Building The Women of Burgundy with Anne Maggisano

In this episode, Bart is joined by Anne Maggisano, Vice President, Investment Counsellor at Burgundy Asset Management. Anne shares the story behind founding The Women of Burgundy—an initiative that has reached over 1,000 individuals and is dedicated to building a community that inspires women to make investing a priority and take a leadership role over their wealth.

She reflects on the early spark that inspired the initiative, how she garnered support within the firm, and the ways it has grown over more than a decade into the impactful community it is today. More than just an initiative, The Women of Burgundy also became the place where Anne found her own authentic voice as a leader. Throughout the conversation, she offers candid insights on her journey and how tapping into her values became the foundation of her leadership.

Show Notes:

00:58 Welcoming Anne
02:06 What is the Women of Burgundy?
02:41 Her personal experience that kicked it off
03:59 The investment business doesn't speak to women very well
04:36 The reason why women have been less involved, historically
05:06 Over time, women have built wealth 
05:55 Realization her women clients were not being as well served
06:14 When women lose their husband and have to take over wealth management
06:58 Story of her mother's experience
08:20 She brought this to Burgundy
08:34 What was the reaction like?
09:16 Wanted to ensure it was empowering and educational
09:49 Her manifesto that she pitched
11:21 Finding her own voice as a leader
11:47 It was hard!
12:40 It takes time for others to "get" what you're doing 
13:41 The story of the very first event
14:34 Changing women’s and men’s roles around wealth
14:54 Not data, but lots of anecdotal experience
15:40 The milestones of The Women of Burgundy
16:22 Moving online with COVID
17:08 Launching the magazine to widen outreach
17:41 The summit
18:46 CIBC report: women will control $4 trillion by 2028
21:15 Longer lives, but not health spans 
21:35 Families will have to care for the elderly
23:05 Talking about setbacks and challenges
23:21 When you're leading, take a long time
25:23 Leadership requires self-conviction
27:48 Advice for those starting a leadership journey
28:00 Make sure you're surrounded by supportive people
28:34 Having agency in your environment
29:58 The "How" evolves, but the "Why" stays consistent
31:07 You have to cultivate the support!
31:26 Examples of people coming around to support
34:07 The long game
34:33 The rocking chair test
35:57 Who do you want to be in that rocking chair?
37:01 Always stay true to your values
38:10 How to learn more about Anne & Burgundy
39:02 Last piece of advice
39:07 You're responsible for your own vision and future
40:05 Thank yous

Show Transcript:

Anne Maggisano: When you start something from scratch, you know, it takes some time for other people to understand what you're doing, to understand the vision, to understand why it's important. But when you're the leader, you're the one who has to have the conviction, and you have to live the values, and you have to be consistent around showing your commitment to the cause.

Bart Egnal: Welcome to the Inspire podcast, where we examine what it takes to intentionally inspire. I'm your host, Bart Egnal, President and CEO of the Humphrey Group. And if you've ever asked yourself how can you develop an authentic leadership presence or how can you tell stories that have people hanging off every word, well, then this podcast is for you. And it's not just for executives. This is a podcast for anyone who wants to influence and inspire others in their work, but also in their life.

So my guest on today's episode of the Inspire podcast is Anne Maggisano And Anne is, you've got a few credentials here I'm going to mention. to do you justice, you're a vice president and investment counselor at Burgundy Asset Management. And most relevant for our conversation today, you're the founder of the Women of Burgundy, and today you're co head of the group. and so, Anne, welcome to the Inspire podcast.

Anne Maggisano: Thank you, Bart. I'm excited to be here.

Bart Egnal: I'm excited to have you here. You're actually the second Burgundy leader to come on because we had your, I think he's retired, your Chief Investment Officer, Richard Rooney, on several years ago. Still one of our most listened to episodes about creating, culture. And I want to have you on because Burgundy has, obviously been provided, for me and my family for many years in terms of investing our capital. I know overall you manage 30 billion of capital. And I got connected to the amazing work you're doing at the Women of Burgundy. And so we got to know each other. And it's just such an inspiring story about what you've created, and I think so relevant, at this time that I want to have you on to talk about the Women of Burgundy.

So before we dive into it, for those listening, what is the Women of Burgundy and what are you all about?

