A few years ago, financial advisors Lazetta Rainey Braxton and Rianka Dorsainvil connected at a financial industry event. They hit it off.
At the time, both women were solopreneurs. Braxton headed Financial Fountains, a fee-only financial planning and registered investment advisory firm she founded in 2008 that served clients from around the country. And Dorsainvil owned Your Greatest Contribution, a fee-only virtual firm she founded 2015 in Lanham, Md.
“We just became really good colleagues and friends, and realized that our passion for serving people overlooked by Wall Street was something that we both shared and really wanted to serve people who were like-minded, represented our communities,” Braxton said.
The women recently joined forces to create 2050 Wealth Partners, a virtual fee-only financial planning and wealth management firm seeking to create an alternative financial planning experience that honors the mosaic of the American population.
“It’s pretty cool to have a business partner that you really enjoy being around. It’s kind of like a marriage,” Braxton said.
Dorsainvil said the two feed off of each other’s energy. “As you are building a practice any type of a business can have its ups and downs, but to have a partner who cares about financial planning and serving clients comprehensively is amazing,” she said.
Braxton said what’s important to them as partners is creating a sense of diversity, inclusion, equity and belonging. She explained that with the changing demographics in the U.S. and globally, it’s not either or, it’s both.
The firm’s name, 2050 Wealth Partners, was chosen to reflect the year that the minority population will become the majority in the U.S. “And if we want to continue to grow and strive as a financial planning profession, we have to start serving and start looking like the mosaic that America is transitioning into,” she said. “And Lazetta and I are a pure representation of the mosaic that America is transitioning into.”
Braxton is African American and Dorsainvil is African American and Hispanic. The women are among the less than 2% diversity of the more than 80,000 certified financial planners in the U.S.
Both Braxton and Dorsainvil are proponents of diversity and inclusion and providing access to financial planning. Braxton has served as chair of the Association of African American Financial Advisors, and as a board member of the Foundation of Financial Planning.
Dorsainvil, an advocate for young professionals, served as president of the Financial Planning Association’s NexGen community, where she focused on the cultivation of the next generation of financial planners. In 2018, she launched 2050 Trailblazers, a podcast focusing on diversity and inclusion in the financial planning profession.
Launching their new business venture in February, which is Black History month, is significant for both.