it all started with a one ad now some of
you probably many of you are too young
to remember but back in the day the
classified ads in the local paper or the
one ads were how you got stuff jobs
dates apartments cars a collection of
old people evidently probably slightly
used all of that used to come from the
wan ads
pre indeed pre tender and pre craigslist
it’s funny but for years when people
have asked me how I got to be where I am
in the investment industry
I’ve always blithely answered I just
found an answer to one ad in the local
paper for an entry-level hedge fund
analyst and I don’t know I guess the
rest is history I’ve said that sentence
probably hundreds of times as if that
advertisement placed really weirdly near
a personal ad for a single white male
fat ugly and bald Sikhs women with long
toenails was the fulcrum on which my
entire professional existence was to
balance as if answering that ad and
getting that job in building a 20-year
investment career writing a book
agitating for diversity on Wall Street
as if all of that required no input from
me or others before or since as if it
was just dumb luck now my conclusion
isn’t out of character with my gender
you see studies since the 1970s show
that women have a tendency to attribute
their success to luck while men have a
tendency to attribute their success to
skill or ability but surely it can’t be
that easy that black and white you’re
not either just lucky or good right so I
decided a little introspection was in
order before I got up here to talk to
you today because otherwise this
discussion about my professional journey
would be the shortest and most boring
TED talk in history even if I could
mention that weird guy in his toenail
fetish but after many hours of
contemplation I did decide and maybe
shockingly that every success that I’ve
had
whether professionally or otherwise in
life has been based entirely on luck but
not luck in the traditional sense it
wasn’t a single happy
that led me to where I am today and it
certainly wasn’t that stupid one ad but
it was rather what I like to think of as
a trifecta of luck there was completely
random good luck or serendipity if you
will there was good luck that was
created by other people and given to me
as opportunities large and small and
there was of course good luck that I
created for myself through what some
evidently based on those studies mostly
dudes would call hard work and mad
skills
now the first category of luck was the
easiest for me to identify you see I
grew up poor and when I say poor I mean
really poor I like to call it powdered
milk poor because until I was old enough
to go to elementary school and see
liquid milk delivered in cartons I
thought that milk shot out of cows
udders like talcum powder from my
grannies Johnson’s baby powder bottle
and was delivered in a box and had to be
mixed with water my mom worked three
jobs to teaching and one at the red
diamond coffee factory on the weekends
and we were still poor that kind of poor
but despite my meager beginnings I was
born healthy in a free society to
parents who could afford both my
powdered milk and more importantly the
clean water with which to mix it I was
born at a time when women had both the
right and the opportunity to obtain an
education I was born at a time when
after my dad left us my mom was able to
get those three poorly paying jobs so
that she could support my sister in me
and of course I was born at a time when
it was infinitely possible for a child
to do better economically than their
parents and make no mistake all of that
is completely and 100% dumb luck but for
most of us whose last name isn’t Trump
or Kardashian the simple happy accident
of our birth isn’t enough to ensure our
continued success and it certainly
wasn’t for me rather from the time I was
born until now and hopefully for decades
yet to come I’ve had people in my life
who have been creating luck for me who
have been giving me luck based on the
stories my mom likes to tell the guys I
bring home so that she can humiliate me
and really scare the hell out of them
she started creating luck for me when I
was about five or six years old and
first started testing my voice in the
world at that time evidently my entire
family went out for a rare evening out
at a restaurant and the waiter came
around to take everyone to order when he
got to me he asked what would you like
to drink little girl and I looked at him
and I said I want a Shirley Temple and
make it a double now no one knew what to
double in a Shirley Temple I’ve tended
bar since then and I can honestly say
there is no such thing as a double
Shirley Temple but miraculously a drink
did appear and even more miraculously my
southern mama did not take me outside
and tan my hide for using my voice
speaking up speaking out and speaking
back to an adult who also happened to be
a male or I could look to my junior high
school teacher who for some inexplicable
reason decided to teach a bunch of
thirteen-year-old semi-rural alabama
kids how to research and trade stocks
certainly wasn’t something you typically
saw on the Alabama public school
