Episode summary
Maura Cunningham and Sallie Krawcheck reflect on leadership, confidence and women's financial empowerment.
Key takeaways
- The conversation explores diversity in financial leadership.
- Krawcheck discusses Ellevest's progress at the time of the conversation.
- Cunningham shares lessons from her Wall Street experience.
About this episode
Kicking off RTSWS’s 15th anniversary year, RTSWS CEO Ashley Leftwich reshares a 2024 conversation with Founder Maura Cunningham and Wall Street legend Sallie Krawcheck. Sallie at the time shared the exciting milestone of Ellevest reaching $2 billion in investments, highlighting the firm’s significant impact on women’s financial empowerment.
During the conversation, Sallie provided valuable career insights, particularly emphasizing the critical role of diversity in financial leadership, sharing: “I learned that diversity isn’t just nice to have; it correlates directly with the quality of a leadership team. Diverse teams, bringing different perspectives and experiences, are not only smarter but also perform better.” Maura reflected on her own Wall Street experiences, offering advice for the next generation on the importance of knowing your numbers, advocating for yourself, and recognizing your value.
Follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter for more career insights.
Learn more about Rock The Street, Wall Street and our mission to bring the M in STEM to life: https://rockthestreetwallstreet.com
Disclaimer: All financial and investment information contained in this podcast is merely for educational and informational purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for professional advice. Should you decide to act upon any information in this podcast, you do so at your own risk.
Listen to the episode
Transcript
Transcript supplied by Riverside; it may contain transcription errors.
speaker-0: Welcome to Rocking Finance, the Rock the Street Wall Street podcast. Real stories, real access, real path into finance. Join us for candid high-impact conversations with industry leaders sharing the insights, experiences, career pivots, and journeys that can help young women advance through the financial industry with great confidence. Rock the Street Wall Street equips high school and university students, especially young women, by bringing the ⁓ and STEM to life. Financial and investment fundamentals. We provide direct industry access and guidance supporting students and young professionals on their journeys from classrooms to careers while expanding participation in the capital markets. Through cohort-based learning, mentorship, and individual career connection, we help students build confidence, capabilities, and networks that open doors. Our goal is clear: expand participation in the capital markets and strengthen the future of finance one cohort at a time. Today I'm your host, Ashley Leftwich, CEO of Rock the Street Wall Street, bringing you this special edition of Walking Finance. As we celebrate our 15th anniversary year, we're featuring conversations whose lessons stand the test of time. Originally recorded in 2024, this was shortly after the announcement that I would serve as CEO. Privilege joining our visionary founder Maura Cunningham and Wall Street legend Sally Krotchik for a candid discussion about leadership, preparation, and knowing the value you bring to the table. Since this conversation was recorded, Sally stepped away from her day-to-day leadership at Elvis to focus on her health and trusting outstanding leaders to guide the organization forward. Like so many conversations with Sally, this one extends well beyond finance. Sally shares practical advice about standing out, working hard, being prepared, and contributing with confidence. Mora reflects on her own Wall Street experiences, including the importance of knowing your numbers, advocating for yourself, and recognizing your value. Now for our 15th episode, Let's Rock Finance.
speaker-2: But
speaker-0: Welcome. We're delighted to be here with two Wall Streeters, Sally Krotek, founder of Elivest, and Maura Cunningham, founder of Rock the Street Wall Street, for a compelling conversation. We just saw Elavest ring the New York Stock Exchange bell, celebrating a major milestone of $2 billion in investments. Congratulations, Sally, to you and
speaker-1: your team. Thank you. It was very exciting, I have to say.
speaker-0: And Maura, Rockfast Street, Wall Street is bringing the MN STEM to high school girls through financial and investment fundamentals. In addition to more than 25 cities across the US, we are expanding our footprint in Toronto and London, expanding the pipeline of women in investing. And with that, Mora, I leave it to you and Sally to jump off the conversation.
speaker-2: So Sally, two billion dollars. That's quite a threshold. So tell us more about that and congratulations again.
