Women talk about a lot of things, but there’s no reason they shouldn’t be discussing money and it shouldn’t be seen as a taboo. That’s the message from the founders of Project Worth, a new initiative created by four former BlackRock executive women.
In the next four to six weeks, Project Worth will be hosting workshops in the San Francisco Bay area to help women take control of their financial life.
Heather Pelant, who is Managing Director of Baker Street Advisors, helped co-found Project Worth on the backdrop that statistics point to the growing amount of wealth women are managing – a number that’s expected to hit $72 trillion by 2020.
Pelant is joined by fellow co-founders Emma Reilly, Founder, GSD Business Consulting Solutions; Debi Lynch, Founder and Principal of SetWave Group; and Christine Hudacko, Managing Director, West Coast, Buttonwood Communications Group.
“There was a realization that this is a pretty significant economic shift that is taking place,” Pelant said. “When we looked around at how the industry is responding and how women are responding, we found two things. One, the industry is lacking a really good engagement model for women. And two, women were not stepping into it.”
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After the founders identified this gap, they realized they were tackling the issue of confidence to propel women forward to ask questions.
“There’s no lack of desire among women to be engaged, but we decided we needed to make that bridge happen,” she said.
The idea was born for Project Worth to partner with corporate women’s networks to conduct a series of workshops, or what they call conversations, to reach nearly 1,000 professional women in 4-6 weeks. Project Worth plans to extend its reach later this year to teenage girls to instill important financial habits early in life.
“We’re learning as we go,” Pelant said. “What we found, is that when you pose a few questions, like ‘what do you wish you would have known? What is your very best money lesson? What do you wish women knew?’ It unleashed this torrid conversation. This began to unearth women’s ability to talk about money and topics related to it.”
The dates of the events are purposefully being held around Equal Pay Day, which was April 10, which represents the date in 2018 when women’s earnings finally match what their male counterparts earned in 2017. The date applies only to white women who work full time; the date at which African-American women’s earnings catch up is July 31. Hispanic women’s earnings do not catch up until November 2.
Among the upcoming dates is a workshop set for May 1. It is in collaboration with the Financial Women of San Francisco and Women in ETFs San Francisco Chapter. It will be held at Charles Schwab & Co., 211 Main Street, San Francisco, CA, 5:00-7:00 pm PT. Reservations are required in advance and space is limited. Click here for reservations: http://womeninetfs.com/events/EventDetails.aspx?id=1085274.
For more information about Project Worth, visit https://www.project-worth.com.