curriculum back in the 1980s but
nonetheless I loved that class for a
semester I was rich of course it was
only on paper but still or I could look
to my grandparents who after my
great-uncle died decided to gift me a
small portion of his inheritance and
even allowed me to manage that money
myself I had a tiny account at a local
brokerage house in town now that ended
up being deeply stupid on their part to
be quite honest because I learned really
early in life that shopping is my cardio
and I dropped enormous chunks of change
on a tea’s fabulous items like the ones
you see here was I good with money back
then absolutely not but did that
experience teach me about the basics of
money and investing and finance and
interest in debt and most importantly
financial priorities when I ended up
having to take out pretty massive
student loans to pay for college because
weirdly my school wouldn’t take my
fantastic cyndi lauper war
drove on trade yeah it did do that or I
could again look to my mom who
encouraged me some might say
threatened me and to sticking with stem
at a time when girls have a tendency to
drop those topics in droves now
Microsoft did a study in 2017 that
showed that girls have a tendency to
lose interest in math at age 11 and they
rapidly lose interest in math around age
15 I made it two whole years past that
and at age 17 I started skipping trig
class every day to go to the Krispy
kream with friends because doughnuts and
friends were much cooler than
trigonometry so I the daughter of a
teacher and I didn’t mention this
earlier but quite literally a math
teacher failed one six-week period of
math on purpose when my mom found out
she insisted that I make up the work she
worked with me to pull my grade back up
to passing for the semester and she
threatened me with a convent if I didn’t
comply and so comply I did but at the
end of the day it was these people and
these experiences and others like them
that allowed me to luck into that
emphasis wanted job comfort with money
and the basics of Finance check
understanding of the fundamentals of the
stock market check check my future boss
was even impressed that I had learned so
much from my disastrous inheritance
experience that I had saved enough at 27
to invest in my first home solo and how
did I even get that job interview in the
first place
it was my infamous Shirley Temple big
mouth I still remember my cover letter
said that I could learn anything and
everything I needed to for the job and
that I could walk barefoot over hot
coals carrying a tray full of martinis
without spilling a drop in short I took
the luck that I received serendipitously
I combined it with the luck and
opportunity that other people gave me
and then I worked like hell to create a
little luck for myself and in 18 months
I went from stock market neophyte to
writing congressional testimony and from
being a fly on the wall in meetings to
conversing
with reporters from Forbes in The Wall
Street Journal and over the next 20
years I was able to do a lot of really
cool but admittedly geeky things that
got me invited to talk to you guys here
today but I don’t want you to think that
it was all rainbows and puppies and
kittens and I’m so lucky moments because
it wasn’t and no one’s life is in fact
for every type of good luck that I’ve
identified for you there is a
corresponding type of bad luck
there’s completely random bad luck
there’s bad luck that frankly other
people create and give to you always a
fantastic gift to give your friends and
there is a coarse bad luck that you
create for yourself I’ve been the
recipient of all three types of bad luck
most notably all three at the same time
in 2014 when I was working on my book at
that time I started struggling with
pretty significant anxiety issues and
full-on panic attacks and that was
completely random bad luck I also
started having some intellectual
property issues at work which turned
into HR issues which turned into me
deciding that I needed to leave the
safety and security of my full-time job
and that was primarily bad luck that was
created by other people and finally as I
was trying to build my new business
enterprise I was sending out all these
proposals but I really wasn’t doing the
best job of following up on them it just
seemed really pushy to try to get people
to pay me for my services and that was
nothing but bad luck I created for
myself needless to say it was not the
most fun 18 months of my life I pretty
quickly figured out by the way that you
really can’t control the random bad luck
that may fall into your life any more
than you can control whether you’re the
recipient of serendipity or not and I do
want to say I did try I looked at
everything from horoscopes to meditation
there may have even been some books on
the dark arts in my shopping cart on
Amazon at one point before common sense
prevailed and that’s the only reason I’m
betting there’s not an active Hellmouth
in my backyard at home to this day but I
did figure out there were a few so
that I could control and I decided to
focus on those number one I decided that
anyone who didn’t have at least a semi