Anne Maggisano: Thank you, Bart. And just for the record, Richard Rooney, who you had on the podcast, is still very much present. He is the vice chair of our board here at Burgundy Asset Management and very engaged in the business and a real mentor to me as well. So, it's kind of, an honor to be the second person who's on your podcast from Burgundy Women of Burgundy is an initiative that I founded in 2014 to inspire women to make investing a priority and take a leadership role over their wealth. it was born very much from a personal experience that I had with a client. This would be the fall of 2013, and I was meeting with this client, this couple, one on one in our offices. And the husband was very much taking the leadership role in the meeting and raising the conversation to a very sophisticated level. And me, in my junior, experience as a newfound investment counselor and wanting to prove that I was worthy to take care of this relationship, elevated my own conversation to match his. And following this meeting, I got a phone call from the wife who let me know that she hadn't understood a word that I had said in all the time that I was taking care of them. And, you know, that was a real wake up call for me in terms of whether I was serving the full nature of the relationship. And I understood quite clearly at that moment that only taking care of 50% of the relationship was really, failing to do my job as an investment counselor.

Bart Egnal: And, you know, thanks for sharing that story. I mean, I think, you know, there's a. I've read a lot over the years because, as you know, the Humphrey Group does a lot of work in the. Work in the space of the advancement of women. Throughout Taking the Stage program. I've read a lot that women are not as actively involved in managing their money and really that the investment business generally doesn't do a good job of speaking to women. So was that story and that woman's story, do you think that's common? And are there any statistics that you have that speak to that kind of broader issue in terms of underrepresentation, and education for women in the financial space?

Anne Maggisano: I don't have any statistics to speak of, but I can say that I do believe it is common. And I think it comes from the social, historical, and cultural norms that we all live in. Right. If you think of, in history and you think in our culture, typically a man would take a leadership role over the wealth. And there's lots of reasons in history why that would be. You know, women didn't enter the workforce until much later, so they had no wealth to think about building and investing over time. it wasn't until more recently that women, sort of, when you got pregnant, you could sort of keep your job. You were let go. even access to credit was very difficult to secure for women. So it really meant that building wealth was not a priority for women. in history. And so over time, of course, we've seen a lot of changes in, society where women have entered the workforce and we are building wealth. And so having a very deliberate and concerted effort to invite women to the table and to make sure that women are part of the conversation and learning and educating themselves to be empowered investors is part of, what we're trying to do. And it's important that the investment industry really does rally around this because of those social, historical, and cultural norms that really have held us back.

Bart Egnal: So maybe not. It wasn't perhaps surprising that that situation happened, but what was perhaps surprising and really courageous was that the wife had the courage to call you and say, this was over my head. Right. And so tell me, what did that led you to this epiphany, Right. That we need to do something. What happened once you had that epiphany? Because nothing like the women of Burgundy M existed. How'd you go from there to saying, we need to create something?

Anne Maggisano: You know, it's a very interesting moment because one of the things that she said to me when she called me up was she said that a friend of hers had just lost her husband and was trying to learn about investing and money for the very first time. And you know, that has happened many times in our business. This is not an unusual event where a woman might lose a husband and then has to take a leadership role over the money. But there was something in her story that resonated with me, and it goes back to me losing my own father a few years prior to this moment, and really helping to lead my mom through this experience of having to take on a leadership role over the wealth in our own family. And me as the eldest daughter, had.

Bart Egnal: She had any experience at the time of managing the family's finances when he passed away?

Anne Maggisano: She hadn't. My dad really took the leadership role in our family. And so I, as the eldest daughter and, also being in the investment industry, stepped up to help my mom navigate all the decisions that had to be made at that time. And I felt very fortunate because at the time, even though I was very junior, I had a support system here at Burgundy of people who I could bring who were experts in the field, and I could ask them questions, and we could make decisions that had to do with our family's assets, and we could protect the assets from my mom and make sure that she retained a quality of life that she has now. And that experience of navigating my mom through that made me very attuned to this woman's experience because she was looking forward to her own future and to her friend's future and. And sort of thinking that if she had to, at one point, take over the leadership role, over the wealth in her own family, that she would need to be empowered and educated around how to make decisions. And so I would say that while the event has been, is something quite common that we see in the investment business, my attunement to it was maybe much more primed, and therefore I was more receptive to the idea that we had to do something. And I took a leadership stand and went to my colleagues in the private client group here at Burgundy and told this woman's story and proposed a movement.

