‘How do I blow up the industry?’

Valerie A. Rivera is passionate about helping clients she believes have been continuously disadvantaged by systemic social structures that make it difficult for certain groups to build wealth.

“For certain people, especially Black people, practices such as redlining have deliberately stopped many from becoming homeowners and building wealth,” said Rivera, founder of FirstGen Wealth in Chicago. “This is not to say they cannot create wealth today and that all is lost. It’s essential to acknowledge the starting point is very different depending on the socioeconomic status you’re born into.”

Redlining is the discriminatory practice of denying mortgages, insurance, loans, and other financial services to residents of certain areas, based on their race or ethnicity.

“[Clients] are navigating spaces, both professionally and financially, that are new territory and haven’t been traditionally the most welcoming,” she said.

Her clients, like Rivera herself, are mainly in their 30s and 40s – the time of life when the complexities of wealth-building begin to crystallize. These individuals aren’t only facing financial adversities but they’re also often traversing new social and economic landscapes.

Despite her individual efforts and successes, Rivera is acutely aware of the industry’s inertia and its narrow definition of who is deemed worthy of financial planning services.

“The big thing I like to think about is how do I blow up the industry. I feel as if the industry is so narrowly focused on ‘this is who we serve’ and ‘this is who’s deemed profitable’ and ‘this is who makes a good candidate.’ I think that because there’s such little diversity of different experiences within the profession, it keeps the status quo in place.”

As such, Rivera wants to implement a form of coaching – a way of educating both those inside the industry and clients looking to invest themselves.

“I’ve heard many advisors say that group coaching isn’t profitable, and I just think they haven’t come up with a smart enough way to do it,” she says. “Even in areas such as the financial coaching space where advisors deem what they do as not being credible enough, they play a huge role within the greater profession of educating groups of clients that many advisors don’t want to work with.”

This is not just wealth management – it’s a movement. And Rivera, with her blend of passion and pragmatism, is at the forefront, reshaping the landscape one client at a time.