Sallie Krawcheck didn’t want to be an entrepreneur. The 30-year Wall Street veteran has spent her entire career leading financial institutions, learning how people deal with managing their finances and investments along the way. During her tenure as president of Global Wealth and Investment Management at Bank of America and CEO of Smith Barney and Sanford Bernstein, she saw something in company statistics and data that constantly startled her: Women were investing much less than men.
Couple that with the fact that women live longer than men, are paid less than men and take more career breaks than their male counterparts, and you’ve got an issue that Krawcheck said could be costing us much more than the gender pay gap itself.
“I decided to do something I never thought I’d do in my life, which is become an entrepreneur," she said. "It is not what I do, but it is what I do now.”
Krawcheck co-founded Ellevest, a digital investing platform specifically aimed toward closing that gender investing gap by offering a straightforward, goals-based approach.
The New York-based company offers its clients tailored investment portfolios, allowing women to invest toward multiple goals simultaneously — think home ownership, retirement savings and saving for a career break. The company's platform monitors customers' progress, alerting them if they fall off track for their goals. The platform requires no minimum balance and charges a flat 0.5 percent per year of managed assets — much lower than is traditional.
Ellevest launched its service in Austin this week — its first market launch outside of New York.
Krawcheck saw Austin as a natural second market for her startup. She had previously served on Dell’s Board of Advisors and got to know the city during her term there.
“Austin is a vibrant business community,” Krawcheck said. “It’s an amazing city with some amazing entrepreneurs, amazing business women and a great energy to it. We want to begin conversations about the gender investing gap….we chose Austin to begin this conversation”
The company currently has four patents pending for the technology that makes its personalization and customer service possible, and Krawcheck insists it’s the best digital platform out there.
And like any startup, they’re constantly iterating and listening to their customers for constant feedback. Krawcheck is still reviewing every financial plan that comes through, and they’re taking things slowly to make sure they’re growing properly. And most importantly, they’re focusing on bringing more women into the gender investing gap conversation.
Krawcheck is honing in on Denver for their next launch, citing similar reasons for her choice in Austin— it, too, is a vibrant and growing tech community.
And even if women aren’t investing with her, she’s happy if they’re investing at all.
“If all we do is call attention to the gender investing gap in 2016, I’ll call 2016 a good year.”
Ellevest raised $10 million in 2015 and employs 20 people in New York City.
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