Ellevest: The New Investment Tool For Women

by Amber Kahwaji

When it comes to investing, women tend to shy away from taking their hard-earned money and placing it in high risk investments.

As a result, only 28 percent of women invest their money and take on high risk to get a good return on investment, as opposed to nearly 45 percent of men, according to Business Insider.

But investing in the right places is crucial when it comes to saving for retirement, especially a healthy retirement that will sustain a comfortable lifestyle.

That’s why Sallie Krawcheck, former Wall Street executive and founder of Ellevest, decided to help change the way women invest and save for their future.

Krawcheck knew that women shy away from investing in anything high risk for the fear of loosing their money. So in 2016 she and co-founder Charlie Kroll, a veteran in start-ups, launched a new digital platform aimed to make investing easier and more appealing to women.

The new platform is called Ellevest, and it’s an easy-to-use site that helps navigate women toward achieving their financial goals, whatever those may be.

To start, Ellevest was co-designed by the target demographic – women. Krawcheck had participants ages 25 to 50 years old help build the platform used today by giving feedback on what makes them nervous about investing, and what appeals to their concerns and needs.

Using guidance by the consumer, Ellevest provides a site that helps users achieve their financial goals in an user-friendly manner.

Users simply create a profile and choose from a list what their priorities are, ranking them from highest to lowest on a scale. Then, users fill in questions pertaining to how much they have saved for each priority. Users can even start from zero.

Priorities include buying a home, saving for retirement, having children, or making a large purchase.

Ellevest makes suggestions on what the annual contributions should be based on salary and age, and sets goals for each priority.