When I joined Pitcairn in 1993, the firm had transitioned to become a multi-family office a few years earlier. Although there had always been strong women in the Pitcairn family, the firm was still a traditional, male-dominated financial services company. I had no idea that one day I would be the first female CEO and the first non-Pitcairn family member to serve as chairman of the board, but the history of the Pitcairn family should have clued me into the possibility.
In the late 1800s, John Pitcairn Jr., the founder of the family fortune, married Gertrude Starkey at a time when women were expected to marry young. Gertrude, however, insisted on marrying when she was ready, and made John wait four years before accepting his proposal.
Their marriage was a true partnership, one where Gertrude was as much a family leader and decision-maker as her husband. The values of her life are still shared by women in wealthy families, including the view that money is a means to connect family and community, not an end in itself.
When three of their sons established the Pitcairn family office in 1923, it was expected that its professional staff would serve the family’s women with the same diligence and high standards as they did its men. In other respects, however, the internal culture of the Pitcairn family office was a creature of its time and women rarely held any formal leadership roles.
That began to change when Pitcairn’s “auxiliary board” was founded in 1982 with the goal of training the next generation of firm directors. Fourth-generation family member (and later Chairman) Dirk Jungé stipulated that half of the family members who crafted its charter and would make up the auxiliary board should be women. From then on, the auxiliary board succeeded in advancing more women onto the board of the firm and into other leadership roles in both the firm and the family.
In my own work with our client families, it was obvious that women’s voices were not being heard. They may have been left out of the big decision-making, but these women knew exactly what was happening. They just didn’t know how to ask the right questions and not be made to feel inferior by the attorney or financial advisor they were working with. I was determined to see that women had a seat at the table —both within client families and within Pitcairn itself.
In 1996, with the backing of firm leadership, I organized the Women’s Forum at Pitcairn. In a supportive setting and surrounded by their peers, dozens of wealthy women were able to share their stories, questions, and concerns. For many of those present, the experience was liberating and sometimes emotional. One of my most vivid memories is of the women in one family who were moved to tears because this was the first time anyone had asked what they thought.
The Women’s Forum anticipated a sea change in family dynamics over the next two decades that would see more and more women become decision-makers for their families and more daughters prepare to manage wealth and assume leadership in the family enterprise. More women also became first-generation wealth creators themselves, with concerns that were different from those who had come into wealth through marriage, divorce, or inheritance.
Throughout my own leadership journey, I worked to drive change by forging relationships with colleagues and external thought leaders, including trusted women advisors like family office expert Barbara Hauser, whom we were later able to recruit to serve on Pitcairn’s board. Because my goal was always to build consensus, I saw that by “co-leading” in partnership with male allies and mentors I would be best positioned to help evolve Pitcairn’s people and culture.
When I was named Pitcairn’s CEO in 2012, I found myself confronting a new set of challenges. There were still some of the old guard inside Pitcairn who found the idea of a woman leader with a more holistic perspective on our work untenable. That was where my collaborative approach and years of painstaking relationship-building paid off, as colleagues came to trust that I was still the same person they had worked with for years.
I also made a point throughout my tenure to mentor and advance other women within the organization, several of whom went on to hold leadership roles elsewhere in the industry, increasing the representation of women leaders in wealth management.
Of course, as women become more “solidly at the table,” gender becomes less important than each individual’s needs, goals, and ideas—which can vary enormously. Pitcairn’s story of over 100 years shows why it is important for women to be at the table in the first place, both as wealth management professionals and as family members and leaders. I am truly grateful to have been part of that story and to make it part of my own.
