Former Professional Chef And Restaurateur Helps Manage $700 Million For California Clients

Name: Andrea Schaffer

Firm: Pacific Advisors

Location: Claremont, CA

AUM: $687 million

Forbes Rankings: America’s Top Financial Security Professionals, Top Financial Security Professionals Best-In-State

Background: Andrea Schaffer started as a professional chef and restaurateur in her twenties, working around southern California. By the early 1990s, she went back to school to get her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English Literature at UCLA and Claremont Graduate University, respectively. Although she initially thought about becoming a professor, at age 32, Schaffer pivoted hard to financial advice, undergoing training and working her way up at Northwestern
NWE
Mutual. She stayed there for more than ten years before joining her current firm, Pacific Advisors, in 2006. “It wasn’t entirely different from orchestrating a very complex event—stuff happens and you have to be able to respond on the fly,” she recalls of the switch, adding, “the same things happen in a client’s financial life.”

Competitive Edge: Schaffer likes to be a sounding board for her clients: Before any major decision, they call her and she provides all of the tools and information needed. When making suggestions, she always tries to use real life stories and examples as an educational tool. “We need to be valuable to clients otherwise we’re not doing our job,” says Schaffer, who is very conscious of fees when it comes to her clients’ portfolios. She also focuses on tax mitigation strategies and always ensuring that money is safely put aside as a buffer.

Lessons Learned: “The best thing I’ve learned is to trust my own judgment—if something sounds too good to be true it probably is,” says Schaffer. The first time she learned that tough lesson was in the collateralized debt obligation world, during the period leading up to the financial crisis. “Trust your instincts, don’t be intimidated and ask questions,” she adds.

Biggest Challenge: “The biggest issue I ever ran into was understanding that I had to continue to devote as much time working on my business as when I first started,” says Schaffer. With five other full time employees on her team, she says being able to delegate and having good colleagues is also essential.

Investment Outlook: Schaffer predicts the market will slow down—with potentially a small correction—in the next 18 months. She advises being cautious in the last quarter of this year, which may prove to be an opportunistic period to buy stocks that have gone on sale. “The only reason markets are ahead now is because the gains have been concentrated in certain stocks, while everyone else is treading water or losing ground,” says Schaffer.

What Keeps You Up At Night: What keeps her up at night is the state of succession planning in the wealth management business. “The industry is a little white and old—we really do need to scour for more young people of different backgrounds to enter the business, otherwise nothing will ever change,” she says. “The knowledge transfer that will be lost if we don’t have more young professionals is enormous.”

Favorite Movie/Hobby: Schaffer cites Oliver!, based on the Charles Dickens novel, as her favorite movie. In fact, several of her dogs are named after characters or actors in the movie: One is called Dodger, one is named London and another, now passed, was named Oliver. Beyond her lifelong passion for cooking, Schaffer is also an avid indoor skydiving enthusiast in her free time.