In the Leave-It-To-Beaver households of the 1950s, the husband made the money while the wife made the beds. Then came feminism and inflation, propelling the wife into the workplace. Do the traditional gender roles of the 1950s carry over to the office when the wife goes to work and, more particularly, when husband and wife work together? We studied the working relationships of three high-profile financial planning couples to test this theory, and you may be surprised at the results.

Michael And Karen Kabarec

About 30 miles northwest of Chicago in Palatine, Ill., Mike and Karen Kabarec operate Kabarec Financial Advisors Ltd. Married in 1975, the Kabarecs met and worked together in the corporate world, with which both became disillusioned. Mike left in 1981 to form the financial planning firm; Karen joined him two years later.

"Mike was sick of the corporate world, and I was ready for a change," says Karen Kabarec, who has her master's degree in microbiology. Because he is a CPA, Mike's financial planning practice included tax work, so Karen helped him during tax season. "Karen was my only employee at the time, besides a receptionist," says Mike. "She's intelligent and picked things up quickly."

But they were so busy at the time they didn't think about a long-term plan. "Neither of us thought about where it would end up," says Karen.

Now, 23 years later with four additional employees and 150 ongoing clients, Karen and Mike have settled into fixed roles in their firm after trying on a number of different hats. Says Karen, "I was going to become a planner and have my own clients. Now I have my CFP and a couple of clients, but [what we'd envisioned] is not really the way the business evolved."

Karen is now the "managing partner" at Kabarec Financial Advisors. "I realized I wasn't the best person to get on the phone and chit-chat with the clients," says Karen. Apparently, her skills are better suited to her present role, which is strategic planning, budgeting, bookkeeping, compliance, dealing with personnel problems and, most recently, planning the physical move of the firm into new office space. "At one time, Karen had a sizable client base, both tax and financial planning, but she transitioned most of the clients to me and our staff CFP," says Mike.

Mike says his role is "marketing, client relations, and golf." It might be a bit exaggerated to call him the firm's rainmaker, though, because after 23 years new clients appear at their doorstep without too much effort on Mike's part. Their clients come from NAPFA referrals, inclusions in "best-of" lists by Worth and Money magazine, and the occasional golf partner. "In the mid-80s, we got a client who was a senior Motorola exec who has since referred us about 12 high-level clients," says Mike.

In other words, the Kabarecs fit the age-old profile of a husband and wife's typical division of responsibilities. "Maybe it's a kind of evolution," says Karen, "where the woman stays home and takes care of the house which evolves to taking care of office." Says Mike, "It wasn't my dictate to her to manage the office; it was her clear choice."

Are the Kabarecs the norm, or is a different kind of evolution taking place elsewhere?

Lew And Karen Altfest

Like Karen Kabarec, Karen Altfest joined her husband, Lew, in his Manhattan-based firm several years after he opened L.J. Altfest & Company in 1982. Lew had been director of investment research at Lord Abbett & Co. "I didn't expect to become part of the firm, initially," says Karen. "I'd gotten my Ph.D. in history and was going to be a historian, but there were no jobs in the New York area when I graduated. I'd been hanging around Lew's business and meeting interesting clients, so finally I put two and two together."

Karen's job was loosely defined at first. "I just helped out, calling myself a client advocate. My job was to see that clients got everything they needed and to make sure things were getting out on time," Karen explains. This caretaker role was presumably familiar to Karen, having raised a son and a daughter since marrying Lew in the late 60s. But things changed. "I'm still a client advocate, but I do much more now," says Karen. "I enjoy clients' stories. That's what makes this business come to life for me."

So Karen, not Lew, heads the marketing department in their 15-employee firm, which serves 230 clients. She got her CFP in the early 90s, and is now the primary contact for many of the firm's clients. But that's just the start of her personal growth story. In 2001, Wiley published her book, Keeping Clients for Life, and she is the president-elect of the Financial Planning Association's New York chapter. Meanwhile, Lew's contribution remains what it's always been: Head Investment Strategist. "We have an investment committee to formulate changes to client portfolios," says Karen, "but Lew's vote equals that of all the other committee members." Investments are Lew's passion, and what he does best.

