Geri Pell
Lives in: Ardsley
Works in: Rye Brook
Title: President
Company: Geri Pell & Associates
Accolade of Interest: Pell is a registered financial adviser with the NFL Players Association
You could mistake Geri Pell”™s third-floor office at 800 Westchester Ave. for a spa.
ItӪs not unusual to witness a yoga pose on the roof or catch a whiff of the floral-scented d̩cor.
“I wanted a place where people could walk in and feel decompressed,” said the president of Geri Pell and Associates, a private wealth advisory practice of Ameriprise Financial Services. “I wanted a place that did not look like any other financial planning practice.”
She wanted to incorporate thematic elements like yoga, philanthropy, music and art into her office space ”“ all “things that have nothing to do with financial planning, but that most of our clients are engaged in.”
Named one of Barron”™s Top 100 Women Financial Advisors in the nation for two consecutive years, Pell has unintentionally carved out a niche for her practice ”“ about 65 percent of her clients are women.
“At one point in time, I became a single mom, so I was really able to empathize with women that were going through the experience of making decisions alone,” she said. “When you”™re making decisions alone, there”™s no one to hold you accountable and say, ”˜Did you cash that check?”™ or ”˜Did you change your 401(k) plan?”™”
Her role, she said, is to step in and to be more than a financial counselor to clients who have become like family. “My job is to help my clients be emotionally prepared for the certainty of uncertainty.”
That uncertainty could be economical, like the crash in the stock market Pell witnessed in 1987 just one year after launching her practice.
Though Pell is happily married and living in Ardsley with her musician-composer husband, she says she still relates to the plight of those who must stand on their own.
She sits on the board of directors of Treehouse Shakers, a nonprofit that brings the arts of dance and storytelling to underprivileged children through pro bono theatrical performances.
“They bring in busloads of children from Bed-Stuy who have never been over the bridge let alone in a theater.”
Pell also works with World Pulse, which connects women from all over the world through technology and social media.
“There are women in Rwanda who are getting microloans from women in Ohio.”
There is a push to give more women a voice. “They”™ve installed computers in places where women walk seven miles a day just to get to the Internet to type what”™s going on in their lives and communities,” Pell said. “Some get picked up as stories in the Associated Press (AP) wire”¦ it gets the real voices of citizen journalists in places like Darfur out into the world.”