Bart Egnal: What was the reaction there? What was the reaction? And, I'm interested in two reactions. One, what was the reaction to this story? And then two, what was the reaction to you saying, we need to do something about it?

Anne Maggisano: The reaction to the story was very supportive. As I said, this is not an unusual event we've all experienced as an investment counselor, this moment in time where a woman is left vulnerable. And the fact that I was there. I was the only female, investment counselor at the time in the private client group.

Bart Egnal: Out of how many?

Anne Maggisano: at the time, it might have been eight or ten of us. And, it was actually my boss at the time, Joe Rooney, who said, we should do something. And sort of Joe and I got together and we had some brainstorming conversations. And I said to Joe, well, if we're going to do something around women and wealth, I want to be very clear that it's going to be educational. I wanted to make sure that everything we did was going to be empowering for women, was going to move them one step further in the journey to becoming better investors. And he supported me in that. And he went to the CEO of the firm at the time. And so we proposed doing an initial launch speech. And I spent some time writing down a vision or manifesto for what we would do if, we were to have an initiative around women in wealth.

Bart Egnal: What was in the. What was in your manifesto? Can you remember it?

Anne Maggisano: Of course. Of course. I remember it like it was yesterday.

Bart Egnal: Okay, let's hear it.

Anne Maggisano: It was really. It was just an intentional statement that we were going to take a leadership role around women and wealth. And I proposed three, strategic pillars that we would follow. And one of them would be that we would present role models to our clients, and we would take those role models from the firm and from broader members of the community, to really showcase women, what it looked like to, be empowered women around women, around, wealth and, business. And then we also. The second part of the strategy was to have an educational pillar. So that idea that every event that we did would be educational and would move a woman further along in her education and knowledge around investing. And the third pillar was community, because it was really important that as much as we were sort of educating women around investing, that they actually can educate each other around investing and support each other as well. So, those were the three pillars that we followed for many years, and we still follow today. That idea of inspiration, education, and community. And the way we deliver this message has changed over the years, and it's gotten much, deeper and more substantive. but the basic principles are still there.

Bart Egnal: And, Anna, I just want to take note of the fact that not only did this manifesto ultimately play out into building the women at Burgundy today, and I know you've reached almost 1500 people and you have 500 members who come to your events, but this was also a leadership moment for you. I mean, you had to find your own voice, right, and find the courage to speak up and bring forth an idea that was, you know, something that hadn't been thought. So tell me about your own courage in that moment. Was it hard to do this and what led you? Because I think people listening might say, look, you know, I want to bring about change too. What was it that enabled you to kind of articulate and that manifesto and share it?

Anne Maggisano: Oh, it was hard. It's hard to lead, and it is hard to step out into the unknown and to fight and champion for a future that does not exist yet. And at the time when we started, 20, 14, there were not a lot of examples. In fact, there were no examples of, the investment industry or the financial industry taking a leadership role around women in wealth. So I was very much carving a path in the unknown. I really sort of had to do a lot of soul searching. And I really relied on my firsthand experience of working with women to sort of guide me and to guide me in the, conviction that what we were doing was right. And I remember saying in those early days when we were doing events, if just one woman shows up, we've made a difference, and it's all worth it. And when you start something from scratch, you know, it takes some time for other people to understand what you're doing, to understand the vision, to understand why it's important. but when you're the leader, you're the one who has to have the conviction, and you have to live the values, and you have to be consistent around showing your commitment to the cause. And we had many events where I kept saying that over and over. If just one woman comes, then we have made a difference and it's all worth it. And now, as you said, we've sort of impacted over 1500 women and men who have come to our events. And there's probably around 470 who come regularly. And we have a magazine.

Bart Egnal: I was at one of your events recently. They're fabulous events, and I do love that they're inclusive of men as well. So it was great. I came with my mom, and it was a wonderful experience to learn, but also build community as you talked about, and meet some role models. So I see the three pillars are still there.

And, so let's go that first event, because more than one woman showed up, right? Tell us about the very first kickoff event for women of Burgundy.

