How to Reshape Financial Services for Female Advisors and Clients

In her new book, “Women and Wealth: A Playbook to Empower Clients and Unlock their Fortune,” she opines on why “bro-culture” is hurting the industry and provides hands-on strategies for creating a female-friendly practice.

In the interview, Carbonaro, six times on the Investopedia Top 100 Most Influential Advisors list, discusses specific changes she would make in the industry regarding women and why they cannot afford not to invest in stocks.

She later reveals her “soul-crushing” three-year experience working at Goldman Sachs after it acquired United Capital Financial Advisors, where she had been a financial advisor since 2012.

Here are excerpts from the conversation:

THINKADVISOR: “Financial services wins the prize as the industry least sympathetic to women and one in which companies stand to gain the most if they can change their approach,” according to a Harvard Business review study. Your thoughts? 

CARY CARBONARO: I still believe that it’s a fantastic industry for women. It’s just not ready. There’s no easy path to get there. Maybe I’ll create it because I’m going to change the industry so that it will be easier for women coming in. That’s what I hope.

What does that entail?

I want to make the industry more female friendly and bring more women into the profession.

I also want to make it easier for female clients. I want them to have a better experience with our industry than they’re currently having.

How will you do all that?

I want to change the way the industry does things, the way they speak to clients, and I want them to shift from transactional to relational. I want women to be seen as people first, not portfolios. I want the industry to look through a female-gender lens.

I want behavioral finance tools to be used to deepen the relationship. I want education as a core offering. I want them to make it a win-win collaboration.

I want to give women opportunities to gather and collaborate. I want advisors to talk about important issues to women, like health, particularly menopause. That’s a huge life event.

Why haven’t these issues been thoroughly addressed?

We don’t have an actual career path for women. We have “Come and work for a broker-dealer or bank, and you have to get your own clients.” You’re paid only for what you bring in.

Women need to feel more confident about money, you write. Please elaborate.

It’s a big issue with women in general. A Harvard Business Review study found that women won’t apply for a job unless they have 10 out of the 10 skills listed, whereas a man will apply if he has three out of the 10.

Women start to lose confidence in their tweens — 10, 11 and 12 years old. Teachers have a preconceived notion that girls can’t do math, and so it [continues] from there. It goes from society to teachers to the kids.

Is it true that, broadly speaking, women are risk-averse? 

If you teach and educate them why they should be invested in the stock market for the long term, they will do it.

But they need more information and the reason for doing, why it’s in their best interest and why they need to outpace inflation and plan for longevity and for extra expenses in retirement and plan for the fact that there’s a wage gap and wealth gap and that they need to make up for it.

They can’t afford not to invest is the way I say it to them.

I tell them that the only way they would lose all their money in the stock market is if they put it all in a single stock and the company went bankrupt, or if they put it in a Ponzi scheme, which isn’t happening on my watch.

Where does the bag lady syndrome — the fear of running out of money and being homeless — stem from?

Most of my clients that have it have a fear-of-money mind, which means that all their decisions are framed by the fear of not having enough or running out. Their unconscious response to money is fear.

Guys don’t understand it. So if 80% of the advisors are men and don’t even understand the fear, how are they going to address it?

How prevalent is the bag lady fear?

They say more than 60% of women have it, which means that more than half an advisor’s clients will have the bag lady fear.

In some cases, it’s an irrational fear, but that doesn’t matter. It feels real. I have it.

A 2006 study by Allianz, “Women, Power and Money,” showed that 27% of women who make over $200,000 have the fear.

Do you talk about the bag lady syndrome with your clients?

With the ones that have it, I talk about what it means. I tell my clients: “You’re OK. You’re not going to be homeless and penniless based on your assets, your numbers, your plan and what we have in place for you.”

So I try to allay the bag lady fear, and my clients love that because they don’t have to worry about money and can sleep at night.

In your book, you write at length about the fiasco you suffered at Goldman Sachs after it bought United Capital, of which you were an advisor. Please talk about that.

What happened to me was a soul-crushing disaster.

I was at United Capital when it got sold [2019] to Goldman. I was massively discriminated against. I almost lost my career.

I couldn’t hold myself out as an advisor any more. I wasn’t allowed to speak or write, go on TV or social media. I wasn’t allowed to have an opinion because I was nobody at Goldman.

The people they allow to speak toe the company line and say what they’re told to say and be parrots and not have any individual thoughts of their own.

I had a gag around my mouth.

They wouldn’t give me leads because I wasn’t playing their game.

[“We have policies that all advisors are required to comply with as part of our responsibilities as a regulated financial institution,” a Goldman spokesperson said.]

Why not?

I refused to play because it was horrible and wrong. And I was right about every single thing. Goldman ran United Capital into the ground.

I tried to get out of my contract. I tried to buy my business back because there were dozens of guys that got to do that.

They originally said yes to me, and then they reneged. I was the only person, the only woman, who they said no to buying back their business.

Why was that?

They said they had lost the taste for those deals, so I was told.

I said, “What does it take to be successful at Goldman?” My handler said, “Don’t be a hero to your clients.”

How did you rise again?

I wanted a national RIA with synergy and a tech platform. [Since August 2024], I’ve been affiliated with Ashton Thomas Private Wealth, where I have my own practice. I’m not an employee. I own my clients.

All the stuff I did at United Capital, I’m doing here.