Social equity and financial empowerment

TRANSCRIPT

Fionna Ross

Hello, I am Fionna Ross and you're listening to the abrdn Sustainability Inspires podcast discussing all things relating to sustainability and responsible investing.

I am delighted to have with me as my guest Caroline Jones, Vice President and Financial Advisor in the Princeton Group, one of the largest independent wealth management practices within Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network based on AUM. Now, Caroline has accomplished more than most will in a lifetime. She's authored four children's books, presented a TEDx talk, and served as the Inaugural Miss Pennsylvania Volunteer 2022. More recently, Caroline, along with her business partner, established the 10th office of the Princeton group in Philadelphia's Fishtown neighbourhood with the mission of making wealth management more transparent, accessible and authentic. She's an active member of her local community where she co-founded Fishtown Connect, an inclusive networking group, and she's also a board member of the Fishtown Kensington Business Improvement District. Caroline's been working in the wealth management industry for over five years. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from King's College with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, with a Double Major in Management and Marketing and a Minor in Leadership studies. She also graduated with a Master of Science in Personal Financial Planning from the College for Financial Planning. Outside the office, Caroline enjoys playing the piano, travelling the globe, running and yoga. She currently resides in Philadelphia with her partner Matthew and their two cats. Caroline, welcome to our podcast.

Caroline Jones

Hi, Fionna, thank you for having me.

Fionna Ross

It's so great having you on with us. And I'm really glad that you found time and what certainly is a super packed schedule. So Caroline, we've met fairly recently at a local sustainable investing networking breakfast here in Philadelphia. And I had the pleasure of sitting next to you and I was just so intrigued to hear about all of your achievements and all of the things that you're involved with. And I also really don't know how you find the time to fit them all in and at such a relatively young age. So, author, community ambassador, business partner, and you're still in your 20s. One of the kind of more interesting things I thought that we spoke about was your involvement with pageants. I understand that you won the title of Miss Pennsylvania Volunteer 2022. Can you tell us a bit more about that? What exactly is that?

Caroline Jones

Yes, absolutely. So last year, I had the incredible opportunity and honour to represent my state of Pennsylvania, as the Inaugural Miss Pennsylvania Volunteer State Title Holder. And this pageant is a service-oriented Programme that empowers young women across the country through educational scholarships and extraordinary opportunities. So, I competed in interview talent, evening gown, fitness and wellness and promoted the five principles of this pageant, which are scholarship, education, responsibility, volunteerism, and empowerment. And being able to wear the Mis Pennsylvania Volunteer sash gave me some amazing opportunities to lead, serve and empower other women as well. And it also gave me a platform to advocate for a cause that I'm very passionate about, childhood literacy and education.

Fionna Ross

That's great. And it's so great to hear about that side of the pageant industry as well. It sounds like there really are some fantastic opportunities for young women to take advantage of through their involvement. And congratulations again, on your honour. So, you also spoke a bit about your passion for childhood literacy and education. And that kind of leads to the next question that I had for you. You know, I'm pretty fascinated about the work that you've done as an author, can you maybe tell us a bit more about your books and also how you got involved there.

Caroline Jones

So, over a decade ago, I was volunteering with the United Way in my home community, distributing over 5000 children's books to nonprofits. And when I was talking with and reading with some of the children, I discovered that many didn't own their own books or even know how to read and some of their parents didn't either. So, I decided that I wanted to do something about that. So, I started my platform, the Read to Succeed project to advocate for the importance of childhood literacy and education. And over the 10 years that followed, I authored and co-authored and published four children's books. And the titles are: One More Book Please, the Line Leader, We Save the Bees, and Butterflies and Floating Strain. Through my pageant work, I had the opportunity to read my books to thousands of children in schools throughout Pennsylvania.

Fionna Ross

So great and such a great opportunity and such a great thing to do. And I'll definitely have to check out some of those titles for my daughter. I have a four year old so I’ll have to take a look there. And how does that all fit and relate to the TEDx talk that you did?

