Tag: Career Resilience
The Healthy Advisor: When Pressure, Setbacks and Life Transitions Collide With Terri Kallsen

The Healthy Advisor: When Pressure, Setbacks and Life Transitions Collide With Terri Kallsen

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Terri Kallsen has had an outstanding career in financial services over the last 30 years. During her tenure at Charles Schwab, she led 7,000 employees and managed $1.6 trillion in assets, played a key role in transforming Wealth Enhancement Group as COO and over the last two years, she has been instrumental in building Rise Growth Partners, the RIA investing company started by former United Capital CEO Joe Duran. And this year, she’s serving as chair of the CFP Board, a huge undertaking.

Terri has done this all while raising three children, moving three times and being a mentor to many women and young professionals in the industry. The path was not always easy. Through it all, running has been a constant for Terri, and a form of therapy through stressful times. She has completed 21 marathons, 50 half-marathons and numerous triathlons, and she brings the same endurance, discipline and vision from the course to her approach in wealth management.

In this episode of The Healthy Advisor, host Diana Britton interviews Terri Kallsen, managing partner and head of partnerships at Rise Growth Partners and chair of the CFP Board, about her journey through leadership, ethical crossroads, and personal resilience. Terri reflects on integrity, fiduciary duty and building a career aligned with her true north.

She discusses:

  • Balancing executive leadership, motherhood and earning the CFP through intense life transitions
  • Choosing integrity over trends when fiduciary concerns conflicted with firm strategy
  • Building a wealth management culture grounded in planning, ethics and client focus
  • Using marathon training to develop discipline, resilience and long-term thinking
  • Finding clarity by defining your true north during high-pressure career moments

Resources:

Connect With Terri Kallsen:

Connect with Wealth Management:

About Our Guest:

Terri Kallsen, CFP, is an accomplished wealth management executive known for leading strategic initiatives and driving innovative solutions across both large institutions and rapidly growing RIAs. As Managing Partner and Head of Partnerships at Rise Growth Partners, a minority investor and strategic advisor to leading firms, she leads enterprise transformation for partner firms—supporting strategic planning, organic growth initiatives, client experience innovation, and platform and performance reporting enhancements. 

Before joining Rise, she served as Chief Operating Officer at Wealth Enhancement Group (WEG), where she oversaw advisor teams, platform and digital strategy, high-net-worth offerings, and trust services. Prior to WEG, she was Executive Vice President of Investor Services at Charles Schwab, where she led 7,000 employees and $1.6 trillion in assets under management. 

Known for her innovative thinking and commitment to advisor advocacy, Terri is a respected speaker and writer who has been featured in Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MSNBC, CNN, and other leading outlets. 

She has been recognized numerous times for her dedication to mentorship, empowering women in the workplace, and advisor advocacy:

– San Francisco’s Financial Woman of the Year in 2019

– InvestmentNews Women to Watch 2024 Female Trailblazer of the Year Finalist

– Named by Financial Planning as one of 20 People who will shape wealth management in 2025

– InvestmentNews Top Financial Professionals in the US | Hot List 2025

Terri currently serves as Chair of the CFP Board of Directors. She also sits on the Hollins University Board of Trustees. 

She earned a Bachelor of Science degree from College of Saint Benedict/Saint John’s University in Minnesota and a Master of Science degree from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. Terri earned her CFP certification in 2005 and is also a Certified Wealth Strategist. She received her Finance CFO Certificate at the University of Chicago Executive Education Program.

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The Healthy Advisor: Climbing the Ladder as a Single, Young Mom With Mary Saylor

The Healthy Advisor: Climbing the Ladder as a Single, Young Mom With Mary Saylor

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Mary Saylor had been working hard to earn her accounting degree at Penn State University when she got some shocking news at the beginning of her senior year—she was pregnant. And while many women would think of it as a roadblock, Saylor saw it as a blessing. It didn’t stop her from pursuing her degree and a career in financial services. If anything, it made her more determined.

 Not long after giving birth to her daughter, she graduated from Penn State and started working in corporate accounting roles, earning her CPA and working her way up the corporate ladder as a single mother in her early 20s. While she had the support of her firm and her family, the grueling hours and time away from home were difficult for her and her daughter.

 In this episode, WealthManagement.com Managing Editor Diana Britton speaks with Mary Saylor, Senior Director of Wealth Management at Choreo, an RIA with nearly $25 billion in assets under management and advisement, about her journey as a single, young mother working her way up in the industry.

 She discusses: 

  • Her initial shock and the support received after finding out she was pregnant during college
  • Her experience being pregnant on campus
  • How she navigated this big life change at a young age
  • The challenges of balancing work and personal life as a single parent in the industry
  • What kept her going during these hard times and motivated to be successful in her career
  • Lessons learned and moving forward as her daughter has now gone off to college

 Resources: 

 Connect With Mary Saylor: 

 Connect with WealthManagement.com:

 About Our Guest:

 Mary Saylor is the director of wealth management at Choreo. She works with high-net-worth individuals and multi-generational families as well as institutions (non-profits, endowments, foundations, and corporate retirement plans) to find solutions to their wealth management needs. Mary’s high-net-worth clients include corporate executives, professionals and business owners, their families, corporate retirement plans and private institutions.

 

If you have a struggle and wish to share your experiences and help others in similar situations, please reach out to Diana at diana.britton@informa.com.

 The Healthy Advisor podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Android, Stitcher, Spotify, and wherever podcasts are found.

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