An RIA by women for women (and everyone)

A team of three advisors has launched a new women-led RIA, whose announcement Friday coincides with International Women’s Day.

The new firm, Chicago-based Expressive Wealth, has about $200 million in assets under management, and its multicultural team focused on individuals, families, businesses, and inheritors. Expressive is led by CEO Vanessa Martinez, chief compliance officer Lauren Genuardi, and wealth advisor Darlene Duncan.

Having a women-led RIA has “always been important, but it’s even more so now, as the big transfer of wealth that everyone speaks of is going into the hands of women,” said Martinez, who previously co-founded Em-Powered Network, a professional consulting and mentorship business that is planned to transition to a nonprofit this year.

As in other areas of financial services, women are underrepresented in the financial advice profession. And advancement is a major issue, as women are less likely to be in leadership positions and more likely to be in junior-level roles, even while they account for small portion of jobs than men.

Currently, fewer than one in five advisory firms are women-owned, the most recent InvestmentNews Advisor Benchmarking Study shows. About 30 percent of lead advisors, or those who have not reached partner level, are women. And women make up less than 40 percent of service advisor and support advisor roles in the US.

The most recent figures from the CFP Board show that less than 24 percent of its certified professionals are women, and more than 82 percent are white.

Among the eight-person team at Expressive, five are women, and some of the staff are fluent in Spanish and Polish, which helps in “understanding of the intersectionality of family history and values for the sake of creating a culturally inclusive and well-rounded wealth perspective,” the firm said in its announcement.

The firm also takes into account the emotional aspect of money; in a unique feature, its team includes a clinical psychologist, Patricia Villarreal.

“When you’re sitting with clients, really touchy conversations come up,” Martinez said, particularly on issues around family money. “There are things that sometimes you might lack – having Dr. Patricia on the team gives us internal training on how to embrace those conversations.”

Prior to starting Em-Powered Network, Martinez was a managing director at The Lerner Group at Hightower Advisors and had been registered at Chase Investments Services beginning in 2008. Genuardi was previously registered at Telemus Capital between 2017 and 2024 and had been at Barrington Strategic Wealth Management Group from 2011 to 2017. Duncan, who has been registered since 1981, was most recently with investment advisor WealthTrust Asset Management and registered with broker-dealer Purshe Kaplan Sterling Investments.