By 2030, women will control more than $113 trillion in global wealth, marking a massive and historic shift in financial influence. Yet while more women are shaping the future as founders, investors, philanthropists and leaders, fewer than one in three feel prepared to navigate complex financial priorities, according to research from HSBC.
That’s why “Morning Joe” co-host and Know Your Value founder Mika Brzezinski recently joined Racquel Oden, Head of International Wealth and Private Banking at HSBC USA – as well as activist Monica Lewinsky – to host a special HSBC event in L.A., sharing what financial fluency looks like at every decade.
“What fluency really means is knowing what to do, when to do it and how to do it,” Oden said. “That’s the space we’re all moving into – from literacy to fluency.”
Over the past year, Know Your Value and HSBC launched two groundbreaking reports: “The Giving Shift: Global Living, Local Giving,” and more recently, “The Financial Glow Up: The Fluency Gap in Women’s Wealth,” based on conversations with more than 2,000 individuals, including over 1,000 women across generations and backgrounds. The latest report explored the gap between understanding money and knowing what to do and when to do it as life evolves.
“In the moment of stress – of death, of destruction, of divorce, of loss – that’s when you need to step up for yourself and you do need to be [financially] fluent,” Brzezinski said. “I saw so many women doing what I did – apologizing or self-deprecating – we depreciate our value in real time when we talk that way, so I love the concept of celebrating our worth, learning to talk about money in real and tangible ways and shedding the negative psychological habits that cause us to avoid the subject.”
Lewinsky, a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and host of the hit podcast, “Reclaiming,” admitted that a negative money mindset held her back for years. “I developed an adversarial relationship with the idea of taking care of my money,” Lewinsky recalled. “I wish I had a relationship with money that wasn’t psychological.”
According to “The Financial Glow Up” report, 43 percent of women are financially planning for other people – children, aging parents, or both – far more than men. Nearly 60 percent of women are primary caregivers, which directly impacts income and long-term planning. So, it’s no wonder that only 29 percent of women feel prepared for aging-related costs.
In Lewinsky’s case, her journey in resilience and reinvention included periods of instability where she struggled to save money until her 40s.
“I lost a lot of my earning years,” she said. “I definitely feel like being a woman had so much to do with what my experience was … even moments when I stepped back out into the public arena a little over 10 years ago, I was so conscious of appearing to make money.”
It was not until she secured her podcast that Lewinsky embraced a more empowering perspective. “When we closed the [podcast]deal I said to the team, I want to help a lot of people, I want to move conversations forward and I want to make a ton of money,” she remarked. “That was a really big thing for me to be able to say – I deserve that financial freedom.”
Likewise, Brzezinski urged other women to unapologetically talk about money, financial goals and what they deserve. “It’s important to be able to communicate effectively,” she said. “That is going to make you money; that is going to be able to make you get your value.”
Even for HSBC’s Racquel Oden, finding her path to financial fluency – and realizing her potential – took time. “I certainly did not know my value, and I certainly did not have the answers to finances,” she recalled about her time working as young equities trader.
“When I think about my younger self, I worked really hard to be just like the guys – that was the only way I was going to make it on Wall Street and be able to be on that desk and have a purpose and a place,” she said. “Now I realize today … you can bring that purposeful part, you can bring that lead with your heart and your mind – but bring your heart and it’s perfectly fine.”
The outlook among the younger generations of women has driven Oden’s optimism. According to “The Financial Glow Up,” Gen Z and Millennial women reported higher financial confidence than Baby Boomers. “Their confidence on managing their finances is a very high number, close to 65 percent,” Oden said. “So, I’m telling you the future’s bright.”
While Oden credited that trend in part to the democratization of knowledge available today, Brzezinski acknowledged the progress made by older generations to enable them with more options.
“I look at what I hope for my daughters – and what I’m seeing for all of our daughters – is that long runway paved by us, those 50 over 50,” she said. “Where you can take the time to take time off, you can take the time to make mistakes, you can make investments in yourself and you can be mindful about your decisions, instead of scurrying with a ticking clock on your career and your body.”
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