vested interest in my continued good
fortune well they had to go and so I
either let them walk away from me or I
put on my shoes and hit the road myself
number two I decided that I could start
working to create some good luck and
opportunity for myself now I couldn’t
control when those opportunities might
manifest but I could at least lay the
groundwork and number three I decided
that I could step outside of myself and
work to create a little good luck and
opportunity for other people who weren’t
swimming around in the bell jar with me
at that particular time so for myself I
learned to blog I learned to tweet I
finished my book I publicized my book I
continued to send out business proposals
I got better at negotiating them and
over time that portion of my life
started to move forward once again but
more importantly during that time I
decided that I was going to do one thing
to create a little good luck an
opportunity for someone else every day
regardless of what was going on in my
life good or bad I kept a list of those
things in a notebook so I could look at
it and I could be reminded that my life
wasn’t the most important thing and that
other people had stuff going on too so I
helped a former research assistant find
a new and better job I bought coffee for
strangers at Starbucks I had
conversations with new money managers in
my industry about how to start and grow
their business with a friend I rescued
and found homes for 56 cats living in a
one-bedroom trailer in the middle of
nowhere and let me tell you friends that
is a stink you never get rid of but
luckily I did get rid of that particular
period of bad luck but the need to
create good luck for other people that
stuck with me and I decided that it was
time for me to stop just researching
diversity in the investment world and
actually actively start to create a more
diverse investment community so I joined
the board of a non-profit rocked the
street Wall Street that provides
financial and investment literacy
education the high school girls I’ve
recently begun mentoring entrepreneurs
with a focus on diverse founders I
traveled the country trying to convince
my investment industry peers that
investing in diversity will yield
enormous financial returns for them
their clients and really the economy at
large I’m doing all of this because I’ve
seen firsthand how a little bit of luck
and opportunity can change someone’s
life and that person can go on and try
to change something and influence
something bigger than them I’m doing all
of this because I’ve seen firsthand how
stem and the right career choice can
lift someone from powdered milk poor to
pretty comfortable in just one
generation and I’m doing all of this
because I honestly believe that if I can
convince enough people to give a little
luck and opportunity to people who might
not otherwise get it that one day my
industry won’t be so overwhelmingly Pale
Male and stale now to be quite honest my
industry still has a really long way to
go you should know I have never once had
to wait in line for the women’s room at
an investment industry conference ever
and that is because women are grossly
underrepresented at every level of my
industry women are only thirty five
point five percent of registered
investment advisors 23 percent of
certified financial planners 18 percent
of Chartered Financial Analysts eleven
point seven percent of senior private
equity professionals nine percent of
mutual fund managers eight percent of
investment professionals within venture
capital 2.5 percent of hedge fund
managers and female founders received
only 2.19 percent of venture capital in
2017 now part of this Springs from the
fact that despite how far we’ve come as
a society
boys and girls still have radically
different experiences when it comes to
investing and stem and money and finance
for example boys are more likely to be
paid an allowance than girls if they’re
paid for chores chances our boys are
paid more for the same chores than girls
even in babysitting which is no joke
ninety
seven percent female boy babysitter’s
earn more women report that they are
less likely to have conversations in
their household about financial matters
including pretty personal things like
how are we going to pay for your college
and of course as I’ve already mentioned
girls are more likely to drop out of
stem during puberty so the work that I
do with girls really focuses on two
things number one we want to provide
investment in financial literacy
education at a critical stage of STEM
development before girls start dropping
out if you wait until college or later
quite simply it’s probably too late and
number two we want to provide girls with
a female financial mentor so they can
get a sense of what my industry is
really like because let’s face it if you
watch movies about Wall Street
you probably think my whole industry is
hookers blow and screwing people over to
make a buck but in fact a lot of what we
do is help colleges and universities
like these build their endowment so that
they can provide scholarships to
deserving students or help teachers like
