Archive for: Financial Advisor
What makes Vanguard stand out in the financial services industry?
As an advisor at Vanguard, no part of my compensation is based on commission. Instead, I get to partner with my clients to determine what is most valuable to them, without any competing priorities. When I meet with clients or prospects, it’s not about a pressured, sales-esque call. Instead, I feel as though I’m sitting across from them, cup of coffee in hand, talking about what is most important to them in life and how I can help them achieve their financial goals.
What are you looking forward to most with Vanguard’s new footprint in Dallas?
In addition to what you do, I think one of the most critical parts to enjoying work is who you have alongside you. At Vanguard, I’ve had the privilege of working next to some amazing people that make everyday work more enjoyable. These are individuals who challenge me, mentor me, and help me grow personally and professionally. Being able to start a new office in Dallas allows us to continue to expand our team with an amazing variety of talent, knowledge, and background, and is something I am incredibly excited for. Individually we are effective, but collectively we can be undeniable.
What skills and competencies make a financial advisor at Vanguard successful?
There are so many competencies that help make a well-rounded, successful advisor. It’s important to be detail oriented, caring, curious, passionate, timely, organized, empathetic, and more. However, I believe what is at the core of all these skills, and most crucial, is an ownership mindset. An ownership mindset is a theme that begins with the ownership structure of Vanguard and carries through to the culture and way we work, and the function of Vanguard’s Personal Advisor Services (PAS) as a department. I come to work each day with the freedom to take initiative, am empowered to make decisions, and as a result, have personal responsibility for the outcomes that follow. This drives me to engage wholeheartedly with my clients, new and existing, and work hard to help them achieve their best outcomes in all ways possible.
How will Vanguard support a financial advisor’s career growth?
Vanguard offers many opportunities for continued career growth. In fact, it’s something that initially attracted me to the company. A few things that I have taken advantage of are the mentorship programs, formal and informal, and Crew Resource Groups (CRGs). With the formal mentorship programs, I was able to work one-on-one with a mentor, going through personalized curriculum covering everything from career progression and networking, to resume skills and interviewing tips. I am also part of a CRG established to support Vanguard’s efforts to increase the representation of women in leadership at Vanguard. This provides allies and support for career progression, coaching, and networking opportunities geared towards women specifically. In addition to these, every week there is time built into my schedule by Vanguard to continue my personal development, including sessions that allow me to gain Continuing Education credits for my CFP® designation.
More about McKenna: I began my financial services career with Vanguard in 2016. I find joy in helping improve the lives of my clients every day by collaborating with them to define and achieve their versions of success. My husband and I recently moved to Frisco, TX, with our two tuxedo cats. I love traveling, being outdoors, baking, and eating said baked goods.
Are you interested in joining our team in Dallas, Texas? View our Advice opportunities today!
Please check out our first installment of this series to learn more about Financial Advisor opportunities and our new Dallas site from Luke.
My journey as a Financial Advisor Growing up in a lower income community, financial advice was a concept not frequently discussed, despite its importance. This disparity is what led me to become a Financial Advisor, but most importantly, what led me to pursue my career as a Financial Advisor with Vanguard’s Personal Advisor Services (PAS). Vanguard stays true to its mission – to take a stand for all investors, to treat them fairly, and to give them the best chance for investment success – and has been a trail blazer in doing this within PAS. I wanted the opportunity to be able to do what is best for clients from a variety of different backgrounds and levels of wealth, and PAS enables me to do this every day. Joining Vanguard’s Black Professional Network Professional development is a large part of why I enjoy working at Vanguard. Crew are always encouraged to continuously develop ourselves as well as those around us. As a member of one of Vanguard’s Crew Resource Groups, the Vanguard Black Professional Network (VBPN), I’ve had the honor of serving on a team within VBPN that has been tasked with creating and facilitating unique opportunities for crew to develop personally and professionally by building expertise. Fireside chat Earlier this year, we organized a fireside chat highlighting Vanguard’s advisory business, where leaders discussed how Vanguard is bringing advice to traditionally underserved segments at scale and shared career options and best practices for those interested in pursuing a career within Vanguard’s Personal Advisor Services group. The event featured two of Vanguard’s most prestigious women in advice, Janelle McDonald, Head of Product Management and Strategy for Personal Advisor Services, and Massy Williams, CFA and the Principal and Head of Strategic Operations for Financial Advisor Services. The event was amazing! Janelle and Massy were able to explain where Vanguard fits within the broader advisory and wealth management industry, as well as provide an overview of the competitive landscape. They also opened up about how Vanguard has maintained its standing in the industry due to the quality of service that we offer at a competitive price as well as the commitment we have made to do what is best for our clients. Massy shared, “Vanguard has been consistent in telling investors to be disciplined, stay the course, and remain committed to their long-term investment plans.” This spoke to me because it is essentially the reason that I love being a Financial Advisor with Vanguard; we are equipped with the organization’s methodology and are empowered to do what is best for our clients to ensure they are successful long-term. Lastly, one of my favorite moments from the event was being able to hear more about career pathing within Vanguard’s advisory business. Janelle highlighted a wide range of options that are available to crew, from client facing roles, such as Financial Advisors, to product ownership opportunities that help shape how we deliver advice to our clients. There are a lot of possibilities, and that leaves me excited about the future. Interested in exploring our Financial Advisor opportunities? Click here to learn more. -Aliya W. CFA® is a registered trademark owned by CFA Institute.
Advice services are provided by Vanguard Advisers, Inc., a registered investment advisor, or by Vanguard National Trust Company, a federally chartered, limited-purpose trust company.
