think about retirement, but the problem is that while they’ve saved money, they don’t really know what to do next. Do they just start taking withdrawals and hope that everything works out? They didn’t go to work every day and just hope it worked out. They knew what they were doing. But now they go into a new phase of life where now the stock market is in control of their money. That’s a particular group of women we work with closely because we can make a huge difference for them.”

Mendell equates retirement planning to driving a car through fog.

“You’re driving down the road and you run into low clouds. Suddenly you can’t see, you hunker down over the steering wheel, your blood pressure goes up and you slow down. It’s very disconcerting. I think that’s how a lot of women feel about investments and money. They know they need to do it. They do it. They’re good with it. But the question is, what does that actually translate to later in their lives?”

Mendell described her clients as “women who are making an effort toward their future. They’re doing the hard work, they’re saving money. And I love working with those people.”

Her advice for young women who are raising families and forging their career paths is fourfold: Take control of debt, be intentional about where your money is going, track your spending and your living costs, and realize that your retirement is your responsibility. That last piece of advice is the most important, she said.

“I’ve had some younger people say, ‘I don’t see myself ever stopping work.’ Well, I hate to tell you this, but someday you’re going to be 79 and you’re not going to be employable. So you must have an eye for the future and get into the habit of having money that goes from your checking account into a savings account where you don’t have to do anything with it. It just is an automatic withdrawal. It’s possibly the smartest thing you can do, because there’s no decision to be made.”

An ‘interesting demographic’

Caroline Tanis said that working with women in the 50-and-younger age bracket “is really cool because you get to be there for so many of the big moments in their lives.”

Tanis is founder of Tanis Financial Group in New York, where she focuses on advising the women she describes as “the chief financial officers of their families.”

“My main demographic is women 35 to 50 years old,” she said. “This is an interesting demographic to work with, because it’s women who are having kids, buying a house, trying to save for college. My clients are mainly either the breadwinner or co-breadwinner of their families. They’re trying to build wealth and set themselves up well with everything they have going on. It’s fun for me to put these different goals in their financial plans and then, for example, see their kids get accepted into the college they want to attend. And you know you’ve been working with them to plan for that for years, and now you see that moment come to fruition.”

Another reason Tanis enjoys working with women in her target age group is that they have access to so much financial information, yet they have so much going on in their lives that they are happy to work in partnership with a professional instead of trying to plan their financial futures on their own.

“They need someone who will be their advocate and fight for them,” she said.

Tanis said the most important thing her clients need is to build their financial plan. 

“It’s to the point where in my practice, I will not work with someone unless we take the time to build this financial plan,” she said, “because I’ve had clients who breeze through it and they don’t want to do the work. And it is work! You have to get your documents together, and you have to make time to have that conversation with me.”

As her clients take on life’s financial milestones, such as buying a house or having a child, Tanis will revisit the plan with them. 

“It’s the root of everything we do. We want to see how on track we are, because there is only so much time until retirement and a lot of choices need to be made. We don’t want to be scrambling — like, ‘Oh no, the kids are going to college in two years! What do we do?’ It’s taking the time now so that when college comes around, it’s smooth. I can tell my clients, ‘This is exciting. Go and enjoy. Let me know who to write the check to from the appointed accounts.’” 

Tanis said that many of her clients are “living in the here and now,” so she gives them a list of questions to help them think about financial concerns that might be decades away.

“A big question is, what’s going to happen to you during retirement when you can no longer take care of yourself? It might be far away, but it’s something we have to think about because it’s a different scenario if you are going to be in a nursing home or assisted living versus being at home with a nurse. You need to plant those seeds in their minds because younger women are living in the here and now and they’re limited on time. That’s our job, though — to help them and ask those questions so we can work with them on the answers.”

Breaking barriers, figuring it out

Nicole Garner Scott is a Northwestern Mutual advisor in Atlanta. She specializes in working with women in the 35-to-45-year-old age bracket, describing her typical client as being “a first-generation success in her family.”

“They are possibly the breadwinner for their family and often the most successful in their family,” she said. “They have a unique set of challenges, whether it’s breaking barriers, hitting a new level of ambition, navigating being in the sandwich generation and having to be the first to figure out their financial blueprint,” she said. 

Scott said she wants her clients to feel empowered, and that means not using jargon or having conversations that go over clients’ heads.

“I want them to feel seen and heard, because a lot of our female clientele might be the first generation to discuss these issues with a professional,” she said. “They might not have had a mother or grandmother who had the same set of dynamics they’re facing, so I want to create a safe space for them to be able to say, ‘I don’t have anyone else to talk to about this.’”

Scott said many of her female clients “are managing financial responsibilities beyond themselves.”

“Many are supporting other family members. A lot of them are planning for career shifts. And I think many of that generation are attuned to understanding long-term financial security. There’s an awakening of younger generations to understand that a lot of the responsibility for planning their financial security will fall on them and they need to map out what they want the second half of their life to look like.”

“Integrative planning” is what Scott said she offers her clients. “Many of them are looking at their executive compensation packages and not understanding what they mean. Clients need to understand what they need to do now, from a retirement strategy standpoint, and also understand how to take their risk management into account.”

Insurance also is part of the plan, she said. “It’s important to obtain insurance while they’re still young and while health is on their side.”

Scott said so many of her clients are victims of “information overload,” and her job is to help them understand that information and break it down for them.

“So many individuals who come to me are confused with all the noise that’s out there, and they need to have a trusted partner that can talk through all this with them.” 

Susan Rupe is managing editor for InsuranceNewsNet. She formerly served as communications director for an insurance agents' association and was an award-winning newspaper reporter and editor. Contact her at [email protected].