Category Archives: Financial Independence

Faiza Yousuf is the founder of WomenInTechPK, the biggest tech community for women technologists in Pakistan.

Education is the only way towards a better life, says Faiza Yousuf, founder of WomenInTechPK, the biggest tech community for women technologists in Pakistan.

For women in South Asia, especially, education is their ticket towards self-reliance and financial independence. I think everyone, no matter their gender, race, ethnicity, and abilities, should get equal opportunities for getting an education as well as to be financially independent, says the young Karachi-based changemaker.

Her organisation has been making waves in the local tech industry due to its programmes and activism. A postgraduate from NED University of Engineering and Technology in Karachi, Faiza completed the World Bank-funded programme WomenXPakistan and currently leads the product development wing for software development company Genetech Solutions. Her project portfolio includes programmes with USAID, UNEquals, and Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship, among others.

Speaking with quiet, unassuming resolve, Faiza expresses her passion for education, seeing it as a ladder, even a magic wand that solves problems not just the basic ones of livelihoods or for fulfilling basic survival necessities, but also social issues.

Pursuing the path of education has changed my life, and the lives of numerous other people that I know, says Faiza.(She will be speaking at eShes South Asia Union Summit Led by Womenon October 3, 2021.)

Faiza finds that the South Asian social culture or belief system has prevented many women from gravitating towards careers in technology despite having the aptitude, although a change is slowly creeping in to counter this mindset. Women are usually encouraged to become teachers, nurses, doctors, and in most cases, homemakers. These professions are an extension of the roles women stereotypically play in societies and families as caregivers, she says.

Her organisation is trying to change this limited mindset: Getting a career in a field like technology has significant barriers, and one of the barriers that we are trying to break is not investing in girls technical education.

Faizas community-funded coding and business skills boot-camp CodeGirls teaches coding skills to girls and women in Karachi who have never had the opportunity to get technical education and proper mentoring. We have so far placed nearly 150 women in the local tech ecosystem, she says.

For Faiza, her work at WomenInTechPK started quite organically with a Facebook community, four years ago. Since then, it has turned into a nonprofit organisation. We do advocacy, collaboration, mentoring, content creation, and skill-based programmes focused on diversity and inclusion, mainly in the technology ecosystem in Pakistan. We have over 9,000 women members, and the community is a happening place for both existing and aspiring women in tech.

CodeGirls has received immense support from both local and international tech sectors in the form of sponsorships, outreach, and work opportunities. Their other popular programme is CryptoChicks Pakistan, which does blockchain and AI hackathons and runs online education programs for the CryptoChicks HQ in Canada.

Faiza sits on the Pakistan Software House Associations Diversity Committee, and WomenInTechPK plays an important part in the national discourse on diversity and inclusion in tech.

The organisation has also hosted focus groups, roundtables, and produced research and content with the sole purpose of improving gender parity in the tech ecosystem. The tech industry has a better payscale and better facilities than many others, and the industry can definitely use some gender parity, she says.

Her vision of transforming education in Pakistan is practical, clear, and centres around teachers, whom she considers building blocks of the entire education system. A good teacher has the potential to change lives, says Faiza, who often dons the cap of a teacher, trainer, and visiting professor for various local universities.

She believes education should be geared towards creative and analytical thinking as well as towards play and learn methodologies. The inclusion of coding skills would have been an excellent decision. I also believe that students should be taught in a blended way, both online and offline, as well as both in and outside the classroom, she shares.

In a region like South Asia where parents exert tremendous control over their childrens lives especially decisions about education and career, Faiza says theres a lot to learn from the European education system, which can be localised and adopted to the regional context. Focusing on low-hanging fruits such as replacing rote learning with creativity and also creating a culture of reading will bring about an immediate and positive impact, she suggests.

A South Asian Union on the lines of the European Union will benefit the education system in the entire region too. Faiza has a wishlist of some common elements in education that she hopes to see introduced in all South Asian countries: I hope there is increased mobility, especially for education and work so that we see more exchanges and learn from each others best practices. Another thing I wish for is free specialised or university-level education for all, since a large chunk of our population cannot afford private higher education. And I really hope we move from rote-learning to creativity and analytical thinking in the future. We must focus on learning productivity and self-learning too.