Caroline Jones

Yeah, so one of my books, the Line Leader that I co-authored with Dr. Matthew Sacchet is about teaching leadership concepts to children. We wrote this book after I interviewed 100 students in grades kindergarten through third grade. And I discovered that a lot of kids think that leaders are only people with a position of authority, like a president, a teacher, or a line leader. And they think they can't be leaders because they're too young or too small. So, the line leader is a cute fun book about classroom animals that get assigned to different classroom jobs. And spider, the smallest student doesn't get a job. But in the end, she's the true leader in the story, because she helped the other animals work together and discover their strengths. And I re-interviewed those 100 students after reading them my book, and I found that it really did change their perspective on what it means to be a leader. So, after all of that, I had the opportunity to give a TEDx talk about the importance of introducing leadership concepts to children, at home and in classrooms in order to develop future leaders.

Fionna Ross

I think my daughter would absolutely love that. And it does sound like a great platform to really get some of those important messages across. It's fantastic that you had had that opportunity. So Caroline, as well as all of these achievements, in your spare time, essentially, you've also had quite a packed career in the wealth management industry. And at 27, well, you don't have the same tenure as maybe some of your peers, but you have quite clearly achieved a lot. So, you know, more recently, you've established your own office as you mentioned in the Fishtown neighbourhood of Philadelphia. Can you maybe tell us a bit about why you believe your work in the wealth management industry is important to sustainability.

Caroline Jones

So, when beginning my career in the wealth management industry after college, I knew I wanted to make it meaningful, and I had a goal of making an impact. And sustainability is something that is very important to me, and because sustainability is a really broad topic, I wanted to first define it here. So, a definition I love is from the UCLA Sustainability Committee, which defines sustainability as the integration of environmental health, social equity, and economic vitality in order to create thriving, healthy, diverse and resilient communities for this generation and generations to come. With my new office, I'm really focusing on this social equity part, economic vitality part and the generations to come part. So, the population I chose to reach out to and where my partner and I built our office is in the Fishtown Philadelphia neighbourhood where we also live. If you're not familiar with the Fishtown neighbourhood, it's been dubbed the hottest zip code in America. And it actually started as a fishing industry neighbourhood for about 325 years. And now it's a trendy and lively place and the average age of residence is mid-30s. There's a wide range of restaurants, bars, galleries, fitness studios, and so much more; really something for everyone. It's been historically a working-class neighbourhood with primarily trade industries like fishing, and it's since transitioned into a millennial and service based and small business-based neighbourhood. So, you have two main demographics here, recent retirees who have retired from a trade and Millennial professionals and young families. And historically these are two demographics that have been overlooked and underserved when it comes to financial advice. I mentioned earlier that while competing in pageants, my platform was advocating for education and childhood literacy. I knew there was an education gap and literacy gap in children. But when I got into this industry, I realised that there was a knowledge gap that adults have, financial literacy. And my partner and I specifically built this office to ensure that people here have access to financial literacy advice and education.

Fionna Ross

Yeah, the Fishtown area I remember when I first moved to Philadelphia 6 years ago, and you know, used to go there for a pizza, some quite great restaurants there.  I think it's great how you've been able to use some of your past experiences and also your passions to really use that in your career path. And as we've already mentioned, you know, you've clearly achieved a lot at a relatively young age and it's positive to see a young female like yourself achieving such success and what has stereotypically been in, quite frankly, continues to be, a male dominated industry. However, what kind of challenges has this created for you working in the industry? And how do you think your experiences can help bring more diversity to the industry?

Caroline Jones

I've certainly had challenges. Being a woman and a young woman is definitely still a minority in this industry. Sometimes I've faced rejections not because of my education or achievements, but because my hair is red instead of grey, or I remind someone of their daughter or granddaughter. However, I want to bring more diversity to aspiring financial advisors by showing that there's no limit to what we can achieve no matter our age, gender or any other factor. And in addition to wanting more diverse financial advisors, I'm also on a mission to create more diverse clients. My goal with my new office is to break down barriers to accessing wealth management. We opened this office on the main commercial street, and we encourage any community member to walk in and share their story. I believe there is often a perception of financial advisors only being available for older, wealthier people. So many of my millennial clients were intimidated by the navy suit, Financial Advisor image. And there are many Financial Advisors in this industry, who pride themselves on exclusivity, putting up a red velvet rope and won’t accept clients who don't have assets of a certain minimum level. But we're doing the opposite of that because I believe that everyone deserves access to financial advice and education, no matter if they have $5 million, or $5,000.

