Hello Fiscal Feminist Faithful!
I had the recent pleasure of appearing on the Money Matters Top Tips Podcast. Show host Adam Torres and I got to chat about my journey of becoming a financial advisor, the work we practice at The Bahnsen Group, and what inspired me to become the Fiscal Feminist. I welcome you to join us for a lively conversation.
Money Matters Top Tips – Podcast Transcript
Adam: Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Money Matters Top Tips to Success where I bring on business owners, entrepreneurs, and executives and have them share their top tips for success with you. My name is Adam Torres you can follow me on Instagram @AskAdamTorres. You can keep up with my book releases, book tour schedule signings, all that other good stuff. I always loved to connect with you there. As always if you’d like to apply to become a co-author of one of my upcoming books, just head on over to the website, MoneyMattersTopTips.com and click on become an author to apply. Today I have Kimberlee Davis on the line. She’s a Partner and Managing Director over at The Bahnsen Group. Kimberlee welcome to the show.
Kimberlee: Thank you, Adam. It’s my pleasure to be here today. Thank you for inviting me.
Adam: So, I’m excited to get more into what you’re doing over at The Bahnsen Group as managing director. But before we do that let’s get a little bit more into your background. How did you get started in the business?
Kimberlee: I actually had somewhat of a circuitous journey. After graduating from college, (I went to Georgetown University), I decided to go to law school immediately thereafter. So I went to Georgetown University Law Center and from there I became a corporate securities lawyer. So, I moved to New York and worked in two big law firms. The primary focus of my practice was initial public offerings and stock offerings, limited partnership deals and things to that nature. I was focused on the business end of the law and many of my clients were underwriters and big investment banks. After I practiced law for a while, I started thinking it might be a little more exciting on the investment banking side of things. I was getting a little bit … frustrated I guess, writing all the papers and not being involved in the actual real nuts and bolts of the financial aspects of the deal. So I did transition over to the business side. I worked in a small investment bank where I was doing some project financing, leveraging lease deals, and asset-based financing. That was sort of the entrée into the business world for me. From there I did a variety of other things in the business world. I lived in England for 14 years and I was a CFO. I also started an entrepreneurial venture where I created a fashion company and became a designer and manufacturer of clothing. The line of clothing was sold at Saks Fifth Avenue. And so that is the sort of how the whole thing evolved.
Adam: I love it! What a career! So, there’s some younger audience members listening who maybe are just graduating college or they’re maybe one to five years out. They might be thinking, “what’s our next step”. What kind of advice would you give to that younger audience that’s listening? In terms of going about their career goals.
Kimberlee: Well, I have three daughters that are all millennials and they all have different career paths. And my advice to them and to all younger people is this: Whatever you’re going to start your career with, is probably not what you’re going to end it with. So be open to new opportunities but start with what you have the most interested and passion in. Don’t chase money per se. If you have a true interest in finance or economics or the public sector, follow that interest. If you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, then it’s not going to last very long and it will not take you down an abundant path. For me, I tried to always follow things that I was truly interested in. I did really enjoy studying the law. And I enjoyed being a lawyer. This helped me immensely in my business career. But when I started off, I just assumed I’d work in a law firm forever and become a partner. But things in life occur. I became a mother of three kids which shifted certain priorities. Life has many seasons so I would say to younger people: “Start off by following what you’re truly interested in. Have an open mind. Pursue opportunities that may not seem like they’re a sure-fire thing. Because if you don’t try things, you never really know how great they can be.
Adam: I love that advice. It’s funny because I feel like a lot of the younger crowd, when they first graduate, put so much pressure on that first job or what they’re doing. They compare themselves thinking that they’re supposed to have it all figured. In the benefit of hindsight, I just laugh. Who knows what’s going to be next … nobody. You can’t predict what’s going to happen next. Your best mentor can’t even tell you. The good ones are going to tell you exactly what you just said. So, I do appreciate you sharing that. Kimberlee let’s change it up a bit. I want to get more into what you’re doing as Partner and Managing Director over at The Bahnsen Group. What kind of clients are you working with and what kind of things are you helping them achieve?