speaker-1: Thank you. No, it's it's it was very exciting. I'm really thrilled for the team. It it took a while to get here. They say the first billion is the hardest, but the second billion is hardest too. And you know, that represents ⁓ tens of thousands of women ⁓ investing in their future, building wealth, ⁓ you know, becoming more confident which comes with building wealth, ⁓ really having taken those actions to ⁓ you know, to increase their power as well. So I I when we went to ring the bell of the New York Stock Exchange, I thought I've been here a thousand times. ⁓ this is a you know just a a typical morning. And I have to tell you that when I pulled up, you know, walked up to the building and there were all the L of S signs all over it, I got sort of emotional, truthfully, truth be told. ⁓ it really felt like an important moment, an important mark mark for us.
speaker-2: I can imagine, I can truly imagine. it's ⁓ it it is quite a milestone and good for you for for getting women to understand that it's better to invest your money rather than staying in cash, which women have unfortunately ⁓ the habit to do, which we ⁓ you know, given that we are at the younger end of the pipeline in terms of financial literacy and so forth, we are teaching the girls how to assess risk. ⁓ And so clearly your organization is doing that as well. So kudos to you in getting them to understand the benefits of taking a calculated risk, shall we say?
speaker-1: In fact, the ⁓ a ⁓ known risk is keeping your money in the bank. ⁓ and of course you should have some money in the bank, some money that's there safely for you, but you know that ⁓ that money does not keep up with inflation, so you know it becomes less valuable over time. ⁓ whereas investing, we think of investing the stock market, we think of it as so risky. But the truth is historically, if you've had a long-term time horizon, it's been less risky than you think. That the ups and downs have been overtaken over time by you know the growth of our very strong economy, ⁓ which you know translates then into the prices of stocks. So ⁓ I've always conceived of investing in the stock market as riskier than it's been in a diversified investment portfolio. But over time it historically has not been.
speaker-2: Totally agree with that. And we all know the long term trend is up. So there you have it. We just have to get them started earlier too.
speaker-1: ⁓ for sure. For sure.
speaker-2: So about that. So as you know, at Rockley Street, Wall Street, we're reaching girls at an earlier age. ⁓ We lose girls in math at age nine in the United States. And in Western Europe, we don't have this problem in China, Russia, India, nor interestingly enough, Eastern European countries. So it's clearly a cultural issue, not a capability issue. ⁓ So we decided to tap into them while they're in high school and get those girls back into math. So you and I both know, Sally, that it's nothing financial math, quite frankly, and it's nothing much more than arithmetic, sixth grade arithmetic for the most part. ⁓ maybe first year algebra, with the exception of our algos and quants. ⁓ but surely 98% of us that are in the field only had to know for the most part first year algebra of that. so we have among our students ⁓ many young women who are also interested not only in investment literacy. But also they're interested in potentially coming into the field. So I've been a an advocate for if you're going to diversify the members of our industry, you must catch them earlier. Simply because as a as a one half of the species, you're losing us in math. ⁓ as I said, at age nine. And so if the industry keeps looking for them at college level, They've already opted out of finance and economics. And so ⁓ we are proud to say that w our students are at ⁓ are studying finance and economics at a rate of five times the average female student in the United States. ⁓ but can you say more, if you would, about women in the industry and how helpful it would be to get more of them into the
speaker-1: Well, well, first of all, ⁓ I will tell you I've been in Wall Street since I graduated from college. ⁓ and I have determined that ⁓ nobody uses trig. You said maybe there's some algebra. There there's some algebra, there's some statistics if that's the what part of your job, but trigonometry, which is my bear, I promise you I haven't used it. Calculus has not been used. I promise. Those those things you can leave behind. But but what I would say is I didn't consider myself A math gal, I am a puzzle solver. And so what I loved about my time on Wall Street, and I really started as you know, an equity research analyst, which which sounds geeky. It's it's not. It's actually fascinating because it pulls together all different parts of the brain. In order to be a great equity research analyst, you have to have the analytics, you have to have the math. You need to be able to build a spreadsheet. More importantly, you need to be able to clean insights out of the spreadsheet. If, you know, the if you know the top line grows by X, you know, what happens to the gross margin? What happens to the bottom line? Do these make sense? Is your balance sheet balancing? I love doing puzzles and building these earnings models are puzzles. ⁓ I love writing as well. ⁓ and part of being a research analyst is writing and convincing people of your argument. I love dealing with smart people and having a debate and a back and forth. ⁓ and being a research analyst does that as well. And and so for me, it was probably the most well-rounded job around. It wasn't, you know, I was locked in a room doing one thing or the other, but my day had this rhythm to it where I was being analytical, I was being creative, I was engaging with people. ⁓ so I loved it. I really did it. It's not, it's not, you know, your your your old, you know, fashion calculator. in a room. ⁓ so it's, I would say, first of all, a great career for somebody to be engaged in. ⁓ and then it's great for the industry because having, you know, right now the industry is not diversified enough. ⁓ and you know, diversity is power. And so having different perspectives and different backgrounds and different insights and different levels of education coming at these problems that the industry is trying to solve, should I buy this stock? You know, should I buy buy you know, th should this be my asset allocation? The the diversity is helpful ⁓ for the industry. So it's a win win when more women are going into the industry, building fantastic careers and then building a stronger industry, in my opinion.