The governments, she says, must step in and take responsibility for changing the way people think by encouraging education and technology training for girls. Active investment in women-focused initiatives and running awareness campaigns will not just change lives of individuals, especially women in South Asia, but also catapult our region to a prominent and powerful position in the globe, she says.

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Education is the ticket to self-reliance and financial independence for women in South Asia - Moneycontrol.com

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Congratulations! Youve hit a big financial milestone. Youve saved up $1,000.

Now its time to take the next step in your journey toward financial independence. And that means making your money work as hard for you as you do for it. How? By investing wisely.

Check this out: If you can invest $1,000 every year and thats just $3 a day and earn 15% on it for 30 years, youll end up with more than $500,000! Thats a game-changer.

But how the heck can you earn 15%? No guarantees, but here are some ideas that will allow you to get started for $1,000 or less.

It used to be that investing in commercial real estate, like apartment or office buildings, required lots of money and lots of expertise.

Not anymore.

Today, thanks to an online investing platform called Fundrise, you can invest in commercial real estate for as little as $500.

Fundrise combines state-of-the-art technology, in-house expertise and low fees to put you into institutional-quality real estate, including private projects that arent available on public markets. These are the types of deals previously reserved for only the wealthiest investors.

And the returns? According to Fundrise, the average investor in their projects was up 26% over three years and more than 50% over five years.

You should never pin your hopes on past performance because its never a reliable indication of future results. Nonetheless, thats a nice track record, one that takes almost no effort and comes without the ups and downs of the stock market.

Dont sit on the sidelines. If youre ready to become a real estate investor, get started now.

In the past, figuring out what to do with your money was as simple as deciding whether to put your money in a savings account or the stock market.

Over time, though, investing has gotten a lot more complicated. You can invest in mutual funds, ETFs, cryptocurrencies, precious metals, bonds, real estate investment trusts, stocks or myriad other choices. And you can choose lots of ways to do it, including in a regular IRA, a Roth IRA, a regular or Roth 401(k) or 403(b), 529 college savings plans, health savings accounts and more.

Not sure where to start? Save yourself the headache and enlist the help of a professional; maybe not with your first $1,000, but as your savings start accumulating. In fact, even if you only have $1,000, using some of it to buy a financial plan that can help guide you isnt a bad idea.

The value of working with a financial adviser varies by person, but according to an independent study, people who work with a financial adviser feel more at ease about their finances and could end up with about 15% more money to spend in retirement.

Finding the right financial adviser is easier than you think. With a free matching service called SmartAsset, you can be connected with fiduciary advisers in your area; that means theyre legally required to put your interests ahead of theirs. You can also typically get a free appointment before deciding.

A good investment professional will help you establish goals and put together a plan that makes sense for your personal situation.

If youre ready to be matched with an adviser that can help you make the right decisions, get started now.

You have a lot going on. You have a family to take care of, a house to clean, a job to do and a million other things on your plate to keep track of. Life insurance shouldnt be one of those things.

Life insurance is an important part of any financial plan, but that doesnt mean you have to jump through hoops to get it. With a company called Bestow, you can get a term life insurance policy in minutes for just a few bucks a month.

Bestow is known for its no-hassle approach to insurance. You dont even need a medical exam to get started. Just enter a few key pieces of information about your health and family, select a coverage amount between $50,000 and $1.5 million, and theyll give you a fast and hassle-free quote.

Its free to get your quote online, and it only takes two minutes.

You wish you could find a savings account that paid 5% interest. These days, youd be lucky to find anything close to 1%. Well, now there is something you can do about it.

Worthy is a new way to earn up to 5% interest on your cash while helping small businesses grow. Thats right, thats 5% fixed interest, compounding daily.

Worthy offers bonds that are qualified by the Securities and Exchange Commission and that focus on small businesses with community impacts.

On top of that, there are no fees and penalties, and you have access to your money at any time.

Yields are 5% annually, allowing you to get more from your money than you would with some other types of bonds and certainly beating high-yield savings accounts.

If youre ready to join Worthys community of over 100,000 American households, visit Worthy to learn more and get started.

If youd invested $1,000 into Apple stock when it first went public back in 1980, you know what it would be worth today? About $1.2 million. Thats an annual rate of return of close to 20%.

Obviously, not all stocks are home runs like Apple, but theres no reason to stay on the sidelines while you watch companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Amazon double and triple in value.

