Sallie Krawcheck
Most financial services companies treat women as a marketing segment rather than a product design problem. The gap shows up in retention, in advisor productivity, and in a wealth gap that is widening, not closing. Building a serious commercial answer to that requires running the business, not sponsoring an initiative.
Sallie Krawcheck is the co-founder and CEO of Ellevest and a former senior Wall Street executive who helps financial and consumer businesses build products and strategies for the customer segments incumbents have under-served.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Sallie Krawcheck
- She has run wealth management at the largest scale in the industry, leading Smith Barney, Citi Private Bank, US Trust and Merrill Lynch, then built a venture-backed fintech from scratch around a gap she watched the incumbents miss.
- Her thesis on the gender wealth gap is quantified, not rhetorical. Ellevest’s portfolio construction takes gender-specific salary curves, career breaks and longevity into account, which gives her a concrete answer to the “what would you actually change” question that most diversity speakers cannot give.
- Fortune called her “The Last Honest Analyst” for refusing to soften research calls and for reimbursing retail clients during a downturn. That reputation is what makes her credible to senior boards on questions of conflict of interest and product integrity.
- Her book “Own It: The Power of Women at Work” (Crown Currency, 2017) is a Wall Street Journal and Washington Post bestseller, and her LinkedIn writing has built one of the largest executive followings on the platform. She arrives with a real audience and a real argument, not a stock keynote.
Biography highlights
- Co-founder and CEO of Ellevest, a digital investment platform for women.
- Former president of Global Wealth and Investment Management, Bank of America, overseeing Merrill Lynch and US Trust.
- Former CEO of Citi Global Wealth Management and former chairman and CEO of Sanford C. Bernstein and Co.
- Author of “Own It: The Power of Women at Work” (Crown Currency, 2017), Wall Street Journal and Washington Post bestseller.
- Called “The Last Honest Analyst” by Fortune; multiple appearances on the Forbes “100 Most Powerful Women” list; named to Time “Global Influentials”.
- BA summa cum laude, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; MBA with honors, Columbia Business School.
Biography
The gender wealth gap is wider than the gender pay gap, and for many cohorts, it is still moving in the wrong direction. Closing it is not a marketing problem for financial services. It is a product, advice and capital allocation problem, and the people best placed to solve it are the people who have run the businesses on the other side of the gap.
Krawcheck spent two decades doing exactly that. She rose from equity analyst to chairman and CEO of Sanford C. Bernstein and Co, then ran Smith Barney and Citi Global Wealth Management, then led Bank of America’s combined Merrill Lynch and US Trust wealth business. Fortune called her “The Last Honest Analyst” for protecting research independence and reimbursing retail clients during a downturn, which remains the cleanest single line on her professional integrity.
In 2016 she co-founded Ellevest, a digital investment platform built around the financial reality of women’s careers and lifespans. The investing algorithm factors in salary curves that peak earlier, more frequent career breaks and longer retirement horizons. Ellevest is the only modern fintech that uses gender as an input to portfolio construction rather than a marketing layer on top of a generic product.
Her book “Own It: The Power of Women at Work” (Crown Currency, 2017) became a Wall Street Journal and Washington Post bestseller. Her LinkedIn following puts her among the most-read business writers on the platform, and Inc. has named her a Top Female Founder. She speaks to financial services boards, leadership teams and consumer brands on what it actually takes to design products and careers around a customer base the industry has historically underserved.
Key speaking topics
- Closing the gender wealth gap
- Designing financial products for underserved customer segments
- Women, leadership and career capital
- Building a fintech inside a regulated industry
- Trust, conflict of interest and integrity in financial advice
- Entrepreneurship after a corporate career
- Capital, investing behaviour and the future of advice
Ideal for
- Financial services CEOs, CMOs and heads of wealth and private banking are rethinking their women-client strategy.
- Boards and ExCos of consumer-facing businesses where female customer segments are under-monetised.
- Founders, investors and leadership teams in fintech and consumer finance.
- Senior women’s leadership programmes, CHRO sponsors and ERG executive sponsors at large enterprises.
Audience outcomes
- A specific read on where the gender wealth gap actually sits in product design, pricing and advice, not in HR policy.
- A Wall Street insider’s honest account of how integrity, advice quality and conflicts of interest play out at the top of the industry.
- A practical view of what it takes to build a regulated fintech around an underserved segment, told by an operator who has done it.
- A direct, unhedged set of arguments on women, money and career capital that senior audiences can act on.