Like the working mother of today who earns a salary and still comes home to take care of the family, is Karen responsible for maintaining the "infrastructure" of L.J. Altfest & Company? "Lew does investing, I head up marketing, we're both financial planners, and we both do the administrative things [that need our attention], like compliance," says Karen. In other words, they share both the rewarding and the not-so-rewarding tasks. But who's really bringing in the new clients?

Says Lew, "When we started out together, it was true that I was bringing in the clients and Karen was holding the office together, but that's no longer the case. Karen has her own niche, which is women's issues. She does speaking, as do I. We both get quoted in the press, so we're both doing the rainmaking."

"This firm definitely has two rainmakers," says Karen. In fact, some types of rainmaking are probably easier for Karen than for Lew. "I love speaking," she says, "which isn't the kind of thing Lew takes to naturally."

Expanding on these differences, Lew says, "I'm more opinionated than Karen, and she may be more sociable than I am. None of this has anything to do with brainpower, but rather with personalities. Karen tends to be more optimistic and a greater risk-taker than I am. In our home life, Karen's more likely to be the one who sets up our social activities, while I'm more likely to be thinking about our strategy for the future. And that's what we do in the business, too."

"I evolved in my role over time, which is healthy," says Karen. "I wasn't doing the same job all the time."

Ron And Suzzette Rutherford

At Rutherford Asset Planning Inc., recently transplanted from New York to Naples, Fla., Ron's name isn't prominent because this husband and wife started the business together in 1986. In the early 1980s, Ron and Suzzette Rutherford prepared for their CFPs together and, in 1983, they both earned their CFPs and got married. Today, they maintain an intentionally smaller firm with one full-time employee and about 60 ongoing clients.

Unlike either the Kabarecs or the Altfests, the Rutherfords work as a team on each client right from the beginning, each carrying out their specialty. "I tend to focus on the investments, Suzzette on the financial planning," says Ron.

However, "Ron does the business development," says Suzzette, "because he's better at screening prospects. I'm the bleeding heart who would take almost any prospect. If Ron interviews a prospect and isn't sure [he or she would be a good client], I'll step in and do a second interview."

Like Karen Kabarec, Suzzette Rutherford reviews the company's books and oversees certain office duties, like making sure the rent gets paid and office supplies are topped off. But less similar to the Kabarecs' situation is the Rutherfords' versatility. "When I was getting my law degree a few years after we started the firm, Ron handled jobs that are now my responsibility, like getting out our newsletter, overseeing the books and other office management tasks," says Suzzette.

Nonetheless, Ron is the first point of contact for new clients, with certain exceptions. "We get some calls where obviously it should be me who makes the initial contact," says Suzzette. "It might be a prospect looking for a woman advisor, or it could be a family or couple." Adds Ron, "They may have seen an article about Suzzette in a magazine, so they ask for her."

Ron and Suzzette would say they're happy with their respective roles. "Our roles fit our skills, interests and the demands of the business," says Suzzette. And yet they can step in for each other as needed.

Which leads to the conclusion that married couples running advisory firms are basing their roles more on talent than tradition. "The important thing," says Suzzette Rutherford, "is for couples to find out what their strengths are, so all responsibilities are accounted for and things don't fall through the cracks." This sounds more like the goals any partners would have for their firm, married or not. Partnerships between unrelated parties require complementary skills and interests, and all three of our married couples demonstrate this as well.

And yet, there may be an advantage to being married and in business. Says Lew Altfest, "I think financial planning lends itself to couples working together. It's hard to find [a partner] in this business whom you can trust and respect. Many nonmarriage partnerships don't work out. So bringing in your spouse can make a lot of sense."

David J. Drucker, MBA, CFP ([email protected]), a fee-only financial advisor since 1981, is editor of the Virtual Office News monthly newsletter (www.virtualofficenews.com) and a principal in Practice Merger Consultants Ltd. (www.practicemergers.com).