This is par for the course for my dad, a physician who brought home a new story about his patients’ lives every night of my childhood. Nothing fails to capture his interest: tell him about your carpentry business, pet Chihuahua, granddaughter’s school project, cross country move, wacky theory, or favorite fishing spot. He will ask you another question, and probably another after that. Far from being tangential to their medical care, these conversations are my dad’s path to treating his patients best. He builds trust naturally because of his genuine curiosity about other people. In return, his patients are more willing to share information with him and follow his advice.
At Vanguard, I work in Personal Advisor Services, partnering with our managed clients to help them make the best financial decisions and meet their goals. Recently, our entire advisor team in Arizona, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina had the pleasure of hearing a presentation by Mitch Anthony, a preeminent financial planning author and speaker who focuses on what he calls “life-centered financial planning”. Mitch shared an anecdote about a financial advisor who was held in particularly high regard by his clients. Mitch asked the advisor to distill his career success into one word, and the advisor replied “curiosity”.
Ah-ha! Over the years, I have often thought about the similarities between my job and my father’s. In both of our fields, we build relationships and share expertise as a means to help people live better lives. But it isn’t just that both positions share an analysis of client or patient needs, a reliance on technical subject matter expertise, and the communication of recommendations. What jumps out at me most is that I, too, leave work reflecting on all of the stories I’ve heard from my clients.
Last year, I was finally able to convince a particularly frugal couple to upgrade their truck (ten years old instead of twenty). Though they’d recently received a large inheritance, they were determined to be good stewards of what their parent’s generation had built from the ground.
Last month, a seventh generation Texan who rents out the farmhouse passed down from her great- great-grandparents told me that her tenants are out of work because of COVID-19. She’s giving them a break on their rent, because she’s ‘been there’.
More recently, I’ve had encounters with the following individuals: a client who found meaning in training therapy dogs after a career in public service; a newly retired client in a race against the seasonal clock to build a greenhouse for his wife’s flower garden; a client who described the Inherited IRA Required Minimum Distribution as an annual Christmas gift from her late father.
What I think of as “genuine curiosity” is not the same as small talk or nosiness. The only agenda is to learn about another person in order to better understand them. As Mitch Anthony described to us in his presentation, this understanding is key in evaluating what our clients are trying to achieve and personalizing the best way for them to get there. Given two clients with the same situation on paper – similar fixed income, debt, and savings levels – nine times out of ten I will come up with a different investment recommendation after speaking to them.
Another overlap between my dad’s career and my own is that we came to our chosen professions via a winding path. He studied religion and was preparing to go to divinity school when he changed course. I began to learn about personal finance only after joining Vanguard. I am a bookworm and a people person, and the idea of being a financial planner hooked me within days of arriving on campus. After studying for my Series 7 and 63 exams, I wanted to learn more and help our clients more directly. I was accepted to an eighteen month program to become a Vanguard advisor which involved training courses, shadowing tenured advisors, and taking my Certified Financial Planner™ exam.
Since becoming an advisor, the magical part of the job hasn’t changed. It always comes down to two things: learning about my clients, and collaborating with my colleagues. The advisors I work alongside are incredibly diverse in terms of their academic, cultural, and professional backgrounds, as well as their personalities and communication styles– we have extroverts, introverts, and a lot of good-natured crew across our three sites. It’s hard to overstate the value of this variety when it comes to helping other human beings with their money, in particular because we seek input from each other and our business partners in technology and methodology on a constant basis.
Across this diversity, I would argue that genuine curiosity is something that all of Vanguard’s advisors share. We are sounding boards, problem solvers, and teammates with each other and with our clients. If this is a field that you have ever considered (or haven’t considered, yet!), I would encourage you not to dismiss it simply because you didn’t tell your Kindergarten class that you wanted to become a financial planner. Being a financial advisor at Vanguard has allowed me to build strong relationships, have a positive impact, and constantly learn – I can’t imagine being anywhere else.
-Mary T.
When I was a young kid, I wanted to be the Incredible Hulk. However, my desire to be a super hero was different than that of my friends at school because of one small nuance: I spent time with Hulk. I knew that he woke up at 5:00am every morning to do cardio, and some days I would join him. I knew that he liked to put black pepper on almost everything he ate. I had the opportunity most evenings to watch him lift weights, and WOW! He was strong. And the green paint? Well, that was just for television and public appearances. You see I lived with the Incredible Hulk… he was my dad.
I have a vivid memory of when I was about five years old: My father (a.k.a. Hulk) was doing bench press in the basement, and I could hear his exhale with each rep. And then it stopped. Next came a struggled yell for help, followed by my mother running down the stairs in a panic, and then two incredibly loud thuds. My mother helped him dump the weights. And for the first time in my life, I realized that everyone, even a super hero, needs help sometimes.
Your career is no different. Neither is mine. We all need help. I recently completed a fun exercise: I listed as many people as I could think of that have helped me in my 15 year career. In about 10 minutes, I wrote down the names of 94 people, and I could have kept going. The old saying is true, sometimes it does take a village! Among these individuals, there are a few who have had the greatest impact on my career due to their willingness to serve as my mentors. In keeping with the theme of seeking help, I’ve asked two of them, Vanguard senior leaders Marissa Blank and Steve Holman, to come alongside me to construct a guide on how to establish a strong mentorship relationship.
I may never actually become the Incredible Hulk and save the world, but that’s okay… becoming someone’s mentor and positively impacting their life is just as fulfilling. In this season of giving, let’s show thanks to those who have helped us by committing to help others in their career.