Women on the Move Podcast

Episode Five: Dr. Sian Beilock, President of Barnard College

How Barnard’s President Sets Female Students on the Path to Success

 

Sian Beilock is president of Barnard College, a liberal arts college for women in New York City. The mission of the school is to develop its students to become agile, resilient, responsible, and creative in order to lead and serve their society, and Sian eagerly describes some of the school’s groundbreaking programs that fulfill that mission.

 

“We started a new program this year that I'm really excited about called Access Barnard,” she tells Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein. “It’s a home, both physical and virtual, for first-generation, low-income, and international students. So populations that may not have experience navigating American higher ed.”

 

Access Barnard offers these students help with everything from finding a mentor to budgeting for living expenses to asking professors for help. Sian says this program is particularly important because the school’s acceptance policy is need-blind: Barnard doesn’t consider financial need when reviewing applications.

 

Since Barnard is very focused on preparing women to lead, the school has created multi-level resources to help alums succeed once they’ve graduated. One such resource is Beyond Barnard, a one-stop shop that students utilize from day one to learn about different career paths and connect with professionals in the school’s broader network. Sian explains that connecting her students to female role models across industries is a huge priority.

 

“At Barnard, 60% of our faculty are women, including faculty in the sciences,” she says. “And when you see women who are excelling in fields where they're not traditionally represented, when you see women leaders, it lets you know that ‘people like me’ can do this.”

 

Self-care as leadership prep

Sian emphasizes that her school is dedicated to instilling its graduates with the skills and knowledge they need to achieve long-term independence. The school’s new Francine LeFrak Center gives all Barnard students access to comprehensive physical and mental health, holistic wellness, and financial literacy support services, and underlines Barnard’s commitment.

 

“We know that women often stay in relationships for financial reasons and that women even who are successful in their own careers, aren't overseeing their own finances,” Sian explains. “These are part of the financial literacy conversations that will take place at our new wellbeing center.”

 

Watching Barnard students gain confidence, expertise, and wisdom makes her job incredibly rewarding, Sian tells Sam.

 

“Our students are going to go out and change the world,” she emphasizes. “I know young people are not going to stand by and go back to the old normal or accept systemic inequality issues around healthcare, race, and education. I have so much confidence and pride in these young women, and I can't wait to see what they produce next.”

Episode Four: Keosha Burns, Vice President of Public Relations for Chase Home Lending

Real Talk About Homeownership

 

Did you know that nearly 20 percent of new homeowners are single women? Even in the face of pay gaps and other gender-centric challenges, women are finding ways to invest in houses, condos, and apartments of their own. To discuss this trend, Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein calls on Keosha Burns, Vice President of Public Relations at Chase Home Lending. Keosha is a homeowner herself, and speaks candidly about her challenges and triumphs. 

 

“Once I came around to wanting to buy a home, I had about $10,000 in credit card debt that I needed to tackle,” she admits. “I also had student loans, but my student loan debt was not outrageous. I was making that payment just fine. So I decided to tackle the credit card debt first.”

 

She says she sat down with her grandfather who took out a piece of graph paper and created a plan to aggressively pay down her debt. With his guidance, she had it paid off in about six months and was able to save another few thousand dollars on top of that! Keosha acknowledges that each woman will need to create a financial plan that works for her unique situation, but says that anyone who has been bitten by the homeownership bug should start by taking a long, hard look at her financial profile. Without a thorough analysis of income, spending habits, and debt, tackling a giant investment like a mortgage is bound to backfire.

 

“This is a huge transaction,” she says. “The biggest purchase most people will ever make in their life. And you need to make sure you're not just relying on someone else to tell you what you can afford to buy.”

 

Single women homeowners making waves

Why are more and more single women buying homes? It used to be that purchasing a home was something that went hand-in-hand with settling down, getting married, and starting a family … but recent studies show that women aren’t interested in waiting. Many are eager to create a stable foundation for their financial futures, but Keosha points out that the single women driving this home-buying trend have a variety of backgrounds and motivations.