Anne Maggisano: Well, the very first kickoff event, we had invited about 60 women to attend, and there were two men in the room. Tony Arrow, the chair of Burgundy. He was the CEO at the time, and Joe Rooney, who I mentioned was the head of the private client group at the time. And I delivered the speech. And that speech is, up on our website, so if anyone wants to read it, we'll link to it in.

Bart Egnal: The show notes, for sure. I think it's a great read. It's worthwhile.

Anne Maggisano: And, I shared the speech. And in the speech, I shared this woman's story. And I was very open about my own limitations, I would say, in terms of taking care of that couple and my own desire to change and transform myself and my own biases around my understanding at the time of who was primarily responsible for wealth and to change that relationship between women's roles and men's roles as it relates to wealth. I, told that story of that woman. And, many other women in the room came up to me after the event and said that experience was very resonant with them, and they felt the same way.

So, you know, you asked me a question. Do you have any figures or facts, to support why women are underserved in the investment community? And I would say I don't have any figures or facts, but I have lots of anecdotal experiences of women coming up to me and saying, this is important. We need this. This matters. And, propels me forward. All of those women who have come up to me to say, keep Going.

Bart Egnal: And I think you have kept going. And I think if we kind of just do the. Almost like the montage, right, of all that has happened. You've taken that first event and you've built on it. Take me through. If you think from 2014 to almost 11 years later at the summit that I just attended, the evolution of the Women of Burgundy, what are the big milestones of that evolution that stand out to you chronologically?

Anne Maggisano: So when we started, we came up with a series of smaller events that we would do so. Keynote speaker events, educational seminars, and a book club. And we did those quite consistently for many years. And they were designed to attract different types of women, women who are very sophisticated investors or women who are new to investing. And we were trying to really sort of make sure that we understood women as a, ah, very broad spectrum from novice to sophisticated. And we take care of many women across that spectrum through, our Women of Burgundy initiative. and then what happened was the COVID pandemic happened, and we were forced to move our events online. And that was a very interesting experience, a milestone moment, I would say, in the sense that we had to decide that we were going to continue to nurture our community, even with all the barriers and the constraints of the COVID pandemic. So I'm very proud of how we led, our, clients and our community through that period of time, at that time.

Bart Egnal: And you also launched a magazine, too, around that time, didn't you? Which I see it's for those. You can't see it, for those listening. But, Minerva, you've got the issues behind you in our screen on the wall.

Anne Maggisano: In 2019, a couple of milestone events happened. I brought on a colleague to partner with me in Women of Burgundy, Lisa Ritchie. She is now Ret. But together we launched a magazine. And the point of the magazine was really to widen, the education and broaden our outreach so that we could impact all of our clients, not just people who could come to our events and also impact everybody in the community who wanted to learn alongside of us. So that happened in 2019. And it's been an amazing vehicle, for which to widen our reach and to spread our impact across. Across Canada, I would say.

Bart Egnal: And then you did a summit. Then we're coming out of COVID everyone. You kept the community going. In 2023, you did your first summit. What was a summit? Why a summit? And what was the difference? The evolution there?

Anne Maggisano: So the evolution of the summit coincides with also a change in leadership with Women at Burgundy. Lisa Ritchie retired and a new co lead came on board. Her name is Rachel Davies and she runs our office out on the west coast. And what we wanted to do is we wanted to use all of our history, of all of we have built and maximize the impact we were making in our community. And we realized that if we did a summit, which would be a half day event, and we focused on a topic that was of relevance to women, that we could potentially make a bigger impact and we could mobilize change in behavior and mobilize more women to come to the table. And so that initial summit was on the topic of generational wealth. It is an important topic. We are in the midst of a transfer of wealth from one generation to the next and also a transfer of wealth from men to women. There's a CIBC report that I often refer to, it came out in 2019 and it shows that women will control almost 4 trillion of investable assets in Canada by 2028. And that's up, from 2.2 trillion in 2019. So you can see.

Bart Egnal: And why is that? Why? I mean, that sounds like a real positive. Why will women control double the investable assets in such a short time?

Anne Maggisano: Oh, there's a number of reasons, if you think of the demographic shift, sort of with people getting older and women tend to live longer than men, so women will inherit, wealth from their spouse. There's also the transfer of wealth from one generation to the next generation, with many daughters inheriting wealth that their parents built over time. We see women in the labor force, you know, sort of now it's quite common for both couples of a family to be working. In fact, in many families, that's the only way that they can make, a living possible, in this expensive.

