The money conversation I’m having is about relationship building. It’s about negotiating. Negotiate for yourself, advocate for yourself. And, you know, just remember that all money comes from relationships.

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Shelly Omilâdè Bell, who goes by Omi, founded Black Girl Ventures to transform entrepreneurship by reimagining the way Black and Brown women founders get access to financial and social capital. Her innovative approach offers what she wishes she would have had herself in the early days of her own money journey. Through Black Girl Ventures and their partners, she is now building an ecosystem and community to unleash the flow of capital to those who have been historically shut-out. In the process, she’s realized that money itself is not enough – it’s about our relationships too, and their role in how we build wealth and stand in our own money power.

Shelly Omilâdè Bell is a system disruptor and business strategist who moves ideas to profit while empowering people to live more authentically. As a cultural translator, she connects entrepreneurs, investors, and corporations in order to diversify their talent pipeline, increase equity and grow their brands. She is a Serial Entrepreneur & Computer Scientist with a background in performance poetry, K-12 Education, and IP Strategy. Between creating the first tent for women on AirBnB, launching a business as a single mom of three, and building tech platforms for equitable financial capital, Shelly practices the mantra she preaches to ‘resist being average’.

Her most recent disruption, Black Girl Ventures Foundation, transforms entrepreneurship by reimagining the way black and brown women founders get access to financial and social capital. As an inspirational speaker, serial entrepreneur, and one of the 8 original Google Digital Coaches, she has trained over 5,000 entrepreneurs to rethink their earning potential; held over 300 events for executives to disrupt their thinking; and helped hundreds of black and brown businesses get funding to scale. She was named one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in Business by Entrepreneur Magazine, Entrepreneur of the Year by Technically DC and acknowledged as A Rising Brand Star by Adweek. Shelly’s podcast, A Dose of Disruption, helps leaders resist the urge to be average by disrupting their thought patterns and self-talk.

Resources mentioned in this episode: Black Girl Ventures

There’s this weird disconnect and misperception that you need to know how to calculate a bond yield or follow the markets really closely, read financial journals regularly to be meaningfully involved in your financial life…and the reality is that you don’t.

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Earlier this year the global financial services firm UBS released some fascinating research. It explores how women in long-term relationships divide up responsibility for financial decisions. Almost half of women say they defer on money matters to their spouse or partner. But would they do that if they knew that 8 in 10 women, at some point in their lives, due to life circumstances, will be left to manage their own finances?

Carey Shuffman is the Head of the Women’s Strategic Client Segment at UBS, a role she’s held since 2017. She is responsible for the development and implementation of UBS’s strategy to address the unique financial needs of women. In this role, Carey and her team are focused on financial education and research, engagement and creative content, with the goal of helping women navigate their financial lives. Carey also works closely with Field Leadership and Financial Advisors to support and promote these efforts across the US. As a subject matter expert on the topic of women and financial well-being, Carey travels the country speaking at seminars and events and also frequently conducts virtual engagements. She has been a regular contributor to print and television media, including Barron’s, Her Money, BOLD TV, Kiplinger and more. She also speaks at large-scale conferences and corporate organizations around the topic of women’s financial empowerment, and has spoken to audiences at Google, the National Football League (NFL), The Female Quotient and more.

Carey has been with UBS for almost a decade and previously held a number of strategic roles across the firm, having worked within Sales Strategy and Wealth Management Transformation, where she focused on building out the firm’s holistic wealth management and financial planning services. Carey first joined UBS as an analyst in the Graduate Talent Program (GTP), and she is also a past recipient of the UBS Global Employee Volunteer Award for her work in the local community. Carey received her BA in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania and holds her FINRA Series 7 and 66 licenses.

Resources mentioned in this episode: UBS Own Your Worth 2021 Report, UBS Women and Finances, UBS Wealth Way

“We say that if you’re living and honoring your values, you’re living a resonant or fulfilled life. And so often money comes up in there, like how [and] what we spend our money on. What we spend money on is often what we’re valuing some way.”

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Sharna Fey has been coaching executive leaders, corporations, and individuals for the past 25+ years and she shares how money conversations consistently show up in almost all of her coaching work – if not front and center, always seemingly just below the surface. She also offers her techniques and tools for coaching folks to align their values with their money choices. 

