About this episode

Dr. Sylvia Kwan discusses the gender wealth gap and her work at Ellevest to empower women financially.

Women are great savers, but 70% of their money sits in cash, while it has to last longer because women live longer. Dr. Sylvia Kwan has built her career closing that gap. Dr. Sylvia Kwan joins Laurie McGraw on Inspiring Women for a conversation about money, power, and why the financial industry has been quietly failing women for decades. Sylvia is the CEO and Chief Investment Officer of Ellevest, a women-founded, women-led investment advisory firm dedicated to closing the gender wealth gap. The firm has grown to 3 million members and manages over $1 billion in assets. Her path was not obvious. She studied applied mathematics and computer science at Brown University, planning a career in technology, before a final rotation in a quantitative investment group changed everything. She went on to earn a PhD in engineering-economic systems at Stanford, where her dissertation on how social interaction and investor behavior shape markets became one of the earliest works in behavioral finance. As Sylvia and Laurie discovered on the episode, they both share roots in Providence. Sylvia took the reins as sole CEO after succeeding Ellevest founder Sallie Krawcheck, and this episode goes deep…

People in this episode

Host: Laurie McGraw

Guest: Dr. Sylvia Kwan

Topics covered

• gender wealth gap
• financial industry
• investment advisory
• women's financial health
• behavioral finance
• money management

Keywords

• gender wealth gap
• investment
• women's finance
• Ellevest
• behavioral finance
• financial industry
• money management

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Ellevest, Brown University, Stanford

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