How Does Karen Finerman Do It?

How does she do it? This week, we decided to ask Karen Finerman, the indomitable host of the How She Does It Podcast and co-host of InvestingFixx, HerMoney’s investing club for women, how she makes it all happen. Between her role as CEO of Metropolitan Capital Advisors, being a panelist on CNBC’s Fast Money, serving as a Wharton board member, and being a mom to two sets of twins, she does it ALL. We knew it was time to share her incredible story. 

SUBSCRIBE: New episode drops every Monday! Subscribe to How She Does It on Apple Podcasts so you never miss the latest!

Karen Finerman says knew the path she wanted to take from a young age. She was just fifteen when she decided that a career in finance was for her. After graduating from Wharton, she was hired as a risk arbitrageur on Wall Street working under her coworker and mentor Jeffrey Schwarz. “There’s a lot of strategy to it,” Finerman says. “It moves very quickly, and I found it exciting. Options were a relatively new thing in the market at the time, and you could really use them for a lot of different things in takeover deals. Very big swings in stocks could happen. And options were great tools to use. I just loved it.” 

After a few years, Karen and her mentor decided to open a hedge fund together, Metropolitan Capital Advisors. They’ve been running it since 1992. “I really owe a lot to Jeffrey, who gave me so many opportunities and was always teaching me and just my champion,” Finerman says. “But I was aware that people were hesitant to give women money to invest. I know there’s sort of a deep-seated chauvinism in that people are used to having men manage money. I think that’s changing, but it’s slow.”

Finerman has long been a champion for women on Wall Street, but when she was contemplating taking the job as a panelist on CNBC’s Fast Money, she recalls being afraid of what people might say, because no “serious” hedge fund manager would ever be on TV — the more clandestine they were the better! And what if she failed? What would people think? 

She ultimately accepted the offer a week later because, as she says, “We can’t wait for the fear of failure to subside, we have to move forward as if it isn’t there.” By always choosing new and unexpected opportunities, Karen Finerman has helped pave the way for other women on Wall Street who have big dreams and aren’t afraid to chase them.

Listen every week to the How She Does It podcast to hear more about Karen’s incredible career, how she worked full time while raising her kids, and her best advice for getting invested — and staying invested — as a woman. 

Onward! 

MORE ON HERMONEY:

• 5 Proven Steps For Aspiring Female Entrepreneurs
• Hermoney Podcast Bonus Mailbag: Index Funds, ETFs, And All Your Investing Questions Answered
• 4 Ways To Find Financial Peace

Join us! Snag all the latest episodes, savvy budgeting tips, investing advice and even giveaways via the HerMoney Newsletter at Hermoney.com/subscribe!