Sallie Krawcheck Had a Few Things to Say About Women, Younger People, and the Finance Industry

Yesterday, Sallie Krawcheck had a few things to say about the wealth management industry. Krawcheck has had an extensive work history in finance and previously had been voted one of “The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women” by Forbes in 2005. She recently was ousted from Bank of America in September as the company claimed it was part of a “restructuring”.  According to “Wall Street needs women, younger clients to compete: Krawcheck” by Suzanne Barlyn and Ashley Lau, Krawcheck placed her comments on the subject of women and young people:

“The securities industry ‘doesn’t do a great job for women or being appropriate’ for the next generation, said Sallie Krawcheck”

On young people:

“Indeed, becoming more relevant to a younger generation of prospective clients and building more diverse teams of advisers are among the changes Wall Street will have to make to compete in the future”

“Younger prospective clients have become skeptical of the industry through press images of advisers being untrustworthy and repeated messages to avoid the markets”

Iman: CEO of IMAN Cosmetics feeding an Ignored Consumer

Iman is an international fashion icon, having graced major runaways and many fashion photo spreads. Since 1994, she has been a businesswoman. She is the founder and CEO of IMAN Cosmetics. The company makes cosmetics and skincare products for women of all color tones. Despite the bad economy, her company is making about $25 million. Iman was featured on Black Enterprise Business Report; the video is featured on the website.

The short interview featured a look into her transition from model to businesswoman. Her inspiration for the company came from an experience while doing a photo shoot. The makeup artist informed her he did not have makeup for her skin color. From there, Iman built her company. She stated on the interview “It’s not about race but skin tone”. The reality is most major cosmetic lines do not carry makeup for women of color or have enough range to include the different multitude of tones and shades for such women. Her company not only fixes her problem but also feeds a much-ignored consumer demographic, women of color who wear makeup. From my experience, the makeup industry is still lacking in recognizing women of color as a consumer. Quite frankly, as a paying consumer, I’m pissed. Yet, I’m also satisfied to know some major lines are making an effort to feed my demographic and that Iman has done this for many years.

The business point is she found an audience and became one of the only companies to satisfy this audience’s needs. As an entrepreneur, one can sometimes find inspiration by appealing to ignored groups. The meaning of group can include a giant range. Example: Todd Greene found it hard to shave his head so he created a modified razor to fit in his hand and now he runs HeadBlade; it satisfies bald men.  His story was featured on “How I Made My Millions” by CNBC.

Iman is a great businesswoman. Despite other cosmetic companies similar to hers and the economy, her company stays successful. Now, Iman also sells fashion handbags and accessories on Home Shopping Network and is the host “The Fashion Show” on Bravo. 

New Expectation for OWN: First Year Profit

I previously wrote in "OWN: The Next Biggest Part of Oprah’s Empire Starts Today" that Discovery and Oprah expects OWN (the Oprah Winfrey Network) to turn profit in year 2 or 3. Brian Stelter of New York Times reports in “A Profit Is Forecast in the First Year for Oprah’s Network”, after only a few days on air, Discovery is claiming OWN will produce a profit within its first year. It was made very clear, in the few articles I read, that Discovery and Oprah stated not to expect a first year profit. While profit expectation seems like great news, it can create a problem for OWN, Discovery and Oprah. The purpose of publicly stating to expect a profitless first year is to avoid setting a standard the network can’t reach. It’s not a low expectation but simple reality. Now, Discovery had broken this reality.

OWN: The Next Biggest Part of Oprah's Empire Starts Today

As most of you know, today is New Year's Day and the debut of OWN: the Oprah Winfrey Network. OWN has gotten much press. Not only is it anticipated because it belongs to Oprah, it is the first personalized cable channel. It also a big venture. It is to replace Discovery Health channel, it is a partnership between Oprah and Discovery, and Discovery has invested about $200 million (as reported by Brian Stelter of NY Times). I read two NY Times articles, “Oprah’s Network is Her Highest Hurdle” and “Shaping a Network With Oprah’s View” both by Brian Stelter. Instead of giving summaries, I’m going to give some important points about OWN.

