In some ways, Gail Taylor is an unlikely success story. Although she is a top financial advisor with a practice confined to socially responsible investing, her professional path has hardly been conventional. Now the head of her own, self-named investment group within CIBC Wood Gundy in Edmonton, it’s fair to say that Taylor’s accomplishments have been hard won.
Taylor’s mother raised six children alone after their father, a miner and amateur pilot, crashed his plane when Taylor was 12. Taylor ended up dropping out of high school, returning at 19 to earn her diploma.
As the years went by, Taylor resolved to make a success of her life. Lacking a university degree, she read books on career-building, eventually getting into the business of selling investment real estate with her husband, Harold.
During the 1980s, as the deals got larger, Taylor found she had a knack for both complex transactions and the relationships that often go with them. But she wanted to know more about the inner workings of the financial world, so in the early 1990s she took the Canadian securities course. (Over the next two decades, she also acquired the certified investment management analyst designation and an executive MBA from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont.)
As Taylor learned more and more about finance, she realized that she fit the profile of an investment advisor: someone who enjoys the relationship aspects of money management as much as doing the deal. By 1993, she had signed on at Midland Walwyn Inc. (later acquired by Merrill Lynch & Co. Ltd. and subsequently Wood Gundy) in Edmonton. Since then, Taylor has consistently ranked in the top half of her peer group — and often in the top quartile.
Now, at a time of life when many people are thinking about winding down into retirement, Taylor is well into her next adventure.
In 2006, she had sought advice from a business coach about expanding her practice; her book of business was then about $80 million. Taylor’s personal goals at the time included plans to take on philanthropic activities in retirement, particularly work in the developing world.
Recalls Taylor: “The coach said: ‘Gail, that’s not how it works; you incorporate your passion into your current job. And if you can’t do that, you might as well go and find another job’.”
That concept was eye-opening. Taylor already loved her job, partly because it involves helping others with financial planning, a life skill often neglected, she says, by the educational system. It was therefore a short step to finding some way to incorporate her passion for philanthropy into her work.
Short, but not necessarily easy. Taylor initially expected that her book of business would drop by as much as 20% when she informed her clients she would be restricting her practice to SRI. That category refers to making choices that integrate environmental, social and corporate governance issues into the selection and management of investments.@page_break@But, to Taylor’s surprise, her client base remained remarkably stable after the switch, and her practice even came through the 2008-09 financial crisis relatively well, compared with losses of 30% or more among the clients of many other advisors. That’s partly because many companies that qualify for SRI have already been vetted for business practices affecting their stability, ranging from transparency about executive pay to risk management.
For example, Taylor notes that investors who were underexposed to U.S.-based financial services companies were better off: “There were many SRI advisors with smiles on their faces through that.”
In fact, since Taylor’s switch to SRI, her book has grown to $100 million and 150 to 200 clients. New clients must have at least $250,000 in investible assets to join Taylor’s book. At the same time, Taylor has become, she says, an “ambassador” for SRI. She describes her desire to show leadership when it comes to improving the lives of people struggling with poverty as a “calling.”
That calling includes building the personal networks that are often instrumental in making things happen in the charitable community, which Taylor does in part by sitting on the boards of several philanthropic organizations. And while there is still resistance among many investors when it comes to SRI, she says, the facts don’t justify fears about issues such as overall gains. It’s not necessary, she says, to give up returns.
The Jantzi social index, one of the best-known resources for tracking companies that adhere to SRI principles, rarely varies more than a half a percentage point from the returns of the S&P/TSX composite index.
Taylor notes that the SRI sector is growing, with more and more good options available. Many advisors, she says, would be “pleasantly surprised” by the available choices.
Taylor also builds stability into her clients’ investments by using only managed money and a conservative, asset-allocation approach similar to pension-style money management. If she is unable to persuade a client to stick with the plan she has laid out — if the client is tempted by an investing trend, for instance — Taylor advises that client to open a small, self-directed account.
Says Taylor: “I can’t be all things to all people.”
Taylor, who is married and has two adult children and two grandchildren, also credits a high energy level and deep interest in her work for much of her success. Now in her mid-50s, Taylor has spent years building a close-knit, four-member team that, she says, is crucial to her practice.
But what animates Taylor most is her belief in the value of her work: “Responsible investing is an incredible tool and a very viable option to try to improve the world.” IE