Jeanne Mpondo asked a room full of women in London whether anybody there was investing in anything. Not one hand went up. She then asked who owned their home or held a pension, and hands went up all over the room.
Jeanne Mpondo is a St. James's Place partner running her own practice in London, and a former senior data analyst at S&P Global. She came into financial planning by accident, after helping her uncle raise the funding for long term care.
She talks to Sam Oakes about coming through the St. James's Place Academy with three children at home, choosing to build her own practice from nothing rather than inherit a client bank, and specialising in women who are independent business owners and senior executives in the city. Running underneath it all is a language problem: the profession keeps describing money in words that do not match how a lot of clients experience their own.
Around 56% of the world's wealth is expected to be in the hands of women from 2027. Jeanne is candid about what she has learned about actually reaching that client, from the 37 to 45 age window she works in to the reason her clients book that first meeting on their own.
Key Takeaways:
• The question that emptied a room of raised hands, and what it revealed about how clients hear the word investing
• Why her female clients come to the first meeting alone, and what changes when the spouse finally joins
• The asset most women overlook in a divorce until the negotiation has already moved past it
• What a career break quietly costs a pension by 60, and the window to make it back
• Why she tells anyone eyeing the partner route to bank two to three years of resources first
• The half of the qualification nobody warns you about, and it is not the exams
Financial Planner Life is sponsored by Redmill Advance
Whether you're starting out, already qualified, or building a training academy, Redmill Advance delivers expert-led learning, exam support and CPD from Level 4 to Chartered.
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