Teresa Dentino - Founder and CEO

As a new stockbroker recruited by one of the largest brokerage firms in the country twenty-five years ago, Founder and CEO of The Financial 411, Teresa Dentino was shocked at the dismissal that the investment community directed towards female clients. Most Wall Street firms regarded women only as the wives of their clients, and they were frequently referred to solely as “The Little Lady”. Teresa Dentino recognized this prejudice before others began to catch on, and set out to help women own their money through her groundbreaking financial education offerings.

San Francisco 1985

Clearly this was a time, now over twenty-five years ago, that predated the new frontier of the Internet, the sweeping initiative taken on by marketers seeking to capture women’s loyalty, and the most recent emergence of self-styled women’s financial experts. This was a world without Twitter, FaceBook and deep-pocketed funding for women’s Internet portals. These were times when the ratio of female stockbrokers to their male counterparts was a mere one in ten. In an environment controlled by men and catering exclusively to a male audience, the concept of providing financial education – no less to women - was as revolutionary and heretical as saying “Let’s do business without charging for our services.”

Needless to say many women of that time were neither engaged nor informed with their family finances. They also lacked a means of becoming financially aware without feeling intimidated or excluded. Armed with a wealth of investment savvy and unmatched determination, Dentino immediately recognized all of the challenging and costly situations that women would encounter due to a lack of a comfortable proficiency with financial matters. Having seen first-hand the disregard that Wall STreet had towards women, Dentino immediately wanted to provide women with the education that they desired. While her firm’s managers scoffed at the notion of focusing on women's financial needs, Dentino was determined to create and deliver one of the first financial education programs aimed specifically at women. She succeeded in doing just that in 1985, long before the financial industry realized the critical economic impact that women would come to wield. Breaking with the convention of presenting canned seminars, which were often little more than sales promotions for investment products, Dentino began to deliver the first of her many trademark programs, emphasizing financial education as the first step toward financial empowerment.

What Women Want

With a counter-intuitive approach, Dentino understood the need that women had for frank discussions regarding money and decided to share aloud for the first time an insider’s candid perspectives, steps and shortcuts. Not only did she share helpful trade secrets which women were in desperate need of hearing, but she did so in a manner in which women of all ages and backgrounds could finally relate to. A melding of behavioral insights, along with her first-hand professional financial knowledge distinguished Dentino's approach as the first time an insider stepped up to advocate for women and their financial education. In turn, women walked away from these unrivaled presentations feeling empowered and “in the know” instead of disconnected from the previously mystifying and exclusive process. Rather than advocating that women must become experts in order to succeed, Dentino’s message was refreshingly simple yet substantive. By understanding women’s needs and listening to what they were saying, Dentino provided what they needed in order to become more informed and to stay engaged about certain critical financial practices. With the challenge of demystifying such a vast landscape, and in an unprecedented approach, Dentino developed an organized system that solved the problem and distilled the critical points that are most crucial for women’s financial security. This ahead of the curve approach has since become her tried and true method for successfully engaging women of all ages and backgrounds in both the arenas of personal finance and investing. The response to her creative services was overwhelming and women truly felt that they were equipped to own their money.

Throughout the next twenty-five years, Dentino continued to hone and deliver her financial empowerment messages. She was selected and trained, among only a handful of financial advisors nationwide, for the first-ever program presented by a Wall Street firm that spoke to women as serious investors. Combining her passion for empowering women with the empirical insights learned first hand from hundreds of conversations with women from all financial backgrounds, her professional work with clients, and her knowledge of the emerging academic study findings on women’s financial behaviors, Dentino developed an unequalled understanding of women’s challenges, habits and concerns. Her rare recognition of the female market led to Dentino's training and accreditation by the National Center for Women & Retirement Research as a qualified expert on the subject of women’s financial issues and concerns. Adding to her many career “firsts,” she would later take this knowledge and experience to help her create and manage her own full-service brokerage firm.

