Wealth Management for Women by Sonia Rüegger from Lombard Odier

Event held on 7th of April 2022 at Maison de la Femme, Lausanne  

The insightful session touched upon some core aspects of women, financial investments, challenges, and how they can control their financial situation and build financial stability. Sonia Rüegger spoke of why women should think of their future financial position and plan better. Women need to manage their finances better in various situations - as an entrepreneur or while living as a couple.

Some of the critical areas of the session included the following:

Need for custom financial planning

Everyone has their priorities and their custom financial situation. There is no one size fits all formula.

Discussion included strategies for creating wealth, accumulation, and consumption of capital with various financial instruments. Some of the financial planning aspects were multiple aspects of investment like optimization of post-tax performance, pension, and retirement planning. The investment duration spanned short-term to mid-term to long-term based on financial goals like succession planning and philanthropy.

Financial planning strategies for women

Women managing their capital should focus on a two-pronged strategy: wealth preservation in the short/medium term and wealth generation in the long term.

Importance of having the correct asset allocation to align with financial goals

Asset allocation is a critical part of attaining one's financial goals. Sonia discussed the returns and risks from major asset classes over a 10-year horizon. The expected annualized returns versus expected annualized volatility mapped low risk-low return instruments like Bonds to high risk-high return ones like Private Equity.

Challenges in a women’s financial journey

Women hold nearly one-third of global private wealth. However, a women's financial life planning is different from men's as women's financial life journey faces significant challenges.

●      Lower risk tolerance

●      Maternity leave

●      Flexible working conditions

●      Gender pay- gap

●      Longer life expectancy

Due to this, women have less money to invest and grow, lose their wealth over time, and fall short of meeting their financial goals.

Solutions for women to successfully invest in wealth management

Women are more disciplined investors than men and can achieve success in financial investments with appropriate knowledge and some guidance.

We thank our VP and volunteers for their work: Katarzyna Grzesik-Harz, Patricia Fromaget-Montanier, Jenitha Jacob & Iulia Popescu.