This week we celebrate the five year anniversary of Portfolio Analyst Lindsay Zentner joining our firm. I met Lindsay serendipitously – a fellow Villanova alum asked me via LinkedIn to meet with a recent college graduate he knew to talk about the industry. Always looking for opportunities to educate people about the benefits of choosing this career path, I agreed.
I immediately connected with Lindsay, whose no-nonsense analytical mind paired with her love of family, friends, and travel, made her a natural fit for the firm. Lindsay’s talents and background in economics and finance led her to serve as our in-house economist, investment researcher, and lead on strategic projects. She joined our client service team, which requires a combination of extraordinary attention to detail and unwavering desire to help others. Here she learned how a client’s portfolio serves their financial plan, as a tool for our clients to achieve their life goals. Lindsay’s fascination with the investment management side of the practice led her to embark on the journey to attain the CFA charter. The grueling requirements to earn CFA marks result in a high percentage of applicants who never finish the process. Not Lindsay.
In Lindsay’s words, “Being able to make a real difference in clients’ lives by using what I love – numbers, data, research, analysis – has always been exciting to me, and is what initially attracted me to this role. The rigorous training from the CFA program has given me a new set of tools and skills that make this job even more fun and rewarding, and I am so glad to be able to share all this with the team and with our clients.”
We have benefitted from her knowledge in our processes, our rigor, and what we deliver to our clients. Commonly cited internally as our “Excel Ninja,” Lindsay’s skills and insight have shifted and deepened over her five years with our firm. In her current role as Portfolio Analyst, she builds on her expertise in economics and financial markets to identify both opportunities and risks that may affect our portfolios, identifies solutions for the team, and designs portfolio allocations for our clients.
Earlier this year, national financial magazine Investment News asked us to be a part of their “Her Mentorship Matters” podcast. The podcast provides examples of women mentoring and supporting women in their careers in the financial industry. All female investment teams are a bit of a unicorn in investment management firms, and Lindsay’s path is a testament to the growth that can happen in a career when a mentor and a mentee share trust and confidence in each other and are committed to the same goal of maximizing her potential. We look forward to building on this foundation to continuously elevate what we deliver and how we serve clients.
Congratulations and thank you, Lindsay!
Debra Brennan Tagg is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ Professional and the creator of the DBT360 Financial Plan, a proprietary program that helps her clients prioritize their goals, leverage their resources, and address their risks. She is the president of BFS Advisory Group and teaches the public and the financial services industry about the importance of values-based financial planning and investor education.