Today we’d like to introduce you to Bernadette Girvin.
Hi Bernadette, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I joined the financial services industry in 2008 selling life insurance but my career took a few twists and turns along the way and I developed other skillsets in training and development, leadership, P&L management, compliance oversight, and more.
As I became further securities licensed and continued to grow my book of business, I found myself working with many business owners and was doing a lot of joint cases with a colleague of mine (now business partner), Claudio. He and I discovered that much of the work we did for our business owner clients fell outside the traditional insurance planning and investment management.
We were giving away a lot of intellectual property for free.
In 2019, Claudio and I formally partnered and launched our firm in downtown Orlando. I rolled my book of business up under his and started focusing more on helping lead and execute the strategic vision of the firm, managing the team, advisor talent, and brand.
Today, we proudly serve business owners, entrepreneurs, and C-suites with an equity interest in the areas of Risk Management, Tax Planning, Key Objective & Accumulation Planning, and Exit/Legacy Planning. In 2022, I launched an initiative within our firm called Women in Wealth, with a mission to help change the way women think and feel about money.
Over the next ten years, about 30 trillion dollars is expected to transition from men to women (mainly in the baby boomer demographic), but when you combine that with the fact that more women are making household financial decisions, making more money, and moving up into the board room at increasing rates, it is creating a tremendous need in our industry to create a different planning experience for female clients!
Outside of work, I am married to the love of my life, Charlie, and we have two kids – Presley (5) and Gates (2). We also have two dogs (Olive and Wednesday, both black labs), a black cat named Tofu, and a fish named Renee (my daughter called the fish after our nanny). We love animals, golf, and all things rock n roll.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Smooth road? Of course not.
Every career move, relationship, and choice along the way has brought challenges and struggles, but I wouldn’t change a thing. One of the hardest decisions I ever had to make was leaving my firm in Atlanta. My husband and I had been dating long-distance for a year and a half, and we finally got to the point where one of us had to move if we wanted a future together.
My Managing Partner in Atlanta remains, to this day, the most influential mentor I’ve ever had in my life, and I couldn’t fathom leaving for a guy! I’d moved for men in the past, and those relationships never worked out, and I’d sworn to myself I’d never do it again… but my heart knew my now husband was the one I make decisions with my head, not my heart, so that was a big one for me. The other big challenge was when Claudio and I decided to leave our previous broker/dealer and start our firm.
It was scary (still is sometimes). The last two years have been full of ups and downs, from staffing issues building out operations processes to learning more about how he and I are wired to maintain a fruitful business relationship and friendship. It made us “grow up” really fast! We say that we have experience and are well-capitalized, but we’re very much in start-up mode.
Start-up, growth-oriented companies, come with different challenges every day, but we both love what we do (borderline obsess on it), so it’s been worth every new stress wrinkle and the occasional tear. We have a “never say die” attitude and have experienced success beyond what we could have imagined while serving our clients at an exponentially elevated level, and that brings us so much joy!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Gambin Financial Group?
We serve business owners, entrepreneurs, and C-suites with an equity interest in the areas of Risk Management, Tax Planning, Key Objective/Accumulation Planning, and Exit/Legacy Planning. We also come to the table, for every client, with a vetted group of strategic partners in other important planning areas like Estate Planning, P&C Insurance, Corporate Business Attorneys, and Employee Benefits Specialists so that we can quarterback executing on all of those additional projects that may be priorities for our clients.
Our client’s business is always going to be their home run, where they will see the best rate of return and we don’t want to compete with that. Rather, we want to compliment that, help them diversify as needed, and be the one to check items off the to-do list so they can focus on what they do best – running their business!
I am most proud that we can truly say that we offer a hyper-personalized approach to the planning and consulting work we do for our clients. In a sea of financial advisor sameness, I know we stand out and that is validated to us time and again through the humbling amount of unsolicited referrals, we get from our best clients.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
I was born and raised in Orlando and have seen it transform dramatically over the years. I say all the time that Orlando is the smallest big city ever. I can go somewhere and run into someone I know but also meet new people every day. I love the weather, the golf courses, and frankly that it just feels like home.
Contact Info:
- Email: bernadette@gambinfinancial.com
- Website: www.gambinfinancial.com
- Instagram: @women_in_wealth