The good news is that you no longer have to have a ton of money to get into the stock market. With an investing app called Stash, you can invest in virtually any company with as little as $1. So your $1,000 can easily buy you a diversified portfolio of companies.

Of course, stocks sometimes go down as well as up, so stay informed and dont put so much into the stock market that it stresses you out. Dont get ahead of yourself.

Depending on the stocks you choose, you can even receive regular dividend payouts as a part of quarterly profit-sharing plans just for owning a small portion of the company. Reinvest those dividends and keep your portfolio balance growing.

It only takes a couple of minutes to sign up, and you could be well on your way to reaping the benefits of owning a chunk of a major corporation.

Plus, youll get a $5 welcome bonus after you deposit $5 into your account.

Are you earning as much interest on your savings as you could be? The national average annual percentage yield (APY) among savings accounts is a puny 0.06%. At that rate, a balance of $10,000 earns just $6 a year!

Instead of settling for a minuscule yield on a more traditional savings account, open a rewards checking account with Axos Bank and earn up to 20 times the national average.

When you combine the best services and accounts, including rewards checking, at Axos Bank, you could potentially earn up to 1.0% APY. Best of all? There are no monthly service fees, and there are unlimited ATM fee reimbursements, so you can access your money from anywhere.

Plus, each account is backed by a 100% risk-free return and is FDIC-insured. No more risk, lots more reward.

So, if youre ready to beat the local banks and earn up to 1.0% interest on your insured savings, open an account today.

While you dont have to obsess over the news, it pays to visit expert sources to make sure youre up to date on the latest techniques to make more, spend less and invest wisely.

Solution? Subscribe to the totally free Money Talks Newsletter. More than a million Americans have, and theyve reported saving an average of $991.20 each just from following our news and advice. So maybe next time youll have $2,000 to invest instead of $1,000!

It takes less than five seconds to subscribe and, if you dont like it, less than five seconds to unsubscribe. Sign up for our free newsletter right now, and see what youve been missing.

Disclosure: The information you read here is always objective. However, we sometimes receive compensation when you click links within our stories.

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7 Genius Ways to Invest $1,000 for More Growth - Money Talks News

Albert Einstein is widely credited for calling compound interest the most powerful force in the universe, and it's easy to see why. A few big winners can supercharge your portfolio and set you on a path to financial independence. For instance, $100 invested in a stock that doubles becomes $200; but at that point, the stock price only needs to rise 50% to add another $100 to the total sum. In other words, the baseline changes as the stock price rises, meaning you start earning money on your earnings.

However, the magic of compounding doesn't happen overnight. It requires patience and a long-term mindset. Building on that idea, we asked three Motley Fool contributors to pick tech stocks that could grow threefold over the next five years. Keep reading to see why CarParts.com (NASDAQ:PRTS),CrowdStrike Holdings(NASDAQ:CRWD), and Teladoc Health (NYSE:TDOC) made the list.

Image source: Getty Images.

Jeremy Bowman (CarParts.com):E-commerce has been the source of numerous monster stocks. Of the bunch,Amazonis the best known, but companies like MercadoLibre, Shopify, Etsy, andWayfair have all made investors rich as online retail continues to grab share from tradition channels.

That's one reason why investors should take a closer look at CarParts.com. If you're looking for a stock that could triple in the next five years, the pure-play auto parts e-commerce stock could be it. CarParts.com has a market cap worth less than $1 billion currently, but is chasing an addressable market worth $500 billion. As the larger e-commerce companies did before it, CarParts.com is helping the auto parts market shift from brick-and-mortar sales to e-commerce.

The company is targeting long-term revenue growth of 20% to 25% and an adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or EBITDA, margin of 8% to 10%. Recent growth has been strong but demand has outstripped supply. The company is remedying that by expanding a warehouse in Texas, opening one in Florida, and adding another in the Northeast next year. The company now has more than 1 million square feet of warehouse space and growing, and each new expansion helps shorten delivery times and improve inventory and selection, creating a virtuous cycle that brings more customers into its ecosystem.

While the direct tailwinds from the pandemic may be fading, the average age of a car on the road in the U.S. is now 12 years, meaning demand for replacement parts will be elevated for the foreseeable future. The company is also beta testing a mobile mechanic, sending someone to your house to install the parts you ordered from CarParts.com, another sign of its potential as a disruptor.