Sharna Fey is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach (CPCC) and Professional Certified Coach (PCC) with more than 25 years of experience working with individuals, corporations, and nonprofit organizations as an executive coach, trainer, educator, speaker, and consultant. Sharna helps executive clients identify and lead towards their core values, define and reach their goals, and discover and pursue their most authentic and best lives. She works with corporations looking to invest in emerging or established leaders, improve overall communications, increase team effectiveness, and bring the key elements of coaching to their organizations. 

Sharna is sought out for her experience, her highly collaborative approach, and the affable and interactive learning style she uses to produce deeply meaningful outcomes. Her corporate clients include fortune 500 companies like Autodesg, Cisco Systems, IBM, Genentech, Google, Marriott International as well as growing technology companies of Zenefits, Meraki, Cirrus and Mosaic. For the past decade Sharna has been on faculty at the Coaches Training Institute where she received her own training. She has trained thousands of adults across the United States and internationally in the co-active coaching model she employs and relishes the opportunity to mentor new coaches. Prior to launching her business, Sharna spent more than a decade as a manager and general manager for Marriott, including three years spent as a national recruiter who helped create the company’s first college-recruiting program. A proud alumni of Washington State University, Sharna received training at the Coaches Training Institute (CTI), and the nationally recognized leadership training organization Co-Active Space. She is a member of the International Coach Federation.

Resources mentioned in this episode: Sharna Fey coaching, The Myth of the Frivolous Female Spender, Why Women Are Better Investors

“How do we make it more of a cultural norm [for women] to talk about our money, to talk about what we’re doing with it, to talk about the things that bring us pride? I think that’s another big piece that we need to solve for if we’re going to really step into our power around money.”

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Our guest today, Catherine Berman, is what I like to call a  “Disruptor for Good.” She is a passionate advocate for financial inclusion and wants to see more women investing, and investing with their values. She co-founded CNote – a platform that allows you to earn a competitive return while investing in women-led businesses and supporting communities that are not being served by the big banks and lenders.

Catherine Berman is the CEO and Co-founder of CNote, an impact investment platform that helps large institutions, like corporations, banks, and foundations move deposits and capital into community investments to address racial justice, climate change, and other pressing social issues. She’s a three-time entrepreneur with experience building scalable businesses. Her last startup grew into a multi-million dollar firm in less than four years. Prior to CNote, she worked as a Managing Director at Charles Schwab focused on new market segments and predictive analytics. At the vanguard of impact investing, Catherine has spoken at events hosted by Stanford, Oxford, Google, The Economist, SoCap, Coinbase, and others to challenge conventional thinking about money and meaning.

Resources mentioned in this episode: CNote, CNote – Search Engine for Black Led CDFI’s, Book: Activate Your Money, Invest for Better, Camino Financial, Propel, Kristin Hull’s Money Doula

“It’s not just about currency. It’s not just about a coin. It’s not just about a painting or a statue. For me, it’s just the beginning. All of these are just triggers for a much larger global conversation that still needs to happen.“

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Rosie Rios was the United States Treasurer under President Obama, and her signature is on more than a trillion dollars of currency in circulation around the globe. Now that’s some real money power! But Rosie’s real legacy isn’t her signature. She helped lead our nation’s economic recovery after the 2008 financial crisis. And when we finally do see a woman on the $20 bill, we’ll surely have Rosie to thank for initiating that effort. She’s the one who asked why 51% of our population was absent from our money, our statues and monuments, and other public projections of power. She started the conversation about women on American paper currency, and now finally Maya Angelou, Sally Ride, Anna May Wong, and other history-making women will start appearing on American quarters next year.

Rosie Rios is a cast-member of Unicorn Hunters, a groundbreaking reality series that will spotlight emerging growth companies looking to hit the coveted $1B “unicorn” valuation mark, while providing individual investors worldwide with high-return investment opportunities in pre-IPO companies.