Bart Egnal: City, Toronto, that we're in.

Anne Maggisano: Exactly, exactly. So we're seeing women in the labor force. We see women making significant amounts of wealth and wanting to really surround themselves with the best thinkers and leaders around investing so that they can build their own wealth for the future.

Bart Egnal: So all trends that are very positive and that coincide with the rise of women of Burgundy, we're seeing more representation and more agency in the managing and building of wealth.

Anne Maggisano: Yes, exactly. And I feel, it's incumbent on us in the industry to really make sure that women are aware and families are aware of what's happening in the market so that we can prepare families for this future. If we start, and we think about those historical, cultural and familial norms that really hold women back, you know, we can break that down, and we can show women another way, and we can support them and nurture them to be very, competent and successful investors. And, it's an amazing.

Bart Egnal: And that's why I know your summit, that first summit, was success. And now the impact, the one I just came m to, around aging and all the financial implications around aging are so valuable because, you know, there it is, you know, me and my mom able to come and talk about challenges of aging together. So you really are making impact beyond just individuals. It's really families as well. So. Yeah.

Anne Maggisano: Yeah. Thank you. Impressive, that summit that we did last year. Such an important conversation. I'm so proud of the work that we did. And, you know, we're in the midst of a demographic shift with people living longer lives, but our health spans are not increasing at the same rate. So what's happening is many of us will, in the future, be living in a period of time where the gap between our health span and lifespan can be a period of nine to ten years. and if you think about that and what that means for families in a, society where our healthcare system is not set up to take care of an aging population, that means that a lot of the onus and responsibility will go on families to support themselves and take care of themselves, and that has financial implications. So, from our perspective in the investment industry, we really want to bring attention to this issue so that we can prepare families for the financial costs of aging, which include caregiving, and other aspects of supporting oneself and ensuring that families can design the quality of life that they want as they age. But financially being prepared for it, but also more than financially being prepared for it, to think about the legal aspect of it and also the family dynamics, that will change as we sort of look to, the Generation X coming in to support their aging parents. And what does that mean in terms of family, dynamics? And it's quite a rich and complicated problem, but it's really important for families to keep it top of mind and to start to engage in conversation about this with their advisors and with their family.

Bart Egnal: So, an amazing run in a decade plus women. Burgundy. It's a great success story, right? Everything you've achieved. But I know that behind the successes, it's kind of like investing. You may look at the growth of the assets under management, but there are dips and challenges. If you think back over the last decade and the leadership that you've shown and the people you've partnered with to build it, what were some of the setbacks you faced. What were some of the leadership challenges or darker moments that you had to overcome, to kind of continue on this path?

Anne Maggisano: it's a great question. I mean, one of the things when you're leading change at this scale is that takes a long time for change to happen. And it's never a straight line. There's always sort of steps forward and then there's steps back. And there are moments that test your values and test your conviction around whether you will continue to be an advocate and champion for women or whether it's easier to step back.

Bart Egnal: What was the moment where you came, if you think about the last decade, what was the moment you came closest to quitting?

Anne Maggisano: I don't think I have ever come close to quitting.

Bart Egnal: I would say, okay, that's great.

Anne Maggisano: I would say the moment that we decided to go from a smaller event series to the summit was an important moment where I really needed to stand up, for the work that we were doing. You know, it required a much bigger commitment from the firm, not just financially, but also in terms of bringing more resources to bear on the summit. More resources in terms of people's contribution to the event, in terms of support, from our team internally here, and in terms of my own conviction that we could actually do it and do it in a way that was going to lead to, something good for our clients and for the community and establish ourselves as leaders, in the industry.

Bart Egnal: So you really had to win people over and convince them that it was worth it.

Anne Maggisano: I would say the first person I needed to convince and win over was myself. So I, remember I had the idea and I would talk about the idea and I said, I think we need to do this. But you know, there's lots of potentially self doubt that would have been part of that decision. And I think that's true of all leadership. That's sort of the first person that you need to convince inspires.

Bart Egnal: If you're not convinced, why will anyone else be?

