Focus on future helps her thrive through changes

DIRECT CONTACT: StrategicPoint Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer Betsy A. Purinton, pictured above in black top, speaks with, from left, financial advisers Sean Giles and Chrissy Canapari and Managing Director and Chief Compliance Officer Richard Anzelone. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
DIRECT CONTACT: StrategicPoint Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer Betsy A. Purinton, pictured above in black top, speaks with, from left, financial advisers Sean Giles and Chrissy Canapari and Managing Director and Chief Compliance Officer Richard Anzelone. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

Betsey A. Purinton, 64, the managing director and chief investment officer for StrategicPoint Investment Advisors in Providence, is 13 years into her latest career – and still growing.
Previously a teacher, an administrator and a stay-at-home mom, this financial adviser rose in a midlife career change to her current leadership position, helping women gain financial independence along the way.
And she’s looking to expand the business bought in 2006 by Focus Financial Partners of New York City and San Francisco.
“My title is at its peak, but I’m not done,” she said in an interview with Providence Business News. “The biggest challenge coming in was proving myself; gaining confidence. I had this tremendous interest in serving people as a financial planner. Over time I also had to show I could make smart decisions on the job.”
Born and raised in Evanston, Ill., and Virginia, and educated in Colorado, Purinton earned a bachelor’s degree in 1972 and a master’s degree in 1975 in economics from the University of Colorado.
After teaching middle school and high school history and social studies in Colorado, she spent 1978 through 1983 as director of admissions and community relations at the Professional Children’s School in New York City. The school offers an academic program for people with careers in the arts.
Along the way, in 1982, she married James English, who today teaches at the Community College of Rhode Island. By 1983, having lived in both Boston and in Providence, she decided to take time off to raise three children.
In 1999, as her children were getting older, Purinton decided to study financial planning through coursework at Bryant University’s Executive Development Center. She passed the FINRA’s Series 65, a Uniform Investment Adviser Law Examination, in 2001, when she was hired at StrategicPoint. She spent three years gaining professional experience and then became eligible for and obtained certification in financial planning through the CFP Board of Standards.
The reasons for pursuing this new career had as much to do with the upbringing she and her sister received as it did her career motives.
During the Great Depression, her grandfather and grandmother, Thaddias and Irene Walker, put hard-earned money into the trust of someone who bought mortgages, and lost “a great deal” of money, she recalled. She’s a lifelong investor, as a result.
“They never wanted us to be in a situation where we couldn’t be independent,” she said. “They learned the hard way.”
Her mentor, Jill Schlesinger, then an instructor at Bryant, was also formerly a principal at StrategicPoint. While completing her certificate in 2001, in the middle of a recession, Purinton applied at Schlesinger’s invitation for an opening as a financial-planning associate at the firm. She continued to earn her credentials, until she was named to her current position in 2010.
Growing in the job came naturally, she added.
“I loved the company and what it stood for, and I worked hard and took advantage of opportunities and learned to speak up and [become] more and more accomplished,” she said.
As chief investment officer, she tries to develop agendas and guide tactical asset allocations by consensus, while adjusting portfolios based on what’s happening in the economy. She also oversees marketing, event planning and supervision.
She likes to mentor others as Schlesinger mentored her.
“It was all about support for the financial-planning process,” she said of learning under Schlesinger’s wing.
Though the field was dominated by men, the firm wasn’t, and isn’t today, she said. Her peer and collaborator is Richard Anzelone, managing director and chief compliance officer. The firm has 15 employees, 770 clients, and $540 million in assets under management, she said. “We still have an open, collaborative team approach. It’s good [for] letting me try new things,” she said.
Besides being naturally eager to help solve problems, Purinton has always sensed that it is important on occasion to “get out of your comfort zone.”
For about five years in the mid-2000s, she co-hosted a radio show called “Making Money,” that is now no longer on the air. She felt a responsibility to provide information to the public because, often, financial information is not reliably sourced, she said.
“It was a little nerve-wracking at times because you never knew what [questions] you were going to get,” she said. “This honed my skills to focus on the question and figure out the source and give a really good answer. It forces you to really know your material, and if you don’t know, be willing to say, ‘I don’t know’ and follow up with that person.”
Purinton also founded StrategicPoint’s Women’s Planning Initiative, a program designed to help women become and remain financially secure and independent. She started it in 2009, she said.
“I’ve always enjoyed working with women,” Purinton explained. “In particular, I like their stories and their questions.”
While StrategicPoint has a second branch in East Greenwich, she said the firm is “very open to expanding beyond what we have now – not necessarily just opening a branch. We could look at merging with other firms, bringing on-board additional advisers, or helping firms with succession planning.”
In addition, she said, Focus Financial Partners has “resources we can tap into. We’re very excited about where the firm is headed.”

No posts to display