Empowering Women Financially, London December Meetup
Last week we gathered three amazing women at our London meetup to discuss ‘How to empower women financially’.
We are strong believers that empowered women empower women and by sharing our experiences, knowledge, and learnings, we can help each other thrive.
But, in order to thrive financially, we have to get comfortable talking about money which always has been (and still is) a taboo.
That was one of the reasons why we wanted to host this event as it’s so important to open a conversation about money and get comfortable talking about it.
We were joined by Emilie Bellet - Founder and CEO of Vestpod, Claire Sweet - Money Coach, and Melanie Palmer - CMO at Nucoro at Club Workspace – Clerkenwell Workshops.
EMILIE BELLET, Founder and CEO of Vestpod
Emilie Bellet is the founder and CEO of Vestpod. Emilie started her career at Lehman Brothers where she worked in private equity. She was part of the spin-off team that became Trilantic Capital Partners. After 7 years she went on to launch a first tech recruitment business. Reflecting on her years working in finance, she realized she was not saving or investing enough and could not find the support to do so. She then decided to launch Vestpod for women - as a way to provide education and a community for women to start breaking the taboo around money. Vestpod is a digital platform with a popular weekly newsletter as well as personal finance workshops and networking events. Featured on BBC, Financial Times, Stylist, Monocle, Courier, Sheerluxe, Vestpod has been shortlisted for the 2018 Women in Finance awards as Disruptor of the Year; and I have been writing “You’re not broke, you’re pre-rich” that will be published in May 2019. Emilie is a finalist in the 2018 Women in Finance Awards for Disruptor of the year and is a co-author the WealthTECH book.
CLAIRE SWEET, Money coach and expert
When Claire Sweet was in her training year as a pharmacist, she wasn’t earning much. It was her first job after leaving university, and saddled with a maxed out credit card and student loan, she had just a £2.50 supermarket reward voucher for the weekly grocery shop. She vowed never to get in that situation again. When her mum sadly passed away six weeks before her 60th birthday, Claire, who was in her 30’s, realised she needed to change her life. She left her career of 17 years, retrained as a Mortgage and Protection Adviser and ended her marriage. Despite being a single parent at the time, branching out by herself and starting her own business, gave her the flexibility she craved to also be there for her young children. Over the years, her business has grown from strength to strength and it’s a testament to Claire that she still has some of the same clients that she had 11 years ago. She has also gone on to win several business awards including Best Business Awards (Best Woman in Financial Services) 2018, Shining Star Award 2018 (Mums Unlimited) and Customer Service Award (2017) at the Canterbury Business Awards. Now a trained Financial Adviser, Claire firmly believes that with advice and guidance it’s possible for anyone to balance today’s needs with tomorrow’s dreams. Money coaching allows her to work with women to get their finances sorted.
MELANIE PALMER, Chief Marketing Officer at Nucoro
Melanie is a CMO at Nucoro, Wealth Management as a Service. Melanie has spent the majority of her career in financial services, working across both corporate and startup environments. She has extensive experience bringing startups to market having launched new products in the Wealthtech and Insurtech sectors. Having realised that a lot of women struggle to take advantage of the long-term benefits of investing due to a number of factors including the industry feeling very "opaque", feeling condescended to by advisors and also due to lacking confidence in their decisions, it became her mission to show women how getting started is the hardest part and that it’s not as complex as it seems.
We discussed how to build women’s confidence as believing in yourself and knowing your self-worth is the first step towards standing up for yourself, asking for a raise and charging what you’re worth.
We tackled the topics of managing personal finances, as well as how to start investing, switch your career, deal with debt and the impact money has on our health.
The best part of our job is meeting so many inspirational women who motivate us daily to be the best version of ourselves. So big thanks once again to our wonderful speakers Emilie, Claire and Melanie for inspiring us and empowering us to make better, more informed financial decisions and to - DARE. Dare to speak up, try again, start investing.
We hope all of you had a great time and please feel free to get in touch and leave your feedback, we would love to hear from you so that in the future we can create even better events for you.
Many thanks to our refreshments sponsor Tenzing for keeping us energised throughout the night!
Tenzing is a naturally energising drink with a plant-based triple hit of natural caffeine, vitamin C and electrolytes, inspired by the naturally energising brews of Himalayan Sherpas.
ABOUT OUR VENUE PARTNER
Workspace Group PLC, a FTSE-250 Real Estate Investment Trust, owns and operates more than 4 million sq. ft. of business space across 62 London properties, home to more than 3,000 businesses including some of the fastest-growing and established brands across a wide range of sectors. Workspace offers flexible office, co-working and meeting room solutions and provides best-in-class, award-winning connected services for its diverse mix of customers, including London’s most successful digital businesses such as Mozilla, Citymapper, Photobox, Entrepreneur First and Nutmeg.
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This blog was written by Anja Streicher, Chief Marketing Officer of Women of Wearables. She is passionate about women's health, supporting women in business and is still trying to figure out how to balance motherhood and business.