Yonhee Choi Gordon
Principal and chief operating officer, JMG Financial Group
Yonhee Choi Gordon has been in the minority her entire career — as a female, an Asian-American, a staff member working her way up to become a financial adviser, and the only woman on the executive team.
Yonhee Choi Gordon has been in the minority her entire career — as a female, an Asian-American, a staff member working her way up to become a financial adviser, and the only woman on the executive team.
The chief operating officer of JMG Financial Group for the past five years and a 32-year veteran of the company, Ms. Gordon has applied her perspective to the firm's advantage, developing a pipeline of talent both within and outside the firm. She's also sharing the culture of serving that she learned from her Korean heritage.
She established an introductory in-house program for college students, reaching out to finance undergraduates and business administration majors, more of whom today are women.
"Often, girls are scared of finance. They think there's too much math and it's too competitive," Ms. Gordon said. "But women have advantages — empathy, intuitiveness and compassion for others — which are especially important because our profession is very relationship-driven."
—Deborah Nason