At our virtual Round Table (RT) Leaders in Finance, leaders from diverse financial fields opened up the discussion with an emphasis on empowerment, education and a mindset change, to accelerate both money and power and subsequently women in finance.

Moderated by LWL Titan, Shiniji Kumar, Co-founder, SALT, Shinjini has 3 decades of experience in building businesses, strategies, teams and trust.

Joining the conversation and contributing valuable insights, our esteemed panellists included:

• Shikha Mehra, Co-founder, Mainchain Research & Consulting
• DevinaMehra, Chairperson, Managing Diretor& Founder, First Global
• Manisha Girotra, CEO, Moelis India
• Lakshmi Iyer, Chief Investment Officer of Debt and Head of Products, Kotak Mahindra Asset Management Company Limited

The 5 biggest takeaways from the talk: 

1. Financial Planning – not just Family Planning:

Women have primary caregiver responsibilities as more of them tend to drop off their career journeys. Additionally, they are juggling several responsibilities while parenting at home. Even when they are excelling professionally and raking in the big bucks, they are not financially planning for the future, since that has largely been the responsibility of the male member in the house. This trend needs to change as women need to take charge of money matters and not just family matters.

2. Women – the New Leap Frog:  

Shikha Mehra highlighted that while not more than 15-20 percent investors in stock markets are women, more women are investing in crypto than in stock. Young women are willing to take risks and experiment, owing to knowledge gained from digital and social media, while breaking out of the Cinderella complex. Girls from wealthy families are gaining a handsome inheritance, which is giving them the freehand to look at new age money spinning platforms. There is more education, more changing trends and thus, more of a desire to take charge.  

3. Home is the New Office:

Work is moving from a physical realm to a digital realm,which is propelling women to be more productive while multi-tasking at home. Their social life, commercial life, business life etc will become more digital and on the go. With more time to think, research and design business plans, women are tapping into their own intellectual capital to start an enterprise.

4. Invest in Investment:

More women are looking at alternative investments. Lakshmi emphasized that there are no shortcuts to wealth creation and hoped that the behavioural change will be long lasting and sustainable. Volatility is an integral part of investing and not understanding this can lead to expectations of shortcuts or disappointment thatmay putyou off investing.

Manisha emphasized the importance of trust in financial markets and why it was important for people to go behind the name and understand if they were dealing with reputed intermediaries. Ask questions and get comfortable, develop confidence by starting with small amounts and moving up.  

5. Only Equity – the Dead End:

DevinaMehra talked about looking beyond just equities. “You should look at all asset classes. It is very very important…Pain in equity markets can be prolonged.”

She talked about the importance of learning and understanding your asset allocation before embarking on the journey and finding a good mix of financial planning tools.  In her words, “To know where to go, you have to know where you are starting from”.