Oprah Has Planned This For a Long Time

Often celebrities are approached to simply give their name to a product. Even if some of those celebrities may have always wanted to enter into such a venture, most have not prepared for it. Oprah is a different story. According to “Oprah’s Network is Her Highest Hurdle”, she thought up OWN in 1992. She previous attempted a move into cable as the co-founder of Oxygen network. That didn’t go well for her and it was sold to NBC Universal. According to Oprah, the experience taught her: “don’t partner when you’re not allowed to be in charge and make a decision”. And in 2007, she partnered with Discovery to mold OWN. This has been a well establish goal and she has made efforts to make it happen.

PricewaterhouseCoopers Colleagues Rating New Woman Hires

Accounting Firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) of Dublin had a very interesting tradition for new women hires. According to “Accountants Caught in E-mail Chain Rating Female Employees” by Mary Plummer, a few junior male staffers would email a top 10 list of the women based on their attractiveness and it included their photos. This email was then forwarded to other men in the company. The women on the list were entry-level employees.

PWC found out about the emails due to the story leak in an Irish newspaper. Unfortunately, for the women mentioned in the emails, their photos have been published in newspapers throughout Great Britain and Ireland.

The response from PWC is from spokeswoman Johanna Dehaene:

"We're taking this extremely seriously at the highest level of the firm… We obviously regret this has happened…the impact has been compounded by the printing of the photographs”… [Dehaene] adding that the company has met with the women several times. "The focus here at PricewaterhouseCoopers is on supporting the women."

This incident brings about two important topics: work environment and privacy.

Divorce Lending. A New Industry?

Stacey Napp went through an 8 year divorce battle. The process of paying for her defense within the battle was funded through personal loans from her family and friends. She walked away from the battle achieving the settlement she wanted and a new business idea. She started Balance Point, a divorce lending company.

The company is about a year old and according to "Taking Sides in a Divorce, Chasing Profit" by Binyamin Appelbaum, is already funded from investors and has already lent out "$2 million to 10 women seeking divorces". This is a new company venturing within the world of legal lending. It has been able to receive support due to being based in Los Angeles, which has a lot of expensive divorce battles.
Her purpose: the lending provides the client with an even battleground as legal fees can become expensive forcing the client to not fight as long as the other (former) spouse. The audience are "people with marital assets between $2 million and $15 million" and those who wish to reach an end to the battle. For proft, Balance Point does not charge a fee but takes a percentage of the settlement.

I just love the way in which this company has been created. The use of experience as an appeal is personal and will seem endearing to prospective clients. According to Appelbaum, unequal legal representation in divorces is very common. It is not as if the company is feeding divorce but providing an obvious solution to a common problem. The means of profit through percentage of settlement as opposed to fees means clients are not stuck with a lot of fees and the company stands to profit much from high profiled divorces. The caveat will be clients who do not go forward with divorces, long divorces, and small settlements. The company has yet to make profit but Napp should be commended for turning a personal experience with a common problem into a business. Appelbaum's article left me wondering if legal lending is a new industry ready to emerge or a hidden one not given much attention.

note: I'm not trying to make a point about divorce but about the business.

Alicia Keys is Dead! Social Entrepreneurship is Alive!

Alicia Keys is digitally dead. Today is Worlds AIDS Day.  To raise money and awareness for Keys’ charity Keep a Child Alive for children orpaned from the AIDS epidemic, Alicia Keys and other celebrities are digitally dying. No twitter, facebook, vlogs or blogs for them. When $1 million total from individual contributions has been donated to the charity, they will comeback alive. 

I admire Keys savvy on this project. While the sole motivation for charity donation should be to contribute to a social cause, Keys realizes this isn't so. If it were, charities wouldn’t have to work hard to raise money.  As a celebrity, she is aware that people invest a lot as fans. Millions of dollars of fan money go into tours, music, movies, and any merchandise with their favorite celebs name on it. She figured why not take a break from the digital world and wager fans will donate to keep their favorite celeb digitally alive. 