my mom retires securely so that they can
live independently and not move in with
me and further jack up my already really
messed up dating life but even if girls
don’t choose to go into a career and
investing there’s still tons of reasons
to invest in their financial future over
90 percent of women report that they are
the sole or shared financial
decision-maker in their household at
some point in their life women run 36
percent of small businesses women run
companies created 9 million jobs in 2017
women control over 50% of the investable
wealth in this country and that number
is growing to 66 percent by 2030 and
women typically invest a higher
percentage of their salary and their
homes families and communities in short
women are so money so we really ought to
be good with it right and there’s proof
by the way that early intervention
actually does pay huge dividends the
girls in our rock the street wall street
program show an average 90
and percent increase in financial
literacy from the start of the program
to the end of the program and
sixty-seven percent report that they’re
now very likely or extremely likely to
consider a major or minor in a stem
topic like economics accounting or
finance but you don’t have to be part of
a formal initiative in order to make a
difference in the life of a daughter a
niece a cousin a friend a complete and
utter stranger remember all that stuff I
said about allowances and chores and
babysitting and just having
conversations about money any one of you
can do any one of those things to create
a little luck for someone else
in fact one woman I know managed to
spark an interest in the business world
and her daughter and her daughter’s
friend merely by talking positively
about what she does at work when she’s
at home and sure enough one day her
daughter and her daughter’s friend were
on a playdate and they came into the
kitchen and they were rolling suitcases
behind them as a concerned parent
she said hey you girls running away no
the girls said we’re going to a board
meeting at the end of the day I want to
be joined by so many women in the
investment industry that I will
literally pee my pants waiting in line
for the bathroom at an investment
conference but I need your help and
hopefully today you’ve learned that you
can be a catalyst not just for yourself
but for other people
and so all I ask today is that when you
leave here you go out into the world and
you consider ordering up a little luck
and like my infamous Shirley Temple I
hope you’ll consider making it a double
thank you very much [Applause]
you probably many of you are too young
to remember but back in the day the
classified ads in the local paper or the
one ads were how you got stuff jobs
dates apartments cars a collection of
old people evidently probably slightly
used all of that used to come from the
wan ads
pre indeed pre tender and pre craigslist
it’s funny but for years when people
have asked me how I got to be where I am
in the investment industry
I’ve always blithely answered I just
found an answer to one ad in the local
paper for an entry-level hedge fund
analyst and I don’t know I guess the
rest is history I’ve said that sentence
probably hundreds of times as if that
advertisement placed really weirdly near
a personal ad for a single white male
fat ugly and bald Sikhs women with long
toenails was the fulcrum on which my
entire professional existence was to
balance as if answering that ad and
getting that job in building a 20-year
investment career writing a book
agitating for diversity on Wall Street
as if all of that required no input from
me or others before or since as if it
was just dumb luck now my conclusion
isn’t out of character with my gender
you see studies since the 1970s show
that women have a tendency to attribute
their success to luck while men have a
tendency to attribute their success to
skill or ability but surely it can’t be
that easy that black and white you’re
not either just lucky or good right so I
decided a little introspection was in
order before I got up here to talk to
you today because otherwise this
discussion about my professional journey
would be the shortest and most boring
TED talk in history even if I could
mention that weird guy in his toenail
fetish but after many hours of
contemplation I did decide and maybe
shockingly that every success that I’ve
had
whether professionally or otherwise in
life has been based entirely on luck but
not luck in the traditional sense it
wasn’t a single happy
that led me to where I am today and it
certainly wasn’t that stupid one ad but
it was rather what I like to think of as
a trifecta of luck there was completely
random good luck or serendipity if you
will there was good luck that was
created by other people and given to me
as opportunities large and small and
there was of course good luck that I
created for myself through what some
evidently based on those studies mostly
dudes would call hard work and mad
skills
now the first category of luck was the
easiest for me to identify you see I
grew up poor and when I say poor I mean
really poor I like to call it powdered
