Penny's Story
Who is SHE?
SHE is a six-year-old girl who was raised in an alcoholic and abusive home. She watched her mother make daily sacrifices to raise her children in the best environment she could. Having grown up in a rural area of Ontario, where women left school, had their children and stayed home, her mother believed this was her life's path. Working the small hobby farm during the day while the children were at school, she had few resources. Her husband, a successful businessman, provided for the family, but was abusive. And yet she could not see how she could provide for her children on her own. Ultimately, she decided that staying and enduring the pain was the best she could do for her children.
SHE promised herself, at the age of six, that she would always be able to provide for herself and her children financially. She would have choices. What this looked like, she had no way of knowing, of course. But it was a strong conviction and she never abandoned it.
SHE is me.
My path lead me in many directions, now I see it was preparing for the day that I could and would make a difference.
I was the first person in my family to go on to post-secondary school. I became a legal assistant, learning as much as I could, and working part-time in the evenings and on weekends. Eventually I left to join the Addiction Research Foundation. There, I worked with young people from the community who struggled with addictions. It was an incredible opportunity, and I was thrilled to be there.
But almost from my first day at ARF, my boss began sexually harassing me. This was during the same year that the Supreme Court ruling that employers were responsible for their employees, following the suit brought by a woman who had been sexually harassed while serving in the military. I decided I had to take a stand. This resulted in the discovery that my boss had been sexually harassing staff and clients of the addiction centre for decades. After a two-year investigation, he was fired. A total of six woman had come forward to tell their stories.
By age 30 I was in the insurance industry and had become a mother. When my daughter, Cheyenne, was seven years old, her father Mark drowned, effectively becoming my first life insurance client to die. Talk about impact – how quickly I went back to being six and remembering my commitment to provide for my child. The life insurance Mark had was put into a trust for Cheyenne; however, Mark's sister had been left as trustee. Given the magnitude of this responsibility, as well as the sister's lack of experience in money management, I hired a lawyer to remove her from that post. It took a year, but we were successful, and ours was the first case in Canada to remove a trustee from a life insurance policy. In the meantime, however, Cheyenne's aunt had spent part of the trust fund, which kicked off arduous hours spent in court to retrieve what she spent—something that continues to this day.
After Mark's death, I worked harder than ever. I was promoted that year and opened the only new branch for RBC in Langley. Within six months, their 5 year plan for our growth expectations were met and we broke the company's records for growth. I become RBC's top manager and recruiter in Canada. I happened to also be the only woman in my role—and, most important, an only parent.
On the one hand, the success my team and I had worked for felt fantastic. But as we know, the good old boys' club is alive and well, particularly in the financial sector. It didn't take too long for me to realize the following:
- Women need more financial planning than men–on average, we live 6 years longer than men do.
- Women's incomes tend to decrease after a divorce, while men's usually increase.
- 30% of Canadian women will be widowed by age 65.
- 80% of men are married when they reach the age of 65, vs. 55% of women.
- In Canada, more than 43.4% of women age 65 and up are living below the poverty line.
- It is much more difficult for female advisors to succeed in the life insurance and investment business.
- Female advisors tend to be better listeners and develop stronger personal relationships with with clients
- The number of female advisors at RBC were fewer each year.
- I was just tired of working in the old boys club.
- Having honored the commitment I made to myself as a child, I wanted to empower other women for themselves and their children.
So in 2006, I left RBC and founded SHEfinancial group, an organization where women and their families could get financial advice with the added benefit of a long-standing relationship.
SHEfinancial's advisors would:
- Sharing - experience, information & resources
- Helping - planning, supporting and connecting
- Empowering – inspiration, courage and financial independence
Part of my goal, as well, was to build an organization that would support, mentor and coach financial advisors who had the same values and level of commitment—advisors who genuinely wanted to make a difference. It was unheard of. It was totally unorthodox. It was spectacular!
Three years later, and 40 years after the promise made by a six-year-old girl who wanted things to be different, I am so proud to say that we are on the brink of national expansion. We plan to open SHEfinancial offices and have advisors in place in every significant community across Canada.
I welcome you. SHEfinancial welcomes you. We look forward to making a real difference, together with you.
