Ally-Jane Ayers.
Meet millennial Ally-Jane Ayers, co-founder of financial planning firm Brooklyn FI. In her WeWork space, client meetings are held as rock music jams, and the office decor rocks a poster of a cemetery.
Nope, the artwork isn't a subtle hint for her young clients to start planning retirement, which, incidentally, FI has rebranded "financial independence." Ayers, 30, just happens to think cemeteries are beautiful. She was recently married in one, as she mentions in an interview about her practice with ThinkAdvisor.
New to financial services, the former music editor and writer may be quirky, but she isn't kooky. Indeed, her office ambiance is only a surface frill. The core intention of this enrolled agent credentialed by the Internal Revenue Service is to guide clients to "financial peace of mind."
The fee-only firm specializes in serving self-employed creatives, like designers and photographers, and tech professionals, like engineers. Average age: 34. About three-quarters of client meetings are held in the FI office; the balance take place via video.
Ally-Jane — known as AJ — is one of a new vintage of young entrepreneurial FAs setting up their own millennial-targeted shops and calling their own shots. Unlike most advisors of previous generations, they are distinguished by diversity and focused on fiduciary.
Ayers' practice specializes in "turning side-hustles into nest eggs," according to her website. There is no account minimum, and fees start at $4,200 a year, payable by the month.
Her interest in the financial services profession turned serious after interviewing Shane Mason, a CPA, personal financial specialist (PFS) and certified financial planner, on "Moneysplained," a podcast for "people afraid of personal finance," as it is billed.
Ayers started the show when, seeking an FA for her own investing, she couldn't find one "who was speaking [her] language as a creative," she says. In 2017, she and Mason, 31, formerly with PwC, launched Brooklyn FI.
For now, Ayers is concentrating on the operations side but joins partner Mason in every client meeting. She expects to take her CFP exam this summer.
In her initial career, Ayers was a senior editor at Bandcamp, an online music platform, and worked for five years as commissioning music editor at Bloomsbury U.S.A.
Now steeped in the world of finance, she's writing for publications like the Journal of Accountancy. And she's penning speeches about finance to deliver herself. In fact, a recent one to her alma mater was: "The 10 Things Every Skidmore Graduate Needs to Know about Money."
Here are highlights from a recent phone interview ThinkAdvisor held with the Brooklyn-based, Los Angeles native, new to financial planning but not new to creative thinking:
THINKADVISOR: Why are prospective clients attracted to Brooklyn FI?
ALLY-JANE AYERS: They're being sent to their parents' advisors and usually meeting with men much older than they are. That doesn't fit well. So they're looking for people who look like them — and we look like our clients.
Do the creative folks you specialize in have particular needs to address?
It's often helping them with business planning: figuring out the tax side, what kind of entity structure they should be in, what kind of retirement accounts are open to them as business owners or working freelance. Bands need a lot of help getting set up, figuring out who gets what, who owes what in taxes.
Some of that seems fairly basic.
A lot of clients come to us not even knowing that SEP IRAs and Solo 401(k)s exist.
What does the "FI" stand for in Brooklyn FI?
