Barbara Stewart

The new target market is the financially confident woman. Barbara describes what she looks like, how she's different from women in the past, and how your marketing plan needs to adapt to meet her demands.

What are some of the risks you’ve taken in your life? Why did you take those risks? What happened? How did you feel along the way? How did you respond?

From the interviews that informed my 2018 study “Smart women and risk-taking” it became clear to me that risk is a relative concept. Risk is relative both to the personality of the risk-taker and also to the environment at the time of the risk-taking. Both men and women have their own personal mix of risk-avoiding and risk-seeking tendencies. More importantly, how much risk anyone will take is based on how aware they are of all of their options in any given context.

Risk tolerance is shaped more by life experience, personality, education, and situational factors than by gender.

Women Aren't Risk Averse, They Are Risk Aware!

We all start out single, and most women, whether they marry or not, will end up that way. About half of all US marriages fail, and 11 million of the 13 million widowed spouses in the United States are women. That’s more than 80%. So the odds are pretty good that even a married woman will find herself single one day. Then we need to add in those women who will be “virtually single” due to incapacity in their partner, with 10% of all Americans over 65 having diagnosed Alzheimer’s.

My calculation is that 90% of married women will end up needing to manage their own finances at some point due to divorce or widowhood. This talk discusses the risks and opportunities for advisers and clients.

Based on 58 interviews with smart women around the world, Barbara shares the highlights of her research findings and some of the most compelling investing success stories.