Anne Maggisano: Exactly. And then once the moment arrived that I sort of like had my own confidence and conviction in it and I just sort of started talking to people internally and shared that conviction, then the support came right away. So, you know, I always think when it comes down to leadership and you're trying to do something new and on a bigger scale, you have to start with yourself. And you have to start by convincing yourself that the status quo is not good enough, that that future vision that you're aspiring to requires change. To be self aware enough to understand that Actually, some of the things or activities that you may have done in the past, may be a barrier or an obstacle to reaching some greater future, to letting go of the past. So, for example, in this case of moving towards the summit, we needed to let go of our model of doing a book club and a smaller educational series and keynote speaker events. We had really let that go. That required a lot of courage to do that, because it was. Because it worked.

Bart Egnal: Because the smaller one was working. And this one could blow up.

Anne Maggisano: Exactly, exactly.

Bart Egnal: And as much as you say, if one woman shows up, if just one person showed up to the summit, that probably wouldn't count as a success.

Anne Maggisano: That's exactly right. And so.

Bart Egnal: Oh, and I also just want to add, for people who are listening, who don't know, this is not your day job. I mean, the interesting thing is, like, how many clients do you serve on a day to day basis?

Anne Maggisano: I probably have over 130 clients, that I take care.

Bart Egnal: I think what's so impressive is that you, like, no one was hiring you to do the Women of Burgundy, right? You were. This was something you have a deep passion and conviction for, and you've come back to that again and again, that you essentially added a second job to your. To your profile and did this. And, you know, I think that what we're talking about here, and I love the way you say you have to start by convincing yourself and then be willing to abandon it.

I think this kind of brings us to maybe a final important section for us to talk about in this conversation, which is really your own lessons for people listening. I mean, people listen to the pod, and I think they'll be, impressed by what women in Burgundy do. But I think in some ways, the real story here is you as well. I know you're very humble, it's like the Women of Burgundy, but your leadership journey in making this happen. So I think people listening would probably want to ask you, what lessons do you have for me if I want to lead this kind of change? And so you've shared one already, which is. Is convince yourself. Right? Convince yourself. And that will allow you to convince others. What would be a second lesson that you would share to people listening maybe who haven't yet started this journey of leadership?

Anne Maggisano: There are a few lessons that, come out of it. The first one, of course, is that idea of leading yourself. It all starts with you. The second idea that I think is very important for anybody who wants. Wants to lead transformation, whether it is in your own career journey or whether you Want to lead an initiative at this scale is to make sure you're surrounded by people who are supportive of your, of the growth and the transformation. And that is a constant work and constant deliberate practice. If you know that term of deliberate practice.

Bart Egnal: Yeah, and tell me what you mean by that, because you know that sounds counterintuitive that it's a deliberate practice to be surrounded by people who support you. I mean, isn't it either a, isn't it binary? You're in an organization where people support you or you're not. Tell me more about that.

Anne Maggisano: I would say if you want to have some agency around sort of the environment that you have, and I think that's very important if you're a leader, to have agency around not just sort of the vision of where you want to go and where you think it's right for the organization to go, but have some agency in terms of sort of helping other people in the environment understand why that is the direction that is important. And it's a kind of leadership that is a relational leadership style where you're in constant dialogue, with different people in the firm to help the them understand what you're doing and why you're doing and what that vision is and what it could mean for the firm and what it could mean for the clients. And that relational aspect of leadership is, I think it's quite underestimated in terms of its power and its value. Because if you look at models of leadership today out in the world, sort of the dominant model of leadership out in the world is really command and control. And it's one person who's saying, here's where we're going to go and sort of everybody else is going to follow. But I think that's maybe good for some events in the short term, but it doesn't lead to long term or.

Bart Egnal: Media sound bites or sound bites.

Anne Maggisano: Exactly. But it doesn't really lead to long term sustainable change. And when you have a vision, that is as big as ours, which is to empower women around their wealth, this is a long term game and it requires long term sustained and consistent effort to achieve it. Again, the how in terms of how you get there will always evolve. The why will always be consistent. And the thing that you can realize as a relational leader is that you may have a, why that is relevant to you and your own experience and what you've heard from clients, but other people who start to come on board and support you, they have their own whys and all of those whys are valid. And what you need to do as a leader is you need to be the one who sort of comes out and shares your why. And then you open the door, and you open the conversation for other people to come to you and show their support in the ways that they can support and share the stories that they want to share.