 

“I see a couple of groups. There’s this older cohort of women, often dealing with a divorce or separation of some kind, who are trying to maintain their lifestyle for their family,” she says. “I think that's a big portion of the single women home buyers. And then you also have this younger Millennial cohort that is focused on their careers. They're determined to build wealth and home ownership is a big part of that.”

 

In a previous role, Keosha launched a campaign to attract Millennials to homeownership through education and open communication, so she’s especially attuned to this group’s needs. She insists that if companies want to connect with female home-buyers in this demographic, they can’t just hit them with the same old messaging. They need to understand what women are looking for, how they're living their lives today, and how their dreams are shaping their homeownership goals.

 

“Telling these women, ‘You need to be part of a family to afford to make a purchase,’ or even just showing images of big suburban homes, it won’t work,” she says. “There are all different types of houses and people who buy them. We need to make sure that people know our industry embraces that diversity, and that we’re there for them.”

 

She rounds out the conversation by urging women interested in homeownership to be bold, ask questions, and give themselves permission to dream big!

Episode Three: Laurinda Rainey, Managing Director, Travel & Affinity Cobrand General Manager at Chase

Forget Rainy Days. Are You Saving for Your Future?

Most of us have heard the statistics about women doing the lion’s share of caregiving. Far fewer of us recognize the ripples of impact that caregiving can have on our lives, careers, and financial futures. Laurinda Rainey, Managing Director of Travel and Affinity Credit Cards at Chase, talks with Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein about the often-unseen consequences of raising kids, taking leave, and being a caregiver.

 

“If women are caregivers to older parents or an older sibling, the time that they're out of the workforce compounds the wage gap that already exists in our country and in our world,” she explains. “Since women tend to also live longer, it's really, really important that they think ahead to their 70-, 80-, or 90-year-old selves. They must make sure that they have enough money for the life that they want to live, because they spend so much of their life constantly giving to others.”

 

Laurinda also dives into the importance of having long-term savings goals as a woman regardless of caregiver status, pointing out that saving for retirement and emergencies—as well as fun things like travel or homebuying—helps us be flexible and confident in the face of unexpected changes. A true advocate for preparedness, she encourages women to explore and invest in insurance, especially if they have known health risks. It may feel uncomfortable to insure yourself for worst-case scenarios, but Laurinda insists doing so often helps women through incredibly difficult times. Some of which she’s been forced to face on her own.

 

“I'm from a very large family, and that made me want to enroll in catastrophic medical care plans. I also have a cancer insurance policy, since I've lost both of my parents to cancer,” she says. “Some might have said that I was wasting money on these insurance plans, but with each of these instances, as they have occurred, I had a plan in place that gave me resources to help me navigate.”

 

Avalanche vs. snowball

Of course, preparing for the future also means balancing out your debts. Laurinda tells Sam about two mindsets that helped her understand the best way to tackle paying down her own debts. The first is the “avalanche method,” which involves rank-ordering all of your debts, paying off whatever has the highest interest rate first, and once that debt is cancelled out, applying the money you’d once put toward it to the next debt in line.

“What worked for me, though, was the snowball method,” Laurinda says. “Building the snowball is rank-ordering by the smallest amount of debt that you have to pay. When I paid off one debt, I could then apply the minimum payment I was making on it to the next debt that I had. That worked because I liked the adrenaline rush of quick wins.”

 

Episode Two: Kavita Kamdar GM, Community and Business Development, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Sara Treece, Branch Manager, JPMorgan Chase & Co.

How Can You Teach Your Kids to Earn, Spend, & Save?

 

At school, kids may learn about money in the abstract … but talking about bank balances and interest rates isn’t the same as experiencing them with your own dollars. Not only that, most parents never had “the money talk” with their own parents, and aren’t sure how to broach financial topics with their kids.

