Her Voice Matters: Sitting down with an industry icon

I confess I was a bit intimidated when InvestmentNews asked me to interview Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz – the daughter of the founder of Charles Schwab – in a fireside chat.

There’s nothing like the prospect of going one-on-one with an industry icon in front of a very public audience of more than 200 female financial advisers (attending the Women Adviser Summit in San Francisco) to raise the stakes.

I decided to approach this interview like a first date. Tell me about yourself and let’s see what we have in common. It turned out that there were many overlaps in our personal and professional lives.

We are both Certified Financial Planner professionals. We both spent a big part of our lives living and working in Washington, DC. And we are both mothers of millennials.

What impressed me the most about Ms. Schwab-Pomerantz was her genuine passion for improving financial literacy for Americans everywhere, particularly among school children and young adults.

Long before financial literacy became a buzzword in the financial planning profession, she embraced it as both her personal mission and a key focus of the Schwab Foundation that she chairs.

She is proud that her organization supports efforts to provide financial education for children, including working with the Boys & Girls Clubs of America, which reach four million mostly underserved kids around the country.

From crippling student loan debt, which tops $30,000 for the average college graduate, to a lack of any retirement savings for about one-third of Americans age 55 and older, the lack of financial literacy is everyone’s problem.

“Financial literacy is a social justice issue and we have to find a way to use it to prepare young people for a better life,” Ms. Schwab-Pomerantz said. “The lack of financial literacy is at the crux of many social issues we see today such as workforce readiness, economic mobility, gender inequality and even domestic abuse.”

For example, she said, about half of employers check a prospective job candidate’s FICO credit score, meaning many people lose the opportunity to even be considered for a position that could change their lives.

She stressed that it is critical to teach girls to take control of their finances from an early age to combat future salary inequality and domestic financial abuse.

“Financial literacy levels the playing field and exposes you to numbers and finances, but it also creates responsible, ethical citizens,” Ms. Schwab-Pomerantz said.

Following in her father’s footsteps to bring investing to the masses, she urged financial advisers to embrace financial literacy as a goal. “All of us in this industry have a unique platform to educate our clients, their children and their friends,” she said. “It’s a wonderful way to make a difference.”

My conversation with the daughter of a legend was both illuminating and inspiring. We met as strangers, but parted as friends.