00:00I think my gender was always a factor.
00:02I think it was a factor in my success,
00:05and I think it was a factor in times when I stumbled.
00:08It seems weird to sort of paint gender over everything,
00:11but it's such a core to who I am.
00:14It's sort of hard to say,
00:16no, gender had nothing to do with anything,
00:18because it's so core.
00:20I found as a research analyst,
00:22because I was the only woman,
00:24or one of the only two women,
00:26whether I wanted to or not, I stuck out.
00:29And I used that to my advantage.
00:32There's a reason that I was successful
00:34very quickly as a research analyst.
00:36One, I worked hard.
00:37Two, I was very analytical.
00:39Three, I took risks.
00:41But part of it was, you couldn't forget me.
00:44You just couldn't forget me.
00:46I'm Sally Krawcheck, I'm 59 years old,
00:48CEO and co-founder of Ellevest,
00:50and this is my secret to success.
00:52You may find this hard to believe,
00:54but I'm a Charles Stoney, and I'm from the South.
00:56I have three siblings.
00:58My dad was a lawyer.
00:59He was a sole practitioner lawyer,
01:01even in his young 20s.
01:02My mother worked within the home.
01:04So those early days when I was younger,
01:06things were, you know, pretty tight.
01:08I remember sitting in the breakfast room
01:11and peeling the wallpaper off the wall,
01:14and actually not getting in trouble for it,
01:16because that's sort of how run-down
01:18the place was at the time.
01:19Charleston, you think of it as hot,
01:21but it has a chilly winter.
01:23My parents, to save money,
01:25used to turn off the heat at night.
01:27They'd wake up at 5 or 5.30 in the morning
01:29to take that shower.
01:30It was freezing cold.
01:32I remember putting on my pants,
01:34and they were freezing cold
01:35when I put my legs in them
01:36and getting back in bed to warm up.
01:38First of all, I always wanted money,
01:40and I had my little savings account,
01:42and how could I earn money?
01:43I worked for my father filing for him,
01:47and I got 25 cents an hour to work for him.
01:50So that's where I started.
01:52I babysat, of course, for all the neighborhood kids,
01:55and then we had a family store,
01:56which was on King Street.
01:57It was called Jack Krawcheck,
01:58and I think from ninth grade,
02:00I was on retail.
02:02So I can't think of a time
02:04that I wasn't working.
02:06So I went to the University of North Carolina,
02:07and I was a journalism major,
02:09a poli-sci major there.
02:10I worked at Fortune one summer
02:13as, I guess, a cub reporter.
02:15I remember seeing the first fax machine
02:17that I'd ever seen when I was here.
02:20Didn't get the full-time job,
02:22so I went to Wall Street instead.
02:25I think it worked out well for Fortune
02:26and worked out well for me.
02:28When I graduated,
02:29Wall Street was going absolute gangbusters,
02:31so even though I was a journalism major,
02:33I thought, let me go to Wall Street,
02:35if I can, for a couple years,
02:36learn a lot, learn about business,
02:38and then I can come back
02:39and be a business journalist
02:41or do something with that business.
02:43I think I got job offers with
02:45Salomon Brothers,
02:47Bankers Trust at the time,
02:48Goldman Sachs,
02:50Morgan Stanley,
02:51J.P. Morgan.
02:52So, I mean, I got some job offers.
02:54I remember calling my dad and saying,
02:56I've got these job offers,
02:57what do you think?
02:58He said, that's great,
02:59but let's, you know,
03:00forget about Goldman Sachs.
03:01And I said, why?
03:02And he said,
03:03because I've never heard of them.
03:04So I said, excellent, excellent.
03:06Thank you for that excellent advice, Dad.
03:08But chose Salomon Brothers
03:09because John Goodfriend
03:10had just been on the cover of
03:11Businessweek as the king of Wall Street,
03:13never knowing what I was getting into,
03:16never having any idea
03:18of what a rough environment it was.
03:21I was in investment banking
03:22for a few years.
03:23I came back to go to
03:25Columbia Business School
03:26with a sole goal of
03:28let me get out of investment banking.
03:30Worked at Time Magazine
03:31in the business office for the summer
03:33so I could get back into media.
03:35And I'm like, here I go,
03:36here goes the dream,
03:37my journalism major,
03:38my business degree.
03:39I'm going to work at Time Magazine
03:41and I did not get the ongoing job offer.
03:44So I ended up right back
03:45in investment banking on Wall Street.
03:48I didn't last long.
03:49Never anybody ever do this,
03:51but I quit my job.
03:52I was like, I've had it
03:53with investment banking.
03:54This is not where I want to be.
03:56At some point,
03:57right before I turned 30,
03:59had the epiphany
04:01that I wanted to be an equity
04:02research analyst,
04:03a sell-side research analyst.
04:05So the first time
04:06I was on the glass cliff
04:08was after the research scandal
04:10of the early 2000s.
04:13In the run-up of the internet bubble,
04:15research analysts really had two jobs.
04:17One job was to write research
04:20telling individual
04:21and institutional investors
04:22to buy low and sell high.
04:24And the other was to be
04:25part-time investment bankers
04:26and to advise the corporates
04:28to issue the stock high
04:30and buy it low,
04:31which was a direct conflict
04:32to each other.
04:33At Sanford Bernstein,
04:34we too were in those two businesses,
04:36but when I had the opportunity
04:37to run the business,
04:38I took us out of the
04:39conflicted investment
04:40banking business.