 

Kavita Kamdar is both a new mom and General Manager of Community and Business Development at JPMorgan Chase, so she knows instilling financial lessons in kids can be challenging. She’s passionate about creating tools that help young people learn and practice how to earn, spend, and save so they gain money skills long before they enter the workforce.. In this conversation with Women on the Move’s Sam Saperstein, she offers advice on how parents can talk about budgeting and expenses, navigating the world of “allowances,” and responsible spending. Kavita also introduces listeners to Chase First Banking, an account that can help make financial education easy, fun, and immersive.

 

“First Banking is a free digital product that helps kids learn about finances,” she says. “It's a checking account that's for your child and they get a debit card with it, but it's controlled by you as the parent. So you can go into the Chase mobile app and set allowances, assign chores, decide if you want them to spend $10 on Fortnite or not. It goes back to this idea of budgeting and instilling that lesson at a young age.”

 

Kavita points out that when most kids interact with money, it either is given for the purposes of being spent immediately (eg. “Here’s $10 to spend at the amusement park”) or given so it can be saved (eg. “Here’s $50for your savings account.”) With First Banking, kids get to experience spending and saving a and learn to understand the tradeoffs of each.

 

First Banking in action

Sam also chats with Sara Treece whose son, Gideon, took part in the pilot program for the First Banking product that was offered to Chase employees. Sara describes Gideon as, “a funny 11-year-old boy who loves Michael Jackson and weird Al Yankovic. And he happens to have cerebral palsy, but he doesn't let that stop him from rock climbing and he loves to play wheelchair soccer.”

 

Like many parents, Sara had been trying to teach her son the basics of spending and saving for a while, but the concepts didn’t quite stick. Since Gideon has some learning disabilities and some developmental delays, just explaining things like “the value of a dollar” in abstract terms wasn’t helpful.

 

With First Banking, Gideon could see the balance of his account increasing and decreasing, and that helped solidify the concept of spending and saving.

 

“That really helped us kind of explain things like, ‘This is how much you have to save and this is how much you have to spend.’ We were finally able to teach this lesson to him about finances and how to earn, save, and spend money wisely.”

 

Sara says she’s also loved teaching her son to equate doing his chores with earning money that he can choose to spend or save, and to check his own bank balance before deciding to purchase something. She admits, too, that having some control over how and where he spends is a huge relief. (Gideon’s account splits his “earnings” into 60% for spending and 40% for saving.)

 

Kavita is proud to have championed a banking product that helps kids gain money management skills, and Sara is overjoyed to have access to a tool that helps her amazing son understand the basics of finance!

Episode One: Jean Chatzky, CEO of HerMoney.com and Host of the HerMoney Podcast

To say that Jean Chatzky is passionate about helping women build financial independence would be an understatement. She’s spent three decades reporting on personal finance, won countless awards for her writing and co-founded HerMoney Media to carve out room for discussions specific to women and money.

 

“When I set out to create her money, I wanted to create a safe space,” she tells Women on the Move host Sam Saperstein. “I wanted to create an environment where women feel like we can ask all of our questions because nobody's going to judge us, and we can put forward the things that we feel that we're doing wrong, as well as the things that we feel that we're doing right. A place where we can really dig in and help each other.”

 

Jean has built HerMoney Media into a wildly successful endeavor that supports many projects including the HerMoney podcast and Jean’s own writings. In her most recent book, Women With Money, she shares an accessible and simple five-step money philosophy that she designed to help women build sustainable wealth and financial security. Speaking with Sam, she describes the basics of each step—including building a sizable cash emergency fund and embracing your inner investor—emphasizing that her model only works if it’s followed consistently and over the long term. (Tough love, but so true!)

 

To research the book, Jean hosted dozens of HerMoney Happy Hours during which she invited women to gather and discuss their money worries and insights. She did this knowing that most women are deeply uncomfortable chatting about their finances, and that they were more likely to open up in a friendly group discussion.

