Morningstar - Q3 2022 - 70

Investors
Service, Not Sales
At every career turn, Andrea Romero
has followed a calling to help the
most vulnerable.
Keith Reid-Cleveland
USER PROFILE
Andrea Romero sometimes refers to herself as the
St. Luke of advisors, a reference to the saint whose
gospel emphasizes selflessness, in a nod to her
degree in theology and her focus on helping those
at risk of being left behind.
" So much of my practice is informed by helping
people who need a patient financial guide,
either because of their background or because
they're new to generational wealth, " says Romero.
" I got in this not to make myself the wealthiest
advisor and only work with million-dollar people.
I got in this to help people navigate something
that's very confusing. "
Romero is an advisor at Faubourg Private Wealth,
an independent Louisiana-based firm that
provides comprehensive financial planning. Many
of her clients are nonprofit professionals. Many
are also people of color and LGBTQ+, groups that
have historically had little experience working
with advisors or other financial professionals. And
as a transgender woman, Romero can relate
to the challenges they face. " I have an ability to
really help [find] solutions that impact my clients'
big picture financially and their entire lives, "
she says. " Let's face it, that's why I do what I do. "
Exploring the Unbeaten Path
A 10th
-generation Louisianian, Romero recalls
being fascinated with finance in her youth. She
was attracted to the idea of being a stockbroker
despite not knowing exactly what it meant
at the time. But as she got older, she followed
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" One of the things that I found at Jones was
continually hitting a ceiling of the [brokerage-firm]
model, which was built for the lone wolf, " she
says. " You'd have one advisor with one office and
another passion and took a job working in the
nonprofit sector at the National Fish and Wildlife
Foundation in Washington, D.C., where
she managed a grant program for migratory bird
habitat conservation. She then returned to
her alma mater, Georgetown University, to work
in principal-gift fundraising. She began turning
a keener eye to her own assets and deepened her
understanding of finance while talking to
wealthy donors and earning their trust. After 25
years of working in fundraising and a move
back to Louisiana, she finally heeded the advice
of her own financial advisor at Edward Jones
and made a career switch to the firm in 2014.
To her surprise, Romero found that working in
finance gave her even more opportunities
to improve people's lives. " I really, truly feel more
demonstrably helpful in people's lives than
I ever was in 25 years of working in nonprofit
because it actually impacts real people who have
real dreams and needs, " she says.
It's important to her to know her clients and their
stories. " Those corny ads about the financial
advisor being at the wedding or the funeral? " she
says. " They're real, and it's meaningful. "
After working at Edward Jones for a few years,
she jumped at an opportunity in March 2020 to join
Faubourg, a smaller, more community-oriented
firm. Faubourg loosely translates to neighborhood
or suburb in Old French.
one administrator to help you, if you're lucky.
It kept me from serving endowment management
and employer-sponsored retirement plans,
among other areas important to my business. "
Like Romero, Faubourg's founders, P. David
Soliman and W. Tyson Vanlandingham, had also
left the brokerage world because they felt
restricted. They built a firm that allows its advisors
to draw upon a diverse set of tools and
resources for their clients. This approach was
appealing to Romero.
Earning Trust Through Vulnerability
Around the time Romero was changing
careers, she was also in the midst of another
important process with much more far-reaching
implications in her life.
" Well, I am transgender, and I always have
been. I finally accepted that fact and started my
transition in 2015, concurrent with starting
my career as a financial advisor, concurrent with
separating and divorcing my partner of 15 years,
concurrent with having two kids under 5, "
she says. " It was brutally tough. And I was
probably too stubborn and too driven to give any
one of those things up. I did a lot of that, as
most would, behind the scenes until, as we say,
I went public with my transition in 2018, and
that was yet another challenge. "
She says it was a terrifying process, but Edward
Jones supported her by facilitating complianceapproved
letters to her colleagues and clients and
by helping her deal with the necessary registration
changes at the Financial Industry Regulatory
Authority. But that didn't alleviate all the stress
that came along with it.
" Those little fear steps are natural when you're
fighting something that you've fought
against for 30-plus years, which was my story
and my case, " she says. " I do not think I am
unique in that regard. I believe everybody,
in the context of coming out, comes to it with their
own baggage and their own history, whether
they're doing it at 15 years old or 50. It doesn't
make it any easier. But I think we all find
we get to the other side, and we breathe that sigh
of relief. I was gratified that, by and large,
https://www.morningstar.com/authors/2403/keith-reid-cleveland
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