milk poor because until I was old enough
to go to elementary school and see
liquid milk delivered in cartons I
thought that milk shot out of cows
udders like talcum powder from my
grannies Johnson’s baby powder bottle
and was delivered in a box and had to be
mixed with water my mom worked three
jobs to teaching and one at the red
diamond coffee factory on the weekends
and we were still poor that kind of poor
but despite my meager beginnings I was
born healthy in a free society to
parents who could afford both my
powdered milk and more importantly the
clean water with which to mix it I was
born at a time when women had both the
right and the opportunity to obtain an
education I was born at a time when
after my dad left us my mom was able to
get those three poorly paying jobs so
that she could support my sister in me
and of course I was born at a time when
it was infinitely possible for a child
to do better economically than their
parents and make no mistake all of that
is completely and 100% dumb luck but for
most of us whose last name isn’t Trump
or Kardashian the simple happy accident
of our birth isn’t enough to ensure our
continued success and it certainly
wasn’t for me rather from the time I was
born until now and hopefully for decades
yet to come I’ve had people in my life
who have been creating luck for me who
have been giving me luck based on the
stories my mom likes to tell the guys I
bring home so that she can humiliate me
and really scare the hell out of them
she started creating luck for me when I
was about five or six years old and
first started testing my voice in the
world at that time evidently my entire
family went out for a rare evening out
at a restaurant and the waiter came
around to take everyone to order when he
got to me he asked what would you like
to drink little girl and I looked at him
and I said I want a Shirley Temple and
make it a double now no one knew what to
double in a Shirley Temple I’ve tended
bar since then and I can honestly say
there is no such thing as a double
Shirley Temple but miraculously a drink
did appear and even more miraculously my
southern mama did not take me outside
and tan my hide for using my voice
speaking up speaking out and speaking
back to an adult who also happened to be
a male or I could look to my junior high
school teacher who for some inexplicable
reason decided to teach a bunch of
thirteen-year-old semi-rural alabama
kids how to research and trade stocks
certainly wasn’t something you typically
saw on the Alabama public school
curriculum back in the 1980s but
nonetheless I loved that class for a
semester I was rich of course it was
only on paper but still or I could look
to my grandparents who after my
great-uncle died decided to gift me a
small portion of his inheritance and
even allowed me to manage that money
myself I had a tiny account at a local
brokerage house in town now that ended
up being deeply stupid on their part to
be quite honest because I learned really
early in life that shopping is my cardio
and I dropped enormous chunks of change
on a tea’s fabulous items like the ones
you see here was I good with money back
then absolutely not but did that
experience teach me about the basics of
money and investing and finance and
interest in debt and most importantly
financial priorities when I ended up
having to take out pretty massive
student loans to pay for college because
weirdly my school wouldn’t take my
fantastic cyndi lauper war
drove on trade yeah it did do that or I
could again look to my mom who
encouraged me some might say
threatened me and to sticking with stem
at a time when girls have a tendency to
drop those topics in droves now
Microsoft did a study in 2017 that
showed that girls have a tendency to
lose interest in math at age 11 and they
rapidly lose interest in math around age
15 I made it two whole years past that
and at age 17 I started skipping trig
class every day to go to the Krispy
kream with friends because doughnuts and
friends were much cooler than
trigonometry so I the daughter of a
teacher and I didn’t mention this
earlier but quite literally a math
teacher failed one six-week period of
math on purpose when my mom found out
she insisted that I make up the work she
worked with me to pull my grade back up
to passing for the semester and she
threatened me with a convent if I didn’t
comply and so comply I did but at the
end of the day it was these people and
these experiences and others like them
that allowed me to luck into that
emphasis wanted job comfort with money
and the basics of Finance check
understanding of the fundamentals of the
stock market check check my future boss
was even impressed that I had learned so
much from my disastrous inheritance
experience that I had saved enough at 27
to invest in my first home solo and how
did I even get that job interview in the
first place
it was my infamous Shirley Temple big
mouth I still remember my cover letter
said that I could learn anything and
everything I needed to for the job and
that I could walk barefoot over hot
coals carrying a tray full of martinis
without spilling a drop in short I took
