Krawcheck is also the chairwoman of Ellevate Network (formerly 85 Broads Unlimited), an organization of female professionals that support other businesswomen.

She believes failing to network with other successful women is the biggest mistake women can make in their careers, particularly in their 30s, once they are established in a career and ready to start climbing the ladder of success.

She describes herself as a financial feminist. She says she had an “aha” moment when she realized that, despite her powerful presence, the financial world was being run by men for men—and kept women from reaching their financial goals. Now she has devoted her career to unleashing women’s financial power.

The investment gap between men and women is still wide open for a number of reasons, Krawcheck declares. For instance, factors such as life expectancy often are not taken into consideration when planning for women. “Women live longer than men, and if that is not taken into account, they will end up on the short end of the stick,” she says.

“Also, men like the game of outperforming the market, but women are not engaged in that. Their whole question is whether they will reach their goals and not about what happens in between.”

Because women are not getting good advice, they are often “keeping too much money in cash,” she says. “If women are not investing, they are costing themselves hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars over a lifetime.”

She also warns advisors against adopting the myths about women investors—that they are more risk-averse than men or take longer to commit to a plan. Or that they don’t understand finances and shy away from investing.

It’s perhaps not a coincidence that while women investors are not being catered to by most advisors, there is a perpetual dearth of female advisors. “Efforts are being made to improve the percentage of women in the field, but women have made up 14% to 16% of advisors since the beginning of time,” Krawcheck says.

She encourages women to join the financial field but warns them to be careful when picking a place to land. “If you are the only woman in the office, it means the company has missed what is going on demographically. The same is true for being appointed to a board of directors. You don’t want to be the only woman on the board. That is a warning sign that it is not an open environment,” she says.   

Sallie L. Krawcheck is a speaker at the 4th Annual Invest In Women conference, being held April 29-May 2 in Houston.