The stock also has the potential to be a three-bagger because it's still affordable at a price-to-sales ratio of less than 1.5, giving it plenty of room for multiple expansion. If CarParts.com can deliver on its long-term guidance, its stock should be significantly higher in a few years.

Image source: Getty Images.

Eric Volkman (CrowdStrike Holdings): CrowdStrike is hardly the cheapest stock, either on a raw share price level or by valuation. But it's an effective and highly admired operator in a hot sector that will scorch for years to come. So I'm confident it can be a three-bagger no matter how high its current numbers go.

CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity company whose anchor product, the Falcon security platform, is a cloud-based solution. There are a host of advantages to this. An important one is that it makes for relatively quick and painless adoption by clients, who benefit from not having to install and run traditional on-site security solutions.

Another huge plus is that the Falcon platform is modular. This not only makes it easy for clients to add functionalities as their security needs expand, but also provides low-hanging fruit for the company to increase revenue from those additions.

CrowdStrike also relies on the subscription model. This is appealing for investors, as it provides the company with a steady revenue stream that's also durable -- after all, it's unwise to let the payments to your solutions provider lapse, particularly in the business-critical cybersecurity space.

The company has been attracting droves of clients. During the most recent quarter, CrowdStrike added 1,660 net new subscriptions, bringing the total to 13,080 customers. Meanwhile, that recurring subscription revenue investors love comprised nearly all (93.5%) of the $337.7 million total revenue for the period -- which, by the way, represented a mighty 70% increase on a year-over-year basis.

Looking back on the past few years, CrowdStrike has been a paragon of rapid revenue growth; from just under $53 million in 2017, the company shot to $874 million in fiscal 2021.

That's great, but some investors may be concerned by the company's lack of profitability. Yes, CrowdStrike is still well in the red according to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), but losses have been narrowing lately. In 2021, the $93 million loss was a great improvement over the $130 million-plus losses during the three preceding years. That's largely because the company's revenue growth is now outpacing that of selling, general, and administrative expenses, an encouraging sign.

Still, the company continues to shovel capital into research and development, keeping it on the cusp of cutting-edge technology in a rapidly changing field. This strategy seems to be working, as Falcon generally gets very high marks from users and other cybersecurity experts. The good reputation the company has built should keep attracting those subscription-paying and module-adding customers.

Image source: Getty Images.

Trevor Jennewine (Teladoc Health): Teladoc is a tech-powered healthcare company. Its virtual-first platform allows patients to engage in remote visits with clinicians, and its product portfolio ranges from general health and wellness to acute and chronic care.

Last year, the pandemic put this company on the map; the share price skyrocketed 138% in 2020. However, the stock has underperformed the broader market this year, and it currently sits 56% below its all-time high. What changed? Growth has slowed, so many investors have labeled Teladoc as a "pandemic stock," but I think that's a mistake.

Teladoc makes healthcare cheaper and more convenient. During 2020, the median response time between a member's request and a telehealth visit was just 10 minutes, which is less time than you might spend in the waiting room during a traditional office visit (not to mention driving there and back). And for general medical appointments, Teladoc's clients save $472per visit compared to alternative solutions, according to Veracity Analytics.

Last December, Teladoc acquired Livongo, a company that specializes in chronic illnesses like diabetes, hypertension, and mental health conditions. This move expanded Teladoc's expertise in chronic care and reinforced its position as the most comprehensive telehealth platform, but it also added new patient data to Teladoc's artificial intelligence models. And over time, as it adds more members and collects more data, Teladoc's AI models should continuously drive better outcomes for all patients on the platform, creating a network effect.

During the most recent quarter, membership growth slowed to just 1%, but that's not surprising after the supercharged growth seen during the pandemic. Despite this, Teladoc still posted strong financial results. Total visits climbed 28% to 3.5 million, and the utilization rate reached 21.5%, up from 16% last year. As a result, revenue skyrocketed 109% to $503 million.