the luck that I received serendipitously
I combined it with the luck and
opportunity that other people gave me
and then I worked like hell to create a
little luck for myself and in 18 months
I went from stock market neophyte to
writing congressional testimony and from
being a fly on the wall in meetings to
conversing
with reporters from Forbes in The Wall
Street Journal and over the next 20
years I was able to do a lot of really
cool but admittedly geeky things that
got me invited to talk to you guys here
today but I don’t want you to think that
it was all rainbows and puppies and
kittens and I’m so lucky moments because
it wasn’t and no one’s life is in fact
for every type of good luck that I’ve
identified for you there is a
corresponding type of bad luck
there’s completely random bad luck
there’s bad luck that frankly other
people create and give to you always a
fantastic gift to give your friends and
there is a coarse bad luck that you
create for yourself I’ve been the
recipient of all three types of bad luck
most notably all three at the same time
in 2014 when I was working on my book at
that time I started struggling with
pretty significant anxiety issues and
full-on panic attacks and that was
completely random bad luck I also
started having some intellectual
property issues at work which turned
into HR issues which turned into me
deciding that I needed to leave the
safety and security of my full-time job
and that was primarily bad luck that was
created by other people and finally as I
was trying to build my new business
enterprise I was sending out all these
proposals but I really wasn’t doing the
best job of following up on them it just
seemed really pushy to try to get people
to pay me for my services and that was
nothing but bad luck I created for
myself needless to say it was not the
most fun 18 months of my life I pretty
quickly figured out by the way that you
really can’t control the random bad luck
that may fall into your life any more
than you can control whether you’re the
recipient of serendipity or not and I do
want to say I did try I looked at
everything from horoscopes to meditation
there may have even been some books on
the dark arts in my shopping cart on
Amazon at one point before common sense
prevailed and that’s the only reason I’m
betting there’s not an active Hellmouth
in my backyard at home to this day but I
did figure out there were a few so
that I could control and I decided to
focus on those number one I decided that
anyone who didn’t have at least a semi
vested interest in my continued good
fortune well they had to go and so I
either let them walk away from me or I
put on my shoes and hit the road myself
number two I decided that I could start
working to create some good luck and
opportunity for myself now I couldn’t
control when those opportunities might
manifest but I could at least lay the
groundwork and number three I decided
that I could step outside of myself and
work to create a little good luck and
opportunity for other people who weren’t
swimming around in the bell jar with me
at that particular time so for myself I
learned to blog I learned to tweet I
finished my book I publicized my book I
continued to send out business proposals
I got better at negotiating them and
over time that portion of my life
started to move forward once again but
more importantly during that time I
decided that I was going to do one thing
to create a little good luck an
opportunity for someone else every day
regardless of what was going on in my
life good or bad I kept a list of those
things in a notebook so I could look at
it and I could be reminded that my life
wasn’t the most important thing and that
other people had stuff going on too so I
helped a former research assistant find
a new and better job I bought coffee for
strangers at Starbucks I had
conversations with new money managers in
my industry about how to start and grow
their business with a friend I rescued
and found homes for 56 cats living in a
one-bedroom trailer in the middle of
nowhere and let me tell you friends that
is a stink you never get rid of but
luckily I did get rid of that particular
period of bad luck but the need to
create good luck for other people that
stuck with me and I decided that it was
time for me to stop just researching
diversity in the investment world and
actually actively start to create a more
diverse investment community so I joined
the board of a non-profit rocked the
street Wall Street that provides
financial and investment literacy
education the high school girls I’ve
recently begun mentoring entrepreneurs
with a focus on diverse founders I
traveled the country trying to convince
my investment industry peers that
investing in diversity will yield
enormous financial returns for them
their clients and really the economy at
large I’m doing all of this because I’ve
seen firsthand how a little bit of luck
and opportunity can change someone’s
life and that person can go on and try
to change something and influence
something bigger than them I’m doing all
of this because I’ve seen firsthand how
stem and the right career choice can
