SUE STEVENS: AIMING AT HIGH NOTE FOR ADVISERS

Cellist-turned-financial adviser Sue Stevens has long trusted her muse to guide her through diverse career moves.

Her latest job switch, however, is taking her to something familiar. By leaving Vanguard Group to take a job with Morningstar Inc., she’ll be returning to her hometown of Chicago and working for a friend of nearly a decade, Don Phillips, the fund tracking firm’s president.

In the newly created post of financial planning specialist, Ms. Stevens will help develop products and services for financial advisers and be “the planner’s advocate at Morningstar,” she says. Proposals include creating educational materials advisers can give clients and adding asset allocation functions to the Principia software, which helps advisers analyze mutual funds.

“I’ll be out talking to the planners, asking them how Morningstar can help,” said Ms. Stevens, 43. She starts May 1.

Tim Schlindwein, who runs a financial advisory firm in Chicago, believes there is a market for planning materials from Morningstar, as planners come from a wide range of backgrounds and not all have extensive portfolio experience.

“I think it would be helpful to a lot of people,” he says. “It would be good for people whose professional experience has been built in other areas than investment portfolios.”

Ms. Stevens believes her musical background will be a plus in helping cater to advisers’ needs. “What I can add is a lot of creativity and seeing things through different eyes,” Ms. Stevens says. “The creative side comes through in the ability to make things understandable.”

Ms. Stevens invested in mutual funds during her early 20s, learning a lot by hearing musicians talk about their investments backstage at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, where she was a substitute.

Her interest in finance – and a desire to “exploit a different part of my brain” – led her to the University of Chicago, where she earned a master’s in business administration in 1989.

After school she went to work as a financial planning manager at Arthur Andersen LLP. In 1996, she took a job as senior manager-participant education for Vanguard Group in Malvern, Pa..

Ms. Stevens will be working four days a week and plans to open a small advisory practice on the side. She also hopes to find time to get back to her first love.

“I’m hoping to play more when I get to Chicago,” she said.