speaker-2: Well, obviously I couldn't agree more. That's what we're all about. So, and one of the things that I we tell our students, of which we have probably over a thousand each year now across the United States alone. So we explain to them that if we change who we invest in, we can change what we invest in. And I think that's a big part of our mission is to get more women seated at the table, as you probably know from sitting on other boards. ⁓ the people who really are some of the decision makers include those who know the finances, ⁓ those that are on the finance committee, and among other things, can also ⁓ understand, you know, the the cost-benefit analysis of things. And so it's critical that women have that seat at the board. And that's ultimately where we want to get these girls to come and understand that that's where the power lies, quite frankly.
speaker-1: That's where the power lies. That is where the power lies. But that you you said it and I underscore it. That is where the power lies, is with the numbers.
speaker-2: Exactly. Exactly. I was listening to a podcast this morning. I won't mention the name, but there's some things going on today about a particular company and it's the board and ⁓ a decision that needs to be made ⁓ or not made. In any event, it's a big, big power play. but one of the things that we're also noticing lately is there's a bit of a pushback on the DEI initiatives that were rolled out. Can you say more about what what you're seeing? Could 'cause we're seeing on one hand, we're seeing a lot some pushback on it, but on the other hand, we're seeing some more male allies come to the table with us.
speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. I think the pushback is ridiculous. ⁓ and I come at it from a research analyst perspective. ⁓ I'll tell you back when I was a research analyst and choosing whether to invest in this stock or in you know this ⁓ this sector, whenever I would meet with clients, I would always, always, always get the question: is the leadership team of this company any good? Some basic question. And I'm a very analytical person. So I tried to, and I knew I had an opinion, but I didn't think my opinion, particularly when I was in my twenties and thirties, I thought I don't know that my opinion's worth more than anybody else's. I I don't it's an opinion. Is there any way I can analyze and quantify this? What makes a great leadership team? Is it that they all went to Harvard? Is it that they all have worked together for X number of years? Is it that they're all in their fifties? Is it, you know, they're all from this part of the country? Is it that they're all analytical? What what is it? And there's one thing. There's one thing that correlates with quality of a leadership team, and it is diversity. And it's diversity of all kinds. It's diversity of thought, perspective, background, education, gender, ⁓ ethnicity, d sexual orientation, optimist, pessimist, you name it. But think about it, if you don't have diversity, then you have the opinion of one person. If you do have diversity, you're bringing all those different things together so that you can have the debate and make a better decision. ⁓ so this pushback on DEI, I don't, I mean, I get it, but I don't get it. ⁓ but it's just not smart. It is not smart because diversity has been shown to lead to superior performance, higher returns on equity, ⁓ greater innovation, lower risk. greater employee engagement, greater consumer engagement. The power of diversity is so great that diverse teams actually outperform smarter teams. Smarter teams. It's by bringing those differences together. So ⁓ look, I I know people feel threatened by change, ⁓ but change towards diversity is a very good thing.
speaker-2: So it's it's interesting, you know, we're in three countries now, ⁓ Sally. We're in the US, the UK, and Canada. And it's fascinating because we're not having that pushback in the UK, Northern Canada. So it's clearly political. ⁓ and so ⁓ okay, so like you, I grew up on Wall Street. I absolutely loved it. I really did. I had a great time. Like you said, you're around smart people, you're around people who think really quickly. There's always things happening. You know, I was in the trading pits. I mean, it was, it was
speaker-1: Sure. Sure.
speaker-2: ⁓ a lot of fun, a lot of ⁓ action going on. and you had to just constantly be on your toes. you have you know obviously navigated across a lot of known firms and you've been able to make it to the top. So can you share like a key lesson that you learned in in getting there?
speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ course it takes hard work. ⁓ it takes a lot of luck. It takes ⁓ mentors who ⁓ and sponsors who really care about you and who who fight for you. ⁓ I actually found for me, and this may sound counterintuitive, it took me sticking out. Sticking out. ⁓ and you you might think, Well, gosh, you're in the minority and there are very few other women. Why don't you just Put your head down and get your work done and sort of glide on through. But I realized, ⁓ and this is you know decades ago, but I realized that at the age of 26, I was a senior woman in the Solomon Brothers office in London. And so I thought, if I try to do this the way others have done it, by definition, that I'll fail. Why don't I take this characteristic I have, which is I stand out and then just really stand out? ⁓ and what do I mean by that? As a research analyst. Oftentimes research analysts will you know, do the housekeeping. A company write write up a report. This company reported earnings. They came ahead two cents from where the expectations were. A penny of it was currency, and a penny was the tighter expenses, and therefore I'm taking up my estimate. ⁓ so imagine if that's the recipient of one of those pieces of research. A dur a ⁓ A boss of mine once said the calls that were worth ⁓ worth making were big calls on big stocks. Say you know, find something to say, not my opinion, backed up by analytics, on a stock that people care about. So my very first piece of research was on a company that no longer exists, American General. The company was grow it was an insurance company, but growing like a weed through lending and really putting loans on the books. And everybody said, look at this is amazing. They found a new business opportunity, a way to grow. I looked at this and did a deep analysis and said, this is this is bad growth. This is pure putrid growth. This is growth of loans, but credit is deteriorating also. And you can't see it because the loan growth is so significant. But if you adjust this ratio and you lag this and you lag that, you can see there's deterioration. I wrote this up and I titled it American General Woe Nelly. It was the first piece of research I wrote. And two months later, I was right. ⁓ and I could go on and on. And I believe me, I had times I was wrong. But I ⁓ my goal was I want I'm covering this industry. If you are going to invest in a stock in this industry, if you do not talk to me, your your boss will be upset with you that you will go in and say, I want to buy XYZ stock. Sally Krotchak covers that stock. What does Sally have to say? ⁓ I don't know. I didn't talk to her. What do you mean you didn't talk to Sally Krotchak? She's the one doing the interesting, you know, controversial, unconventional research. And so by doing this, make no mistake, I increased my risk. If I my my first call was right, my second call was right. If my first four calls were wrong, I'm sure I would have been out of business. That would have been it. But I thought, let me just go for it and let me make big calls on big stocks and stand out and be the person you have to talk to. By the way, my next move when we've hit on this a little bit was I went with the numbers. Since I was in the financial services industry, the power was not in HR, which is a terrific, ⁓ you know, terrific department and and useful and helpful and so key. That's not where the power is on Wall Street. The power is the chief financial officer, the chief numbers officer. And so I became I set my sights and became the chief financial officer of Citigroup. You know, and so By doing that by re by being controversial, not being scared to be wrong, but being right more often than I was wrong, and then going for the numbers is how I made it to the top.
speaker-2: I'll I'll share something with you too. It's funny. ⁓ two things. One was similar to you, ⁓ I sensed something in something that was getting priced and had an incredible swing. This is before the ETFs, we had UITs. I don't know if you remember those, Sally. And we had a we had a ⁓ conglomerate of firms that were were issuing them. And long story short, we had the Z tranches of CMOs being priced by a firm, an outside firm. And the price swings were phenomenal, you know. And granted, they're a Z tranche, but I'm like, ⁓ something's wrong here. So my boss, I told him, said, Look, you it's the numbers, right? I said, there's something really, really wrong here. ⁓ you know, watching what they're pegging it off of, there's something wrong. Somebody doesn't know something here. Let's go figure this out. Because, you know, clearly our our unit holders were getting upset about it too. And so, long story short, I did my analysis and I had ⁓ I actually went to the trading desks. I sat next to each of these traders who were trading them because back then they were in their infancy. ⁓ and so there were only a few people who understood CMOs at the time, clerized mortgage obligations ⁓ back then. And so I actually was one of the few who understood them. And ⁓ it was fascinating to hear what they said versus what they said previously, like 30 days before. ⁓ and so I would call them on it, you know, and those kinds of things. And so long story short, we got that fixed, shall we say. ⁓ but it was a fascinating thing about diving into the puzzles, diving into the numbers. I mean, if and again, you know, I want to make sure that everybody understands, like you said, it's not trig, it's not calculus. These these are arithmetic kind of numbers, and it's just fascinating to watch in a sequence of what's happening and to get to the bottom of the story. ⁓ the other the other time.