lift someone from powdered milk poor to
pretty comfortable in just one
generation and I’m doing all of this
because I honestly believe that if I can
convince enough people to give a little
luck and opportunity to people who might
not otherwise get it that one day my
industry won’t be so overwhelmingly Pale
Male and stale now to be quite honest my
industry still has a really long way to
go you should know I have never once had
to wait in line for the women’s room at
an investment industry conference ever
and that is because women are grossly
underrepresented at every level of my
industry women are only thirty five
point five percent of registered
investment advisors 23 percent of
certified financial planners 18 percent
of Chartered Financial Analysts eleven
point seven percent of senior private
equity professionals nine percent of
mutual fund managers eight percent of
investment professionals within venture
capital 2.5 percent of hedge fund
managers and female founders received
only 2.19 percent of venture capital in
2017 now part of this Springs from the
fact that despite how far we’ve come as
a society
boys and girls still have radically
different experiences when it comes to
investing and stem and money and finance
for example boys are more likely to be
paid an allowance than girls if they’re
paid for chores chances our boys are
paid more for the same chores than girls
even in babysitting which is no joke
ninety
seven percent female boy babysitter’s
earn more women report that they are
less likely to have conversations in
their household about financial matters
including pretty personal things like
how are we going to pay for your college
and of course as I’ve already mentioned
girls are more likely to drop out of
stem during puberty so the work that I
do with girls really focuses on two
things number one we want to provide
investment in financial literacy
education at a critical stage of STEM
development before girls start dropping
out if you wait until college or later
quite simply it’s probably too late and
number two we want to provide girls with
a female financial mentor so they can
get a sense of what my industry is
really like because let’s face it if you
watch movies about Wall Street
you probably think my whole industry is
hookers blow and screwing people over to
make a buck but in fact a lot of what we
do is help colleges and universities
like these build their endowment so that
they can provide scholarships to
deserving students or help teachers like
my mom retires securely so that they can
live independently and not move in with
me and further jack up my already really
messed up dating life but even if girls
don’t choose to go into a career and
investing there’s still tons of reasons
to invest in their financial future over
90 percent of women report that they are
the sole or shared financial
decision-maker in their household at
some point in their life women run 36
percent of small businesses women run
companies created 9 million jobs in 2017
women control over 50% of the investable
wealth in this country and that number
is growing to 66 percent by 2030 and
women typically invest a higher
percentage of their salary and their
homes families and communities in short
women are so money so we really ought to
be good with it right and there’s proof
by the way that early intervention
actually does pay huge dividends the
girls in our rock the street wall street
program show an average 90
and percent increase in financial
literacy from the start of the program
to the end of the program and
sixty-seven percent report that they’re
now very likely or extremely likely to
consider a major or minor in a stem
topic like economics accounting or
finance but you don’t have to be part of
a formal initiative in order to make a
difference in the life of a daughter a
niece a cousin a friend a complete and
utter stranger remember all that stuff I
said about allowances and chores and
babysitting and just having
conversations about money any one of you
can do any one of those things to create
a little luck for someone else
in fact one woman I know managed to
spark an interest in the business world
and her daughter and her daughter’s
friend merely by talking positively
about what she does at work when she’s
at home and sure enough one day her
daughter and her daughter’s friend were
on a playdate and they came into the
kitchen and they were rolling suitcases
behind them as a concerned parent
she said hey you girls running away no
the girls said we’re going to a board
meeting at the end of the day I want to
be joined by so many women in the
investment industry that I will
literally pee my pants waiting in line
for the bathroom at an investment
conference but I need your help and
hopefully today you’ve learned that you
can be a catalyst not just for yourself
but for other people
and so all I ask today is that when you
leave here you go out into the world and
you consider ordering up a little luck
and like my infamous Shirley Temple I
hope you’ll consider making it a double
thank you very much [Applause]
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