Kimberlee: So, I joined The Bahnsen Group several years ago. We were all at Morgan Stanley and a core group of us left to start this independent group called the Bahnsen Group. And we’ve grown exponentially since then. But why I got into wealth management is because all my prior skill set was in the capital markets. My legal background, my entrepreneurship, and CFO experience all built a great skill set for helping investors. Specifically, helping high net worth clients and ultra-high net worth clients deal with their investment strategy and the myriad of other issues related to investment strategy, estate planning, or business planning. All these many issues we touch upon here in our practice. The Bahnsen Group manages about $1.7 billion, focusing on high net worth individuals and ultra-high net worth individuals. We also have a hand in the 401 K retirement platform as well. We are a full-service team of concierge wealth management services. We are our own portfolio manager, meaning we manage our portfolio in-house. We do use a few other managers. But whether it’s in a hedge fund or private equity, we know who the manager is and we meet with them frequently. Our approach is very hands-on in our portfolio management and in our investment strategy. I operate in many ways like a family office for many of my clients. I will review everything with them from insurance (Life, Medicare, Property, etc.) to estate planning. Many of my client’s own businesses that they ultimately will want to sell and have an exit strategy. Additionally, our strategic partners make us robust in estate planning and any type of tax strategy. It’s a very full and complex level of service. And we are very communicative with our clients. We send out a commentary every Friday and every Wednesday. This qualifies everyone understands what’s going on in portfolio matters. The other part of my practice is that I work with women in transition. And that could be from divorced or being a widow or professional women who are trying to get their financial strategy in order. I’ve established a platform called the Fiscal Feminist which is a blog and podcast. I just released one this week on cybersecurity, discussing a severe compromise of my own personal identity. It includes best practices for what to do, what not to do, and how to fix cybersecurity breaches. My goal is to help all women become financially organized and comfortable talking about money. Historically, the experience for women growing up has been NOT to engage as much with money as men do. And I think we need to change that paradigm. And to that end, I work. So those are the two main components of my practice here at The Bahnsen Group.
Adam: I love your dedication. What a great name for a podcast. So that’s the Fiscal Feminist. I love to recommend good podcasts so definitely go check that out. Great name and it’s just great alliteration. And given your background and history, what a great service you’re doing. So thank you for putting that together because that is a big deal. So Kimberlee, other any trends that you’re noticing in finance right now that you care to comment on?
Kimberlee: Well, in our philosophy here at The Bahnsen Group, we are first and foremost asset allocators. David Bahnsen, our chief investment officer, can be seen on a myriad of talk shows including Fox Business, Stuart Varney every Friday morning, Charles Payne, CNBC, and Wall Street Week. So he’s out there as our pundit, so to speak. But for us, we have a set strategy about how we go about things. We like to see a diversified portfolio. In our equity fleet, we focus on dividend growth investing. Come what may, that is our strategy because we believe in times of volatility or smooth sailing, it is the best strategy. We love cash flow generation and reinvestment of the cash flow and or distribution if people need to live off their portfolio. But in addition to the equity sleeve, we also have a whole list of other alternatives as a hedge against market trends We don’t really believe in market timing or you know kind of this trend type investing. We have a very definitive strategy that we believe works in all types of moments and it’s proven to be so. We have very little client attrition.
Adam: That’s great. And Kimberlee, if somebody is listening to this to this podcast and they wanted more information on The Bahnsen Group, what’s the best way for them to get it?
Kimberlee: Well if they want to read some of our commentaries, David releases a commentary every Friday called the Dividend Cafe. I release the Fiscal Feminist. We have another commentary called the Financial Consumers. They can go on our web site www.thebahnsengroup.com or you can reach out to me directly at KDavis@bahnsengroup.wpengine.com. I would encourage everyone to check out the fiscal feminist at www.thefiscalfeminist.com. Or you can call our general number and ask for me: (949) 877 – 5010. I’d be happy to talk to anyone who would like to hear more on any of the topics that we’ve covered today.
Adam: Well that’s wonderful. Well, Kimberlee I really do appreciate you coming on the show today and sharing some of your background as a financial pioneer and the great work you’re doing over at The Bahnsen Group. To the listeners as always, I really appreciate you tuning in. Hope you got a lot of value out of this. If you did, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast. Leave me a review. Do all those great things we do to support our podcasters. I really do appreciate it. And Kimberlee thanks again for coming up.
