A Pastor and CFP Helps Clients Overcome Financial Trauma

“People who aren’t appropriately educated make poor investment decisions and poor life decisions that can defeat all they’ve worked hard for,” she says.

Simpson, a 2024 ThinkAdvisor Luminaries award winner for Thought Leader of the Year in the financial planners/tax planners category, relates why she walked away from a $100 million Morgan Stanley partnership to launch a solo practice 18 years ago.

Here are highlights of our conversation:

THINKADVISOR: Do high-net-worth individuals need more education in financial literacy?

NICOLE B. SIMPSON: Just because they’ve been exceptional at accumulating wealth and moving up from one financial status to another, doesn’t mean it’s not critical for them to have financial literacy to maintain, protect and preserve, then transfer their wealth to [succeeding] generations.

People who aren’t appropriately educated make poor investment decisions and poor life decisions that can defeat all they’ve worked hard for.

It’s important for individuals to know about their money, the influence of money and how to protect their money.

THINKADVISOR: Who should educate the high net worth about finances?

SIMPSON: When you’ve accumulated wealth, you should have a team managing it.

You absolutely need to have a financial planner, who is like the quarterback of the team, which includes an attorney and someone well versed in taxes.

THINKADVISOR: You’ve said: “There’s an economic cultural reckoning that’s occurring.” Please elaborate.

SIMPSON: There has been a need to educate my culture, my community, about the importance of wealth accumulation, protection and preservation.

At the same time, we’re becoming more educated [generally], with a higher level of experience and expertise. So we need to know how to manage our resources more effectively and efficiently.

My focus has been taking what I know from an expertise perspective and having it make sense in our culture — and that evokes change.

THINKADVISOR: How does being a reverend connect with teaching financial literacy?

SIMPSON: I’m a pastor and teach financial literacy through the church: how to pass a financial legacy to the next generation.

THINKADVISOR: In what way do you address faith with your clients?

SIMPSON: I [apply] biblical principles. Many people in my book of business are spiritual — their faith drives them. So, in their overall financial plans, I take [into account] their faith in God and their charitable and community [work].

When I educate or counsel individuals, I talk about the importance of good financial stewardship.

THINKADVISOR: Why did you become a reverend?

SIMPSON: I’m a 9/11 survivor. Immediately after the World Trade Center attacks, I felt the heavy weight of the call to the ministry, which is how I got involved in teaching financial literacy.

I accepted the call and became a reverend in 2002.

I grew up in poverty in a traumatic environment and depended on my faith for resilience and on my [intention] to pursue lofty goals and objectives.

THINKADVISOR: What specifically sparked your passion for helping clients recover from financial trauma?

SIMPSON: On 9/11, I was working on the 73rd floor of the South Tower in the World Trade Center. I was able to get down to the first floor. I saw the plane hanging out of the building. It was surreal.

I walked to Battery Park City, a wealthy community [near the World Trade Center], where my partner was. I saw that the wealthy had a plan in place for unexpected disaster.

Police officers and security personnel had begun knocking on the residents’ doors and ushering them into boats. I got in one and was able to get home by early afternoon.

It took some people days to get home.

People in my neighborhood never even thought about the unimaginable happening.

THINKADVISOR: When did you start focusing on helping people who had suffered a trauma?

SIMPSON: After 9/11, I saw that when people experience a catastrophic event, it’s devastating: How am I going to navigate this financially?

I wanted to [focus on] the impact of that and how it affects people mentally, spiritually and financially.

THINKADVISOR: How were you affected personally?

SIMPSON: I was traumatized and chose not to work in New York City any longer. I had been in transition to become a financial advisor in a partnership at Morgan Stanley. The partnership I was in at Legg Mason had just moved there.

But I decided to leave Morgan Stanley and a $100 million partnership and work on my own as a solo practitioner.

THINKADVISOR: How did that plan go?

SIMPSON: I had accumulated a lot of wealth, but those assets were quickly depleted trying to survive while building my own business.

I went from making over six figures of income to less than $20,000. I was the mother of two children.

It took three or four years of my being in financial recovery.

THINKADVISOR: How else did 9/11 affect you?

SIMPSON: I was in physical recovery because I had become permanently partially disabled: I had COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease], asthma and PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder]. I spent years having difficulty breathing.

THINKADVISOR: What motivated you to work in financial services in the first place?

SIMPSON: I was a teenage mother and needed a job. When I was in the fourth grade, I was part of a class visit to the New York Stock Exchange, and that stayed with me.

Later, when I needed a job, an opportunity opened up to go to a school that was for the securities industry, and I could also get a job through them.

I got into Prudential-Bache in 1991 at the age of 20. The owner of the school became my mentor. He told me: “As soon as you get a foot in the door, study for your Series 7.”

I started at Prudential doing back-office operational work.

I took my Series 7 the year after I got in. That changed the course of my involvement in the business because I began working with advisors as a sales assistant.

One of them was moving to Legg Mason. I went too and became a partner.

THINKADVISOR: How would you sum up your professional life thus far?

SIMPSON: I am a Black woman in a predominantly white male business, and that is very challenging.

Some would say I haven’t had the normal trajectory.