speaker-1: Absolutely puzzle solving.
speaker-2: what it Yeah, yeah. And it's it's fun, you know? And the other thing was ⁓ I had asked I had gotten a bonus and then I said it's ⁓ quite frankly, I said, you know, don't think that's quite enough. And they were quite surprised at me. and then ⁓ I had all my numbers under my arm and I said well let's let me show you the numbers. And then they double they doubled my bonus. So again I can't stress the the strength of numbers. ⁓ So I agree with you totally about knowing the numbers. It's financial literacy month, and we're delighted, you know, obviously, that you joined us today. And I'm proud that our students in Rock the Street is growing its footprint. And as you know, these are girls who are aging up. We have over nearly a thousand that are entering into the workforce each year now, via internships and job shadowing and entry-level positions into the profession. where we offer our alumni and career center, by the way, because our girls have aged up. We're up this 11 years now. We've got a decade behind us. So clearly our students are in college and post-college. And so we created this alumni and career center, which has just taken off. ⁓ we have a lot of ⁓ live listings there as we speak. But I wanted to ⁓ talk to you anything that you might like to add to ⁓ encourage our students, our team, and our volunteers. ⁓ in terms of what it is that we're we're trying to achieve at the ⁓ beginning of the pipeline of of knowledge about investing.
speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. ⁓ start early. I'm so glad y'all are starting early. Just start early. The worst investing advice I ever heard was my ex-husband telling my still, he's still my brother. ⁓ but my ex-husband telling my brother, don't worry about investing in your 20s. You're going to be making so much more money in your 30s and 40s, you can wait till then, which demonstrates a complete lack of the power of compounding interest. And compounding interest is not a particularly intuitive concept, ⁓ but it is a very powerful concept. And in fact, the greatest investor of all time, Warren Buffett, says it's compound interest. That that's the that's the trick ticket. And so starting early has such advantages, the mathematical advantages, of course, but but even the the advantages of confidence. ⁓ I would say the best career advice nobody ever gives but me is to invest. And if you are Taking some part of your paycheck, investing it with someone like an Alabast, ⁓ and allowing, you know, part of every paycheck to get in there and you'll have your ups and your downs, but over time historically has gone up and compounded. Boy, if that doesn't give you more confidence at work, I don't know what will. Because, you know, I love your story, Maura, about I told him this isn't enough and they doubled. ⁓ I would never have been able to do that. The only way I could do that is if I knew I have enough money. You know, that if they're like, well, I hate you and you're fired, you know, you're fine. No, that never happens, by the way, but I was brought up in the South, so I wouldn't worry about that. But ⁓ you know, you can just act with so many more degrees of freedom. In fact, we ⁓ we had a recent survey we did at Elivest about what happens when women get more money, ⁓ inheritance, you know, a windfall of some kind, and ⁓ found that young women are three times more likely to say they want to leave their partner when they have more money, which is a good thing. You know, it's it's sad when marriages and partnerships don't work out. It's even sadder when you're stuck, you know, when women are stuck in them because they don't have have the money. And so, ⁓ you know, g starting early, gaining the confidence and then having more degrees of freedom in one's life, I think is is pretty, pretty important.
speaker-2: Couldn't agree more. Totally couldn't agree more with that. So ⁓ well I appreciate the the time you spent with us, Sally. ⁓ you know, ⁓ you you are ⁓ a font of wisdom. and ⁓ I love the fact that you speak as candidly as you do. I think we need much, much more of that. I hope we we do see more of the young women speaking more of their minds. And I do agree with you with being economically financial and financially independent ⁓ gives you power and gives you choices. Yeah, I couldn't say it better myself.
speaker-0: These lessons remain just as relevant today as they were when we first recorded this conversation. They also reflect the mission that has guided Rock the Street Wall Street for the past 15 years, educating, preparing, and advancing the next generation of financial professionals. Thank you for joining the conversation. Visit Rock the Streetwall Street.com to learn more. Make sure to follow and join us for the next episode. Until next time, let's keep rocking finance.