Bart Egnal: And something you. Oh, sorry. Just jumping. But something that you said really struck me, right? Being in an environment. You talked about the importance of being in an environment that's supportive to your success, where you have people who support what you're trying to do. And yet you also said, as a leader, you have the agency to cultivate that. And so I think that's a really important point, because I've heard people say, oh, there's no support for that, or, oh, people don't want to do that. And what you're saying is, is it's actually incumbent on you, when you begin with that conviction, to then cultivate that support. It's not a fixed.

Back to my question. Is it there or not? No, it has to be built. Can you think about. If I'm right on that, can you think about someone who maybe initially wasn't supportive, but who, through this relational leadership that you practice, became a champion of Women of Burgundy?

Anne Maggisano: I would say, it's a bit more nuanced than that, in the sense that one of the things about Burgundy, it's a very entrepreneurial culture. And when I came up with the idea, and it's true for many initiatives here at Burgundy and at the firm, that if you come up with an idea, it's great. Just run with it.

Bart Egnal: Right. Go for it.

Anne Maggisano: So, we all say, be careful which ideas you come up with.

Bart Egnal: You'll be told to do it.

Anne Maggisano: Exactly, exactly.

Bart Egnal: No good deed unpunished.

Anne Maggisano: Yeah. I would say where the nuance is is that, you know, at some point, you're sort of driving it by yourself. But in order to achieve a massive scale, like the scale that we have now, you have to realize, and other people need to realize that they're part of it as well. And so I would say that, you know, if there's a moment where a switch flipped, for example, it was in the process of me sort of, embracing this bigger vision and sort of including other people in the vision, and other people starting to realize, okay, now they have a role to play because it's bigger than me. And that's always been part of Women of Burgundy and part of the integral design of it, which was that you Know, we're leading an initiative that. Where every woman has a role to play, and even men have a role to play in terms of sharing their perspective on what we stand for and what matters, and inviting in a multiplicity of voices to lead events and, to take a leadership stance on a stage in front of our clients. You know, those voices are senior voices, but they're also more junior voices. and that's all valid and it's all important. And including that diversity and richness and multiple voices in the initiative, extending that beyond just the people within our firm, but extending those to our clients who have taken a leadership stand and stood on our stages to talk to other clients, to other members of the industry as well, giving them a platform to share their perspective. You know, that's where the richness and the depth comes from. And it creates a lot of momentum for change. And if you want to think about change at a massive scale, you know, one person can't do it by themselves. You need lots of voices who are coming in and who are leading change in their own domains. And that's something that I'm very proud of with Women of Burgundy.

Bart Egnal: Yeah. And I think you've really put your finger on. It's not dealing with converting non believers. It's just creating engagement.

Anne Maggisano: Exactly.

Bart Egnal: So the last point we talked about when we were preparing for this call, when we talked about the lessons that you had, is this idea of the long game. I mean, you've been in this for 11 years now, and you've referenced in our conversation that this kind of change just takes time. what advice would you have for people listening about kind of having that long range mindset and sustaining energy through the inevitable ups and downs and ebbs and flows of commitment, both in the firm and societally, to this kind of change?

Anne Maggisano: You know, I have a test that I often talk about. It's called the rocking chair test.

Bart Egnal: Okay.

Anne Maggisano: And I've used it many times in my career because I have a very unusual path to investing. I have a science degree in art degree. and then I got into investing, and I remember when I was doing my art degree, it was really challenging because my family wasn't fully supportive of.

Bart Egnal: How will you make money with this art?

Anne Maggisano: Exactly, exactly.

Bart Egnal: Don't you know, Anne, you're the elder. This daughter.

Anne Maggisano: Exactly.

Bart Egnal: Give this up and take sciences.

Anne Maggisano: Exactly. Like, I kind of had this feeling, that there will be. That they were waiting for me to come back onto the sort of.

Bart Egnal: That's right.

Anne Maggisano: Onto the path that was, when will.

Bart Egnal: You stop failing us.