Rosie was the 43rd Treasurer of the United States and led the efforts to place a portrait of a woman on the front of U.S. currency for the first time in over a century. In her role as Treasurer of the United States, Treasurer Rios was the Chief Executive Officer of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and the United States Mint, including Fort Knox, managing 4,000 employees with a $5 billion annual budget. Her signature currently appears on a record $1.7 trillion out of the $2 trillion in circulation worldwide.Prior to her presidential appointment in Treasury, Treasurer Rios was Managing Director of Investments for MacFarlane Partners, a $22 billion investment management firm based in San Francisco. Her career has focused on real estate finance, economic development and investment management in both the public and private sectors. She is a graduate of Harvard University and was selected as the first Latina in Harvard’s 385-year history to have a portrait commissioned in her honor. In August 2020, Rios was named one of the  “Women of the Century” by USA Today.

Resources mentioned in this episode: Unicorn Hunters, Teachers Righting History, Ladies Who Launch

“You know, until someone says, Lisha, we have equal representation, we have equal pay- if we had that, my job would be done, I would need a new investment thesis. But until then, you gotta keep working on it.”

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Lisha Bell uses her voice and influence to move real money at PayPal, where she works as a product manager. In the Spring of 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, Lisha spoke up and started a conversation at PayPal that quickly led to a promise of solidarity—and more importantly, a $530 million commitment to support Black and minority-owned businesses and communities. Lisha’s not only an employee-activist, she’s also leading multiple investment initiatives meant to close the wealth gap for Black and Latinx women. She has an investment thesis that helps her align all her resources—financial and otherwise—with her values.

Lisha brings 20 years of  demonstrated expertise in technology innovation to bridge consumer experiences in money movement and digital payment solutions. Lisha is currently at Paypal, where she is the lead Product Manager  for the Pay with Venmo Product.   Lisha Bell is cofounder of BLXVC, an angel syndicate of moms funding Black and Brown founders and Women of Color Capital collective. Lisha is a tireless advocate of  diversity, financial  inclusion, and  educational access. After the death of George Floyd, Lisha led the Paypal $530M commitment to Black Lives and serves on the advisory committee for PayPal Ventures.  Lisha holds a BSc in Business Administration from  USC ,as well as MBAs from UC Berkeley and Columbia Business School where she was recognized as  an Outstanding Alumna.

Resources mentioned in this episode: PayPal Press Release, CNote, BLXVC

“If you think about any other relationship in your life that is of most importance and most significant, it is a relationship that is multi-layered, it is complex. It is nuanced and it is absolutely emotional. And all of those dynamics show up with money.“

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How do we cultivate a healthy relationship to money? And how would paying attention and working to improve that money relationship change what shows up in our lives? Jacquette Timmons’ specialty is helping folks recognize and understand the role that money is playing in our lives. Jacquette was one of the first people to take a relationship-based approach to finance, and her work explores the ways our personal histories, values, and beliefs can either support or get in the way of our financial empowerment.

Jacquette M. Timmons focuses on the human side of money. She works as a financial behaviorist and is committed to getting you to see that you don’t manage money – you manage your choices around money. In addition to being an author (“Financial Intimacy: How to Create a Healthy Relationship with Your Money and Your Mate”) and frequent blogger, Jacquette is also the creator of The Comfort Circle™ – a dinner series, where she hosts discussions about money, business and life over food and wine – and “Pricing Made Human™.”  PMH is designed to help entrepreneurs and small business owners tackle the question, “What should I charge for this?,” from all sides: the financial, the emotional, the personal, so they can price more confidently, strategically, and in such a way that propels their business and life forward. She is also the host of the podcast, “More Than Money.”

When she’s not providing behavioral-based financial coaching, she’s traveling the country for speaking engagements on behalf of Fortune 100 companies, AM Law 200 firms, nationally known non-profits and conferences (large & boutique) to talk about the intersection of emotions and money. Her work has been featured on Minnesota Public Radio, SiriusXM, “Good Morning America,” Oprah.com, CNN, HLN, FOX, Black Enterprise, NPR, Reuters.com, and the Wall Street Journal. Jacquette holds an MBA in finance from Fordham University’s Graduate School of Business and an undergrad in marketing from the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Resources mentioned in this episode: Jacquette M. Timmons: Financial Intimacy (book), Podcast: More Than Money –  With Jacquette Timmons,  UBS Study / Key To Gender Equity