Fionna Ross

And what are you seeing demand wise from your, I guess, largely younger demographic client base? Are you seeing where awareness for people wanting to invest their money in a more sustainable way? And also, what are some of the key demands or concerns that you're hearing from your clients? And how does this or even does this differ from, you know, some of the older investors.

Caroline Jones

Younger people have a lot of financial pressures these days. But in my experience, younger investors really do care about investing their money in a more sustainable way. They care about the companies they're investing in and want companies to align with their values and priorities. And that's definitely different from other generations who might choose their investments based on only returns. My younger clients are also seeking authenticity. They don't want the transactional stockbroker approach. They want a relationship with their Financial Advisor, and they want someone that they can truly trust. When my business partner Matthew Adams, Vice President and Financial Advisor and I were designing our new office, we were very intentional about designing the space in an open and transparent way, rather than carving out cubicles and offices. And we have a slogan that we like to use financial advice, but without the suits. We ditched our Navy suits on a daily basis, and we wear jeans and blazers to work because that's what is authentic to us in our community.

Fionna Ross

I love the idea of authenticity and really trying to break down some of those barriers and I guess stereotypes as well. So, know for a bit of a fun question. If you had a crystal ball and you could wish for absolutely anything in your career, what would it be?

Caroline Jones

Oh, well, now that I'm living in Fishtown Philadelphia for about two years, and I've been very involved in this community. I run into people I know on the street all the time, and they'll sometimes introduce me to whoever they're with as this is Caroline, she founded Fishtown Connect Networking Group, or this is Caroline, she's on the board of the Fishtown BID. However, my biggest goal now is I want people to recognise me for being a good financial advisor. I want someone to introduce me as This is Caroline, she's my Financial Advisor, and she helped me a lot. And that's all know the work here is making a difference.

Fionna Ross

That certainly sounds like a great goal to aspire to. And Caroline, what related to sustainability would you say has actually inspired you?

Caroline Jones

Honestly, truly, this neighbourhood of Fishtown was my inspiration for sustainability. In an era where we're drawn to see how big you can get, I wanted to do the opposite. I wanted to stay local and community minded. We're not trying to be everything for everybody. But we do want to be the most trusted advisors in our neighbourhood and a place where people feel comfortable.

Fionna Ross

And I think I think that's one of the things I really love about Philadelphia, you know, it's made up of all these kind of diverse and often quite close, close knit communities. Okay, so I just continue talking for hours, I'm sure on so many different topics. But as we as we draw to the end of our podcast, can we perhaps touch on one final question? What do you think the next big sustainability issue which the financial industry can play a role in is going to be? And in other words, what should we all be watching out for?

Caroline Jones

I think the industry as a whole has an immense power to address sustainability issues related to corporate responsibility, prioritising ethical business practices, and holding businesses accountable for their actions on a more individual level. I also believe that Financial Advisors shouldn't pride themselves on making our industry so exclusive. Instead, we can help to ensure that the next generation has access to a more equitable future by outreach to younger generations and making sure financial literacy is accessible to everyone.

Fionna Ross

That’s well said, That's great. That's a great closing statement. Well, Caroline, thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to spend time with us today. It's been such a pleasure to have you with us. So, thank you.

Caroline Jones

Thank you, Fionna.

Fionna Ross

You have been listening to the abrdn podcast, Sustainability Inspires, aiming to help you to get inspired and get involved. To all of those of you who have taken time to tune in many thanks for listening. You can find all of our podcasts on our website. Goodbye for now.

Disclaimer

Investment products and services are offered through Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, LLC WFAFN, member SIPC.  The Princeton group is a separate entity from WFAFN.

This podcast is provided for general information only and assumes a certain level of knowledge of financial markets. It is provided for informational purposes only and should not be considered as an offer investment recommendation or solicitation to deal in any of the investments or products mentioned herein and does not constitute investment research. The views in this podcast are those of the contributors at the time of publication, and do not necessarily reflect those of Abrdn. The companies discussed in this podcast have been selected for illustrative purposes only, or to demonstrate our investment management style and not as an investment recommendation or indication of their future performance. The value of investments and the income from them can go down as well as up and investors may get back less than the amount invested. Past performance is not a guide to future returns, return projections or estimates and provide no guarantee of future results.