Local financial advisor Jessica Casola offers advice on how to get into the field<\/p>\n
As many senior financial advisors approach retirement, there is a need for younger professionals to take their place.<\/p>\n
The Sault\u2019s Jessica Casola is a prime example of someone filling that need.<\/p>\n
Casola is a CIBC Private Wealth Wood Gundy Intrinsic Financial Group associate investment advisor.<\/p>\n
Financial advisors help clients make informed decisions about how and where to invest their money to grow their wealth, plan for retirement and how to transfer their money to family members when they are deceased.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are definitely a lot of advisors across the city who could be nearing retirement in the next little while. There’s an opportunity for the next generation of advisors to come up and learn from them,\u201d Casola said.<\/p>\n
Being a financial advisor is a serious profession.<\/p>\n
\u201cClients are trusting you with what they’ve spent their whole life working for. It’s definitely not something to be taken lightly,\u201d Casola said.<\/p>\n
The job requires a high degree of professional knowledge and people skills.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou really need a strong skill set when you\u2019re working with markets and investments but you also need those soft skills. You need to be trustworthy. You need to have good communication skills. Clients need to know you, have confidence in you and that you\u2019re doing the right thing for them. It’s a relationship business.\u201d<\/p>\n
Casola said her clients include young adults to seniors, business owners building up their assets, high income earners, those who have inherited money and average income earners who have diligently saved money for their futures.<\/p>\n
She holds the professional designations of chartered investment manager\u00a0and certified financial planner.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say most advisors do have a university degree but it doesn\u2019t have to be in finance. Once you get your university degree you earn your industry licensing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Casola\u2019s own post-secondary education isn\u2019t in finance.<\/p>\n
Her career in the financial sector came as a result of an unexpected\u00a0change in her career goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cI earned a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from the University of Waterloo. I was very good at math and the sciences. I was leaning towards pharmacy, maybe medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, working as a bank teller during the summer when she was a\u00a0student changed Casola\u2019s path.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was through that role that I realized finance was more up my alley.\u201d<\/p>\n
She climbed the ladder from bank teller to financial advisor through hard work, knowledge-building and enjoyment in working with people.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love relationship building. I love getting to know people, getting to know their stories. Being able to help them achieve their financial goals as well as getting to know them is really important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI do think my chemistry degree helped me a lot. It taught me analytical thinking, problem solving and a lot of transferable skills that I was able to carry over to finance but the shift was based on relationship building. I love talking to people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Financial planners invest clients\u2019 money into low-risk bank products such as GICs, RRSPs, mutual funds or the ups and downs of the stock market.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s important to build a well-diversified portfolio,\u201d Casola said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say this career can definitely be stressful at times, especially when the markets are volatile. It’s part of my job to navigate those markets and guide my\u00a0clients through that. It\u2019s rewarding being able to help them make those financial decisions and get them through those tough periods.\u201d<\/p>\n
Casola said it’s rewarding to see retirees she has helped enjoy taking first class airline seats as they head off on vacation.<\/p>\n
“That’s the best part of the job.”<\/p>\n
Moving forward, more financial advisors will be needed to represent traditionally under-represented groups.<\/p>\n
Casola is personally passionate about helping women reach their financial goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWomen are actually projected to control a lot more of the global wealth in the next decade. They’re increasingly making more decisions about their finances in families, individually, and professionally. Females are advancing more. It’s amazing to see females breaking that glass ceiling.\u201d<\/p>\n
Such advancement is available for women in the financial sector, Casola said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope that females see that we can be successful in this role.\u201d<\/p>\n
Casola\u2019s advice for those thinking of a career as a financial advisor?<\/p>\n
\u201cPut in the work and build those relationships. It is a relationship building business and that trust takes time. Put in the work, get all your designations, really learn the career.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said that\u2019s the approach she took and hasn\u2019t looked back.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love what I do. I love my career. I’m very happy I made this choice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Local financial advisor Jessica Casola offers advice on how to get into the field As many senior financial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[177],"tags":[79,22966,203007,18,19,17,234,235],"class_list":["post-461720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-cibc","tag-columnsfinancial-advisorjobs-of-the-futurejessica-casola","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}