Pave the Road for your Children

Applying an organized approach to financial management was not unfamiliar to Ms. Dentino. Dentino’s exposure to the financial world started at a very young age when her Mother sat her down and taught her how to track her expenses and balance a budget. Her fascination with all things finance was thus created with that unique moment and is still present today. Because of her early introduction to money and fiscal responsibility, Dentino has always been confident working with finances and helping others feel that same sense of control and empowerment. Her sense of financial responsibility was strengthened through several reinforcing adolescent experiences. Having been assigned responsibility for anything other than necessary essentials that were provided by her family meant that any “extra’s” were Dentino’s responsibility to finance. Dentino used these childhood experiences not only as a means to understand and respect money, but also as a challenge to learn how to put in place the lifelong trend of bringing any possible extra value to a financial situation. By working in her family’s supermarket as soon as she was able to count, Dentino's confidence with money and finances was secured before most of her friends had learned how to ride a bike.

These experiences, along with her extensive training on Wall Street and her vast knowledge of women’s financial concerns, have resulted in a presence that the media has embraced; providing women of all ages a trusted, experienced and authentic role model for all those seeking financial advice and empowerment. Her unique educational approach and delivery has allowed women globally to increase their awareness, confidence and engagement - and all without a lengthy time commitment.

By joining together her intense introduction to the formal financial world through her time working on Wall Street, with the knowledge she gained from founding and managing her own successful brokerage firm, Ms. Dentino anticipated the need for and created a business focusing solely on financial education, leading towards the establishment of The Financial 411 in 2001; a firm serving this very purpose. The company emerged in order to provide a relief from the all too common conflict of interest that exists in financial education firms, which largely promote product sales and asset management services, rather than honest and genuine financial advice. Today her firm and her services remain the only one of its kind, led by a qualified financial professional but without the influence of investment sales. While just recently others have begun to follow suite, because of the increased awareness regarding the importance of women in the financial world, they are either characterized by investment firm sponsorship and/or are led by those lacking real world experience with financial services that can only be gained from years of working in the trenches with various clients.

What Your Mother Never Taught You About Money

Linking many of the practiced steps used by Dentino in her professional and personal life, in 2009 Dentino wrote the first book in a series of What Your Mother Never Taught You About Money guides aimed specifically towards women. The book provides a comprehensive treatment of all things financial in which she began to outline her 10-step proprietary system for demystifying the process.

Her trademark applications enhance both empowered financial behaviors and overall economic efficiencies while simultaneously reducing stress and family tensions. Her powerful advice and programs include: What Your Mother Never Taught You About Money, Teach Your Children Well, The Financial 911, The Family Financial Summit, The Family Financial Fire Drill, and Women’s Fireside Chats.

A consummate presenter and favorite with audiences, Dentino loves speaking both with intimate groups and at conferences and providing corporate training's and consultations, in addition to her published articles, blog, and private client consulting. Many Silicon Valley money management firms have personally sought her advice, earning The Financial 411 a reputation for high standards and progressive services in both the Bay Area and Internationally.

Community

Always ready to share her atypical introduction to finance and her lengthy professional experiences with the community, Dentino has held Board of Director and Treasurer positions with three large non-profit organizations. She has also provided pro bono consulting for seniors, mentored women through community outreach programs, chaired several community fundraiser's, and presently volunteers her services as a community mediator. Only recently she stepped down from seven years of volunteer committee work in her town, Woodside, California, in order to devote appropriate time to her growing company and clients.

Qualifications

Among Teresa’s qualifications and advanced training's, she has earned the National Association of Securities Dealers licenses (NASD Series: 7, 3, 63, 65, and 24) in San Francisco in 1985, achieving the highest designation of General Securities Principal. Through the Chartered Financial Analyst program, she completed post-graduate studies in Economics, Financial Accounting, Equity Analysis, Fixed Income, and Quantitative Analysis. Teresa is also a certified mediator, a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst™, and maintains a California real estate salesperson license.

• Teresa Dentino's Curriculum Vitae

• Teresa Dentino's conference speaking and lectures

Ms. Dentino also serves as a member of the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs and Executives and she resides in Woodside, California. She enjoys various community service activities along with playing Polo, horseback riding, and riding with the local foxhunting club.

Learn more about The Financial 411's Financial Relationship Advisor and Certified Divorce Financial Analyst services.