Meet Anjali Jariwala- a financial advisor, CPA, CFP and the Founder of Fit Advisors, a company that helps physicians and business owners with their financial problems.
Who knew a mere habit of sharing financial advice with family and friends would make one realize that there was a lack of access to people about personal financial information. As a result, she decided she could make a bigger impact in the lives of people by starting her own form. Being a big proponent of financial literacy, she began sharing her knowledge and experience on her podcast, Money Checkup.
Talking about how it all started, she says, “My parents were immigrants, so my upbringing was similar to the children of other immigrants. I grew up in the middle class and learned about the value of money at a very young age- which made me want to be self-sufficient. I also had a lot of internal struggle with money and the emotions related to it, that I knew needed to be worked upon.”
The story of how she ventured into the world of financial planning is quite intriguing. “I came across this profession through my husband, a physician, who was pursuing his MBA at that time and took a class on personal financial planning. He told me about it and suggested that I could pursue it too. At first, I was hesitant to make the switch but eventually, ended up talking to his professor. After talking to him, I realized that he and I had a similar background- a CPA who worked in tax and then transitioned to financial planning and started his own firm. For the next 1.5 years, I worked with prestigious financial firms but couldn’t enjoy myself. I couldn’t find a firm that had its values aligned towards the benefit of people,” she says.
That’s how Anjali took a leap and started her own firm.
Prior to launching Fit Advisors, her realization that there was a lack of a proper advisory related to financial planning as professionals didn’t have the time to pull it all together, pushed her even more to start her own firm, through which she knew she could make a bigger impact.
Fit Advisors is a financial planning firm that helps physicians and business owners- young professionals like her and her husband, that may also have young children and have a lot of moving pieces in their life. “They want an advisor who understands them, their unique needs and respects their goals and values. Today, I work with a lot of first-generation immigrants and have a diverse client base. I also work with businesses that are minority/women-owned to help them grow and fund their personal goals,” she says.
When she started her venture, it was still a very new concept to have a planning-focused firm versus a firm that predominantly manages assets. It was also very new to charge on a flat retainer versus charging on assets under management. Since this was a new concept, she had to create everything from scratch and didn’t really have a mentor or any role models to follow. “There was a lot of trial and error to figure out what worked and what didn’t work. Since I felt like I didn’t have anyone to look up to when I started my journey, I try to make myself available to other women who are starting out, in order to mentor them and help them grow their respective firms,” she says.
Today, Anjali has been named Investment News Top 40 under 40 for 2019 and named one of Financial Advisor magazine’s Young Advisors To Watch for in 2020. She has also been featured in CNBC, Bloomberg, US News and World Report, New York Times, USA Today, Business Insider, Investment News and almost every prestigious platform in her country.
She contemplates what worked for her- “There is a lot of work with the clients and we are just not focusing on numbers but rather than these underlying feelings and attitude. Once we can uncover them and talk through them, our clients are empowered to make better financial decisions for themselves. I believe you should create the business you want and try to ignore the noise that attracts you from your vision- and see what difference will it make!”