04:41The business struggled
04:42for a while,
04:43but when the internet
04:44bubble burst and it was clear,
04:46Elliot Spitzer came in
04:47and found old emails
04:48and it was clear that
04:49there was these conflicts.
04:50Our business did this.
04:51And I was on the cover
04:52of Fortune magazine
04:53as the last honest analyst,
04:55which then brought me job offers.
04:57I got a call from Sandy Weil,
04:59who was then the titan
05:00of Wall Street,
05:01running Citi,
05:02which was the largest
05:03financial services company
05:05at the time, I think,
05:06in the world.
05:07And the stock was under pressure
05:08because of the research scandal.
05:10And so I got a call,
05:11would you come and turn around
05:13our research business?
05:15And to which I was,
05:16I don't know about that,
05:17but would you run Smith Barney?
05:19And for those who don't know,
05:20Smith Barney was a Merrill Lynch
05:22of its time.
05:23And so I got the opportunity,
05:25the first woman to ever
05:26have run that company.
05:28It was a glass cliff
05:29because it was a turnaround.
05:32It was a turnaround
05:33that I got in part
05:34because I was a woman,
05:36in part because, of course,
05:37I had a different strategy
05:38than others,
05:39but a very visible,
05:41you're out there,
05:42the Wall Street Journal
05:43is watching,
05:44Fortune magazine is watching,
05:46your parents are watching,
05:47the world of Wall Street
05:48is watching,
05:49can you get this business
05:51turned around?
05:52And I knew very well
05:53that the only reason
05:54I got the opportunity
05:55was because it was
05:56a turnaround.
05:57That if I had not had
05:59this other set
06:00of career successes,
06:01no way I would have ever made it
06:03to the top of Smith Barney.
06:04And so it was only through
06:06having that glass cliff moment
06:07that I got an opportunity
06:08to go run a business
06:09of that size and scale.
06:12I was putting on my mascara
06:13one morning,
06:14and I came up with the idea
06:15for Ellevestor.
06:16I came up with the idea
06:17that led to the idea
06:18that led to Ellevest.
06:20And the idea that sort of
06:21dawned on me,
06:22you know, boom,
06:23retirement savings shortfall
06:25in this country,
06:26which we really don't
06:27talk about nearly enough.
06:29But if there's not enough money
06:30for retirement,
06:31it's actually a gender issue.
06:33It's actually a woman's crisis.
06:34Why?
06:35Because women live
06:36six to eight years longer
06:37than men,
06:38and half the marriages
06:39end in divorce.
06:40The stats are so compelling
06:42about how much less wealth
06:43women have,
06:44and about how women's wealth
06:45has been going backwards
06:46in comparison to men.
06:47There simply has to be something
06:49that we can build and do
06:51in order to solve this big issue.
06:54What I know is investing.
06:56What I know is that
06:57the really scalable way
06:59for individuals to build wealth
07:01has been through investing.
07:03The industry, you know,
07:04tends to look sort of past women,
07:07tend to mostly serve men.
07:09Maybe there's an opportunity
07:10to build something
07:11that can help women invest
07:12and make them comfortable investing.
07:14We launched at the end of 2016,
07:16right before the election.
07:17We've raised $144 million
07:19of venture funding.
07:21We're fortunate because
07:22we've got a number
07:23of prominent women investors,
07:25including Melinda French-Gates,
07:27Melody Hobson,
07:28Penny Pritzker,
07:29the folks that we think
07:30impact a number
07:31of the all-raised
07:32venture capitalists
07:33who've invested in Ellevest.
07:35The process was individualized.
07:37Penny Pritzker,
07:38I remember going to sleep
07:39one night,
07:40and right before I was
07:41going to sleep,
07:42thinking to myself,
07:43if I could have one investor
07:45and forget about whether
07:46they're a venture investor
07:47or whether they do this often,
07:49who would that investor be?
07:51And I woke up at about
07:52three o'clock in the morning
07:53like Penny Pritzker.
07:54And I was in her office
07:55two days later.
07:56I talked to Melody Hobson
07:57about investing in Ellevest
07:58at the Fortune Most Powerful
07:59Women's Conference one year.
08:01We were both there,
08:02and I said,
08:03can you come over here?
08:04I'd like to sit down
08:05and walk this through with you.
08:07So for each of them,
08:08I think for Melinda Gates,
08:09going up to Seattle
08:10a couple of times
08:11and visiting with her team there,
08:12and visiting with her team there.
08:13So each one was individualized,
08:15but I was fortunate
08:16to be able to know
08:18these incredible women
08:20and be able to get in front
08:21of these incredible women
08:22in order to make the case
08:23for something important.
08:24So Ellevest really engages
08:26with women who have agency
08:28over their money.
08:29And I know whenever people
08:30ask me that question,
08:31they want me to say,
08:32her average age is 32,
08:34which is about what it is,
08:35and her income is about this,
08:36and her buh-buh-buh
08:37is about that.
08:38The truth is,
08:39we serve women
08:40who are in college
08:42and who have just got
08:43their credit card debt paid off
08:45and are ready to invest,
08:47through to women who've got
08:48multiple tens of millions
08:49of dollars with us.
08:50It's really trying to solve
08:51the same problem
08:52across the entity.
08:53It's a digital advisor,
08:55also known as a robo-advisor.
08:56We also have financial planners.
08:58Ellevest just hit
08:59$2 billion of assets
09:00under management,
09:01and our success
09:02is really driven by
09:03we've got a fantastic team
09:05who is willing to build
09:07differentiated products
09:09and really focus on
09:10our clients,
09:11who are women
09:12who have been underserved
09:13by the industry.
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