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| Feature |
Wooing Women
Catherine Curan
04/01/2007
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Having crossed off advisors who pitched to her as if she were
in the old-boys’ network, along with those who tried a superficial approach,
Hinsch drew on her own networking base in Seattle. She met Krysty, then a CPA,
in the early 1980s when the two were part of a leadership organization called
Business and Professional Women. Krysty went on to head Laird Norton Tyee.
Hinsch later contacted the firm, and she and her husband chose to work with
Krysty and her team. "I had known Kaycee and her reputation in the community,"
Hinsch says.
Hinsch’s concept of "women of means with dreams" resonates with
Haslinger. She says that managing her financial files and paperwork can be
time-consuming, but her successful stewardship of her family’s portfolio allows
her to fulfill some dearly held ambitions. Since 2002, she has donated $4
million to create the Haslinger Family Pediatric Palliative Care Center at the
Akron Children’s Hospital. Haslinger chose palliative care partly because of her
experience as a nursing student working with a terminally ill child. She hopes
the program will become a model for hospitals nationwide. She has also funded a
permanent gallery at the renovated Akron Art Museum, set to open in July, and
made a large gift to the school her children attended. "I’ve been able to make
some difference in the community," she says. "Being able to provide end-of-life
care for children was kind of like coming full circle."
Information Influx
Marketing materials continue to fill Haslinger’s mailbox, and
she has noticed an increase in cold calls. She is happy with her team, however,
and ignores the pitches. But more affluent women can expect to be the targets of
additional marketing campaigns from financial services firms. Marketers fully
realize the compelling demographic trends and are attempting to determine how
best to reach this underserved client base. Firms now approach women with soft
sells, including financial spas where financial information is combined with
pedicures and massages, as well as with workshops and retreats.
Glenmede Trust, a wealth advisory firm, offers a series of
financial education seminars for women. The programs began last year in five
Eastern cities. Most of the attendees were between 50 and 70 years old, and
about one-quarter of them had already faced an event that caused them to come
into control of their finances, according to Nina Cohen, managing director of
the firm’s philanthropic advisory services. The seminars were born out of a
request for financial education from Glenmede’s female clients. This spring,
Glenmede, based in Philadelphia, plans to follow up with more-focused sessions
for groups of about 20 women. Topics may include setting up a private
foundation and raising financially responsible children.
Financial planner Karen Altfest, vice president of L.J. Altfest
& Co. in New York, tries a softer pitch, presenting financial education as a
means of taking care of oneself. In the past, she had trouble finding enough
interested women to attend one financial spa a year, but she now hosts about
three events per month.
Other financial advisors take a broader approach to the idea of
financial education for prosperous women—and the men who care about them.
Lockshin of Lydian Wealth Management has collaborated with educational group
Wealthbridge Partners on a new retreat series complete with its own website,
wealthandhappiness.com. Lockshin focuses the program on the nonfinancial issues
surrounding wealth, such as how to pass family values to children. He plans four
retreats this year, in Washington, D.C., Seattle, New York and Palm Beach, for
as many as 100 participants per session. "Addressing those issues typically
brought up more by a female client than a male client helped drive us to this,"
Lockshin says.
Catherine Curan is a senior correspondent for Worth.Illustration by Tim Bower. Additional Information
 Continuing Education
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