A social entrepreneur is an entrepreneur who creates a business for the sole purpose of donating profits to a social cause and maintaining the business.  Alicia keys’ passion for social causes have manifested into her being a savvy social entrepreneur. Her project, Digital Death, is an amazing integration of social media and celebrity. Best of all, it is for charity. The marketing campaign has been well thought out. For about a week, the web has been splattered with pictures of celebrities posed in Buylife t-shirts, some in coffins to further spread their “death”, “official” last tweets and video testaments. It should take up to half the day for $1 million to come in. With $10 per fan, Alicia Keys having about 2 million followers, others celebs with thousands and thousands of followers, this event should raise well over 1 million dollars and I hope it does.

*you can go to buyalife.org or text “ALICIA” to 90999 to donate. For more info on the charity go to keepachildalive.org. For more information about World AIDS Day, got to worldaidsday.org. 

source for picture

The Kardashians Killed the Kard

The Kardashian sisters have found some sense. After criticism from financial experts and Attorney General Blumenthal (CT) that the Kard was a trap for teens to enter financial ruin, the Kardashians killed the Kard. According to Blake Ellis (report here) from Cnnmoney.com:

"On Monday, the Kardashian family's attorney sent a notice of termination to the banks and licensing companies responsible for the card, saying the 'negative spotlight...threatens everything for which they have worked.'"

The good news is the Kardashians are done with the venture. The bad news : (1) The little reward for the risk may have been the reason; according to Ellis, only 250 Kards were purchased (2) the sisters were willing to risk their reputation to cash in on charging kids when they decided to back the venture a month ago. According to Ellis, the card could be and was marketed for teens as young as 13. It was almost $100 just to own, not including repetitive fees for transactions which are free under a bank issued debit card.

The worse part about the card was having the lavish and rich Kardashians backing it as if to say “here kids, here is the means to dress, spend like us and live our lifestyle, at the same time, having us charge you to do it so we can continue to spend lavishly”. I admit I’m coming down kind of hard on the sisters but charging adults is a little sly and doing so to kids is thievery. If the Kardashian sisters want to continue their brand, they have to think better about their decisions. I am glad they made the decision to pull the card instead of continuing to back it, defend it, and sell it. In the end, the sisters are not stupid but this serious business venture has left me thinking the sisters lack business savvy or at least business common sense. Unlike major corporations, they are in the public eye and known by name. They don't have a major entity to take the criticism the way a major bank does. 

Beyoncé: I Am... World Tour

I watched "Beyoncé: I Am... World Tour" on Hulu. Again. The first time, I only caught a glimpse of it and this time around, I jumping to the non-performance parts.The first time around, I saw a scene of Beyoncé editing the footage of the tour. She had a clear vision of the way she wanted the special to look and became director so as to see this vision come to fruition. Therefore, I watched the second time paying extra attention to the direction of the special.
I don't watch or purchase tour performance dvds, so I am no critic. I will say that if her vision was to show almost every performance within that 1 hour, her connection to fans, her as human, and as a boss, she succeeded. Beyoncé's career is not a mystery to anyone. Even if one is not a fan, one knows she is a singer, actress, fashion designer, and endorser of multiple products. Beyoncé hasn't really opened up too much about the way she runs her career. On the tour special, there were small glimpses into her work ethic (by small, I mean about a handful of short scenes). I didn't know Beyoncé ran her tour. She clearly has tour managers and most likely a 100 person crew but the first scenes of the special were her going over a lot of the details of the tour. She was involved.  In the end, I read some of the credits to know she is labeled as director, executive producer, producer, stage direction, and I stopped reading credits after that. The point is Beyoncé is in control of her career.
Not every musician has control; evident by the successful artists that are not getting paid or are clueless to the ins and outs of their industry. In fact, not every person is clued in to their career. If one sets out for a clear career goal (the path doesn't have to be so clear as paths are mostly unpredictable), take control where one can. Control gives you the best possibility of reaping the rewards of the hard work you have sown. This is not to say we will all become millionaires or do world tours but whatever rewards come your way, you should catch it. If someone controls your career, leaving you left out, they most likely will control the reward. The lesson is to understand that control, involvement, and rewards are all related.