Team Member Spotlight
Meet Savannah Warren, our Senior Client Service Associate. Savannah joined MFA before the pandemic and recently celebrated her fifth year with us. She’s one of the rare birds that has worked on both the Advisor Team and the Operations Team.
Savannah vacationing in Florence, Italy, last year
Why did you choose to become a financial advisor?
My dad has always been passionate about personal finance, so I grew up hearing about different account types and learning how to budget my birthday and Christmas money. Before I turned 18, I had a consistent Christmas gift of a contribution to my 529 college savings account. Once I turned 18, that consistent Christmas gift changed to a contribution to my Roth IRA.
My parents had a pretty close relationship with their personal financial advisor. I remember going to his office an hour away for a meeting a couple of times a year. Of course, I was never allowed in the room, but the rest of the office staff always gave me candy and let me play on their computers. As I went through college, I knew that I wanted my career to be focused on helping people, and with the relationship I saw my parents form with their advisor and the interest in budgeting and investing I picked up from my dad, it felt like such a natural path for me to pursue.
What’s a memory from your client interactions that’s stayed with you?
One of the first clients I worked with always made a point to ask how I was doing and what was new in my life, despite the fact that during the meetings I tended to stay in the background, keeping detailed notes and making sure I understood the nuances of their specific situation. I ended up being the person building their cash flow scenarios to determine if they were able to retire a bit early and make a meaningful move out of San Francisco. I remember walking them through the scenarios, and Wa reassuring them that they could make the jump. I was so happy to see that we were able to help give them the peace of mind to make such a big move, and I think even without what came next, this would still be an impactful interaction for me.
But what really made it special for me, was that when I was looking to move to San Francisco, these clients sent me houses and apartments to look into, where they knew the area was safe and there would be activities I would enjoy. When I made the move, they sent me lists of restaurants I should try, and some of their favorite dishes from when they were living in the city. I was so moved that, even though I wasn’t always leading the conversations in our meetings, we were still able to develop a relationship of mutual care for each other.
Why are you excited to be part of MFA?
I’m excited to be a part of MFA because I love being a part of a company that cares about the clients’ best interests. I think a lot of financial advisory firms get a bad reputation for pushing sales regardless of what’s best for clients and that’s not the case at MFA. I’ve been at the company for five years now, and it’s been my first “real” job after college, and it really does make me optimistic to have had conversations with all of my colleagues and to know how much everyone truly cares about the people we work with.
If you could change one thing in the financial advisory industry, what would it be?
I’d love to see more diversity of advisors in our industry! We serve so many different types of clients, it only makes sense to have advisors representing these different segments as well. Advising and investment management specifically tend to be a very male dominated career field. I’d love to see more women, and especially more young women take an interest in finance as well.
What’s something people might not know about you?
People may not know that in my off hours, I’m a video game enthusiast. I mostly play Old School RuneScape, but have picked up World of Warcraft in the last few months as well. Last year, I defeated the most difficult boss in the game, which only about one percent of players ever finish. The game is also incredibly male dominated. There were only seven women in my group of 300+ people, so it’s always made me proud to compete in that space.