Partners for Financial Planning

Finding trusted partners for your financial life is key. We talk with Vered Frank at Vise about the next evolution in investment management

Meet Vered Frank, the Head of Product Marketing of Vise - a technology-powered investment manager that provides financial advisors with customized and intelligent investment solutions to help their clients achieve their goals.

Vered Frank is a financial strategy, product and marketing leader with over 15 years of experience - shaping, refining, and driving adoption of 40+ consumer-facing financial products and services for both established financial services companies and emerging FinTech companies. Prior to joining Vise she was head of product marketing for Charles Schwab Bank, developing and growing the team responsible for identifying the banking needs of multiple types of consumers and translating those needs into deposit, lending, and credit solutions. She was also the founder of Finciples, a direct to consumer web application designed to improve personal financial health for women by providing checklists to address decision making during key life stages and events.

Vered is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER?.? She earned her Masters in Business Administration from MIT, Sloan School of Management and her Bachelor of Arts? from Barnard College, Columbia University. ?

We dive into resources for people to take control of their wealth management, the importance of partnering with people you trust, and where to get started when building your own financial plan and investment portfolio.

Eve #WealthWednesday Highlight #22: Vered Frank, Head of Product Marketing - Vise

What is your first investment?

I started engaging with my own financial life a bit late. My first investments were really into my 401k. I made a couple of financial mistakes when I was younger -- one of which was to switch companies and roll over my 401k to cash. When you’re switching companies, you really need to be thoughtful when you have money sitting in a 401k with your old company. In retrospect, it wasn't the worst thing because the funds I’d invested there sat there during the 2009 financial crisis. I didn't lose money, but I missed the opportunity to start growing that money and by the time I realized it was still sitting in cash, the market had actually gone up quite a bit.

How/why did you get into your space?

While I was at Charles Schwab, I started to understand the retail space, how people think about money,? and the role money plays in their lives. Technology was really starting to pick up back then. I became fascinated by how technology could leverage user experience to appeal to people and engage them to take control of their financial lives.

I chose to focus on supporting women and became eager to empower women in the investing space. I wanted to ensure they could confidently take ownership when it was time to make key financial decisions so they wouldn't have to repeat the mistakes I made. I built an online platform that was designed around pivotal moments in people's lives since they tend to engage more with their finances when something significant happens -- from getting a new job, to having a child. There's always so much that everyone deals with on a daily basis so I created checklists people could reference around those key pivotal moments where people could pause and focus on making thoughtful financial decisions that would help build their wealth in the long-run.?

I'm a Certified Financial Planner and I'm aware that a lot of the information around financial decision-making that’s available to the general public is somewhat academic in nature and not always easily accessible. There are key decisions people find themselves having to make and in some cases there's a right and wrong decision. In some cases, there are options available to you that you may not even be aware of. I wanted this kind of support to translate into an online experience where women could find resources that would smoothly guide them through these key moments in their lives.

What role do you play in the wealth space and why is it important?

I consider myself a FintTech nerd, but there are many different verticals that exist in the FinTech space because of all the ways technology is transforming the financial services industry. What I'm really attracted to is how technology is transforming the relationships between a financial advisor and the clients they serve. Vise is committed to empowering financial advisors and helps them connect with their clients around their investment portfolios in a way that did not exist before. At core, it's really about supporting a high degree of personalization. Now, more than ever, people care about investments that align with their values and preferences. It's critical to have technology that empowers advisors to create and build portfolios according to the specific preferences for every individual.

Vise’s vision is to transform the way we think about investment management and what’s possible when investing your money. We aim for people to be thoughtful about how they construct their investment portfolios which is a whole new way of thinking about investing. Technology has helped evolve the investing space. Vise’s founders, are passionate visionaries who are truly transforming what’s possible and helping people think about investing in a new way.?

What do you believe is the most exciting thing you’ve learned and want others to know?