Anne Maggisano: And I just remember thinking to myself, gosh, I don't want to be an 80 year old woman and never have immersed myself in all of the richness of art and history and philosophy and culture that I was learning through my art history and film degree. And that sustained me because it was really hard for me to do that art history degree. I came from a science background and so the idea of writing essays, on paintings where there's just a, you know, one line down a canvas and you have to write a 20 page essay, that was a very daunting task. And I often came back to that, that test of who do you want to be? And I've used that test many times, in my career. And I find it to be a, great anchor because what you have then is you have that long distance perspective that anchors you, that long distance vision of who you want to be, and you give yourself a break in terms of when you need to achieve it. So, you know, to say to yourself, as a woman who's potentially starting out in investing now, you know, I don't know anything about investing. It's too late for, for me. actually, if you think about the lifespan you have between now and we're all living longer ages, there's probably decades, multiples of decades in there where you can really learn, about investing. And so just being consistent about it and learning how to manage your wealth and coming to the table and surrounding yourself with experts, who are there to support your growth and nurture your growth, you know, that that is a really important and valuable thing to remember. And the other thing I would say that's very, very important in some challenging times is to always stay true to your values. Because the future is inherently unknowable. We're in a moment in time where there's lots of change and disruption in the world and it's hard to know where to find your ground. It's easy to be destabilized. And at the end of the day, I think what you have to do is you have to really anchor yourself into your values, into what matters to you, and how you want to meet each challenge that comes your way and use your values as your anchor. And that has been, a strategy that I have used many times in my career when I've been confronted with challenges, with uncertainty, and needed to make my next step.

Bart Egnal: And clearly they've served you well as the Woman of Burgundy has gone from that first convert, first idea, first conversation with Joe, first event where More than one person showed up to the events you're doing today.

So, Anne I want to thank you for coming on and sharing the story at the Women of Burgundy and also sharing your own story. I think it's a tremendous, tremendously instructive for what's possible when you. You start with strong convictions, as you said, and have that kind of North Star of what you want to achieve. I think women, and I think anyone listening to this podcast may want to learn more, may want to educate themselves. I know that's a pillar at the heart of Burgundy, and, I know Burgundy. We've already referenced that. We'll put a link to the initial speech you gave. But what other resources do you have that, people can access to deepen their knowledge in this space?

Anne Maggisano: Well, I encourage everyone to go to our website, burgundyasset.com women. And we have all of the resources from our events, that have been consolidated into our magazines.

Bart Egnal: They're all freely available there, and they're great magazines. I think it's well worth it. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

And if you ended with one piece of advice to people listening, about their own leadership and their ability to make an impact in the world, based on your experience, what would it be?

Anne Maggisano: It would be that, you're responsible for your own vision, you're responsible for your own future, and it's up to you to have agency and action and commitment towards achieving that. One of the things that I often see is that people. It's, very easy for people to look to the environment and to say, oh, you know, the environment's not right, or, I'm not getting support, or I'm not getting an opportunity. And the reality is we always, always have a choice, and we always can use the environment to lead us to our next choice. And sometimes that's very difficult to do. But if we keep in mind that we always have agency and we always have choice, then we can work towards achieving our dreams for ourselves. And I think that's very important for people to remember to, believe in yourself and to work towards that future that you just.

Bart Egnal: Well said. And you and women at Burgundy are proof of that. So thank you so much for coming on the Inspire podcast and for the conversation.

Anne Maggisano: Thank you, Bart. And I also want to thank you for all the work that you do to support people in finding their voice. It's really an, you know, it's an important thing to have the power of your own voice, and you've done a lot of work to unleash people's potential there. And I want to thank you for all of that.

Bart Egnal: I appreciate that. The pleasure is mine. So thanks, Anne. And, thanks for coming on the show.

Anne Maggisano: Thank you, Bart.

Bart Egnal: I hope you enjoyed that episode of the Inspire Podcast and the conversation that I had, with our guests. And hopefully you left with some really practical, tangible tools and tips that you can use to be more consistently inspirational.

If you're enjoying the pod, I'll ask you a favor. Please rate and review it. I love the comments, appreciate the reviews. And the visibility allows others to discover the pod. It's really how word of mouth has spread the Inspire Podcast to so many listeners and helped us keep making this great content. Stay tuned. we'll be back in two weeks with another inspiring conversation. Thanks so much for listening. Go forth and.