 

“I created a deck of cards that have leading questions about money,” she explains. “We have since created a HerMoney Happy Hour kit that works pretty well on Zoom, and I know a lot of financial advisors who have adopted this format and do it with their clients!”

 

In this frank and revealing conversation, Jean dives into the fiscal issues facing women during the COVID-19 crisis, including feeling pressure to drop out of the workforce to support their families at home. She points out that when families have to hunker down and recalibrate, many revert to outdated gender roles where women are caretakers, cooks, cleaners, and homemakers. This works for many women, but others worry about how putting their careers on pause will impact their long-term goals. Jean agrees that COVID-19 related work sabbaticals may have real risks for women.

 

“When you leave a job, you are leaving the opportunity to earn additional seniority,” she says. “You're leaving the opportunity to earn additional social security credits. And when you go back in, you're often doing it at a level that is asking you to take a step back.”

 

That said, she’s still hopeful for working women everywhere. She urges us all to practice asking for the salaries we deserve, set solid fiscal goals, and never be afraid to ask for help with our money concerns. After all, if we don’t ask, how can we learn?

 

DISCLOSURES

The statements, views and opinions expressed are those of the presenters and are not necessarily endorsed by, or reflect the views or positions of, JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA or any of its affiliates.  The presentation is for informational purposes and is not a recommendation or solicitation of any particular actions.  JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA and its affiliates are not liable for decisions made or actions taken in reliance on any of the information covered during the event.

 

Investing involves market risk, including possible loss of principal, and there is no guarantee that investment objectives will be achieved.

 

This material is intended as a general commentary, and not intended to be a forecast of future events, or guarantee of future results or investment advice. The opinions expressed are those of Jean Chatzky and may differ from those of other J.P. Morgan employees and affiliates.  This material should not be regarded as research or as a J.P. Morgan Research Report. Nothing in this material shall be considered a solicitation to buy or an offer to sell securities, other investments or services to any person in any jurisdiction where such an offer, solicitation, purchase or sale would be unlawful under the laws of such jurisdiction.  Any mention of an individual security, investment or strategy is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as a recommendation. Outlooks and past performance are not guarantees of future results.

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Introducing Season Five of Women On The Move

Welcome to Season 5 of the Women on The Move podcast; I’m your host Sam Saperstein. In this season we’re giving our financial health a checkup, with some phenomenal women giving us the prescription for financial wellness. From experts on how to speak to your children about money and starting them on their journey to financial responsibility, to how to save for homeownership, this season a masterclass on understanding and managing your money.

Episode Six: Financial Wellness Roundtable

Listen in as three powerhouse women—Janet Alvarez, Laurie Santos, and Allyson Felix—offer their advice on how to be happy, how to secure yourself financially, and how to make history.

Episode Five: Small Business Panel

Hear from Adrienne Stewart-Gordon, co-founder & co-owner of Pound Cake Society; Kelsey Bunker, co-founder & owner of The Jupiter Hotel and Jupiter NEXT; and Blanca Cabrera, owner of Sergio’s Family Restaurant on coping with COVID as a business owner.

Episode Four: Systemic Racism

In this timely conversation, JPMorgan Chase’s head of human resources Robin Leopold speaks about systemic racism with co-CEO of Ariel Investments, Mellody Hobson; best-selling author and activist Mikki Kendell; and president of One Fair Wage, Co-Founder of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, and Director of the Food Labor Research Center Saru Jayaraman. All three women speak on racial inequality and how we can all do our part to fight it.

Episode Three: Jessica Meir, American Astronaut

In 2019 NASA astronaut Jessica Meir participated in the first all-female spacewalk, an historic honor she’s still processing now that she’s back on earth. Jessica always wanted to be an astronaut and recalls a time in first grade when she drew a picture of an astronaut on the surface of the moon to signify what she wanted to be when she grew up! In this conversation with Women on the Move’s Sam Saperstein, Jessica explains what it was like to be up in space when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out and why spacewalks are so challenging, both physically and mentally.