There is so much power in having a financial advisor in your life that you trust. When Robo advisors came out there was a point where people believed financial advisors were not necessary anymore. Just because knowledge can be coded, programmed, and translated into a technology platform, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will help people. I feel like there’s a misconception that if you give people access to all the information they have the power to sort themselves out. I don’t think that’s always the case because when it comes to money and managing your own finances, it can be incredibly difficult emotionally and it’s something that’s so personal to each person.?

The solution that we're building at Vise is best delivered through financial advisors. It all comes back to the importance of having someone that you trust, someone who has your best interest in mind. When you think about fiduciaries, for Certified Financial Planners their mantra is “Do no harm.” Their certification and designation shows their commitment is to? help people so they’re a resource you can get reliable advice from. My suggestion is to spend time to find that trusted person, someone that you want to work with directly. However, you should also be mindful and reflect on if you are someone who wants to do it alone, if you want to partner with someone, or if you just want to hand over the reins to someone else. There’s no wrong answer, but if you can answer that question you’ll be one step closer to taking control of your financial life and thinking about what’s most important to you.?

There's such a human personal element of trust and connection that you can't fully code. CFP is not a light undertaking. The values and expertise gained during the certification process reinforced the value that advisors deliver. I came out being able to better explain to people why it’s so critical to work with financial advisors. It's a big universe and not every financial advisor is the right one.

Many FinTech companies, even Wealthfront and Betterment have tried to send the message that, “You don't need a person and you can just do it yourself” but that approach will not work for everyone. From a wealth tier front, a lot of people say that they want to get a trusted advisor, but they can't always access one because they don't have enough money or they feel like they need more money before they approach one. There are opportunities to access help without having a large amount of investable assets. For example, there are many financial planners that will charge a one time fee, which can be a really great way to ease into the idea of working with someone and see how it feels with that financial planner. When I talk about FinTech and innovation at Vise, our goal is to empower advisors and help them expand the number of clients that they’re able to serve.

Vise can be a valuable and powerful tool for financial advisors to expand their reach and the amount of advice that they can deliver to people. Right now, financial planners are simply capped out by the number of hours in the day and are limited in the number of people they can support because helping each person takes time. I feel empowered by helping advisors do what they do best and helping them expand the access people have to financial resources. We talk a lot about democratization in FinTech. at Vise, it's about expanding access and allowing more people to get the advice and support that they need.

Who is a person or company that inspires you in the space and why?

I’m really inspired by Alexa von Tobel who founded LearnVest and is now running a venture capital fund called Inspired Capital. The other person I admire is Jon Stein because he took the time to educate people about the importance of financial health and financial education. He educated not just individuals but also the government as well. I admire what he did with Betterment and how he positioned the value that it was delivering and really took it upon himself to educate people about the financial planning space as a whole.?

What advice would you give to someone getting started?

With so many resources online, I would recommend picking one topic and one area in particular. Start building on that knowledge base. If you find that diving into certain topics doesn't interest you, you might not get very far in this journey alone. I think that’s why it is best to find people you can partner with who are genuinely interested and passionate about different areas of the investing space.

If you can identify an acute pain point or an area you don’t know much about but are curious to learn more, that's the best way to get started in the finance space and immerse yourself in a very specific topic. Hopefully you pick something like you just started at a new company and you need to think about moving your 401k over -- or you’re thinking through how your new company has given you 401k options and you need to decide how to invest. Many companies even offer resources and people that you can speak with who can patiently walk you through that process.?

Anything else we should know?

The best way to follow me is on Twitter @VeredFrank. I tend to post information like niche stats, trends, or things that I think are really relevant in the finance and investing space.

#wealthwednesday #fintech #womenswealth #futureoffinance #investing #investment #evewealth #wealthDAO

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Have thoughts on this week’s topic or questions for me or Vered Frank? Post your thoughts in the comment section. Until next week. ??

You can connect with Vered on LINKEDIN

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