Teladoc is well positioned to maintain that momentum. Management puts the company's market opportunity at a $250 billion, leaving Teladoc with plenty of room to grow its business. More importantly, the value proposition is clear -- telehealth is more convenient and less costly. And given its strong competitive position, Teladoc should see strong demand in the years ahead. That's why this tech stock could triple by 2026.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

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3 Tech Stocks That Could Triple in 5 Years - The Motley Fool

Chart 2 Percentage of Homeowners Seeking Ways To Earn in Retirement

DENVER (PRWEB) September 29, 2021

A large segment of American homeowners is uncertain about their retirement finances and actively looking for new ways to earn money in retirement, according to a nationwide study released today by Silvernest. The study also found an increased interest in homesharing among older homeowners as a means to generate passive income, gain companionship and age in place. In fact, 88% reported that they'd like to remain in their homes as long as possible as they age.

The study of homeowners ages 55-85 reveals that 49% are worried they dont have enough or know they dont have enough set aside for retirement. Women are particularly uneasy about their retirement readiness, with 53% worried or unsure about their finances, compared to 43% of men. COVID-19 has also been financially detrimental for some, with one in 10 indicating that the pandemic forced them to eat into their retirement savings.

Many Working or Seeking To Work in RetirementA large segment of retirees is still working part time, presumably to maintain a sense of purpose as they age or to make up for retirement savings shortfalls. While 34% of those surveyed are fully retired, 27% report that they are holding down part-time jobs in retirement. Additionally, a sizeable 71% said they are actively seeking ways to earn extra income in retirement. This is surprising, considering that just one-fifth expressed an interest in pursuing an encore career.

Longevity is at an all-time high, which means retirement periods are now upward of 20 or 30 years. Thats not something people anticipated when they were younger, so were seeing more retirees looking at gig work, the sharing economy and other creative ways to boost their income and gain financial independence, said Silvernest President Riley Gibson.

Interest in Homesharing Swells, Driven by Economic Need and CompanionshipOne means to earn extra income and save in retirementhomesharingis seeing heightened interest. The study found that older homeowners are increasingly open to homesharing as a way to generate supplementary income, benefit from the companionship and remain in their homes as long as possible as they age.

Of those surveyed, 10% reported that they have been in a long-term homesharing arrangement in the past five years. However, nearly half (44%) said are open to the idea of homesharing and 26% said they are more likely to consider it now than they were five years ago.

A large percentage also has the ability to leverage their homes as assets through homesharing, with 50% indicating they have extra space in their homes that could be rented out. This correlates with a finder.com analysis of U.S. Census data suggesting there are 33.6 million spare rooms across the country.

Among those who have homeshared, most found the extra income and companionship to be the top benefits, cited by 90% and 55%, respectively. Splitting chores and peace of mind were also called out as important benefits by more than one-third of respondents. Those yet to homeshare ranked income as their top perceived benefit, with help around the house ranking second, companionship third and peace of mind fourth.

The nice thing about the extra income that can be generated through homesharing is that its passive income, so youre earning without having to put much effort into it, plus splitting household bills with someone, said Gibson. That said, our study shows the potential payoffs go far beyond these financial perks. Companionship is also viewed as a major benefit, partly because the number of solo agers is on the rise, but I also believe its because weve all experienced the pain of social isolation in recent months.

Altruism and Age Factor Into Willingness To HomeshareAmong the 44% who would consider homesharing, altruism and affinity play significant roles. More than three-quarters are open to homesharing with nurses, teachers, essential workers and/or Service Year members. And while 80% are willing to rent to a younger housemate, only 33% would consider renting to someone older than themselves, suggesting that ageism still presents some barriers in homesharing situations.

How Homeowners Would Use Homesharing IncomeSilvernest data shows that homeowners can earn an average of $10,000 a year from renting out unused space in their homes. Those surveyed were split in how they would use that regular income. One-quarter would allocate it to general living costs, 16% would use it to pad their retirement savings, 11% would put it toward mortgage payments, 9% would pay bills and 5% would make home modifications. Thirty-two percent noted that they would use it in other ways, potentially indicating a desire to use it for more wants vs. needs.

Among Housing Options, Aging in Place Most Attractive The study also looked at housing options and preferences and found a large majority (79%) of homeowners are looking to remain in their homes as they age. Approximately half are considering downsizing, 36% are considering retirement or age-restricted communities, and 31% are interested in village communities. However, there is also a good deal of uncertainty, with 36% saying theyre still trying to figure out a plan. Living in an assisted living facility or nursing home ranked at the bottom of the list.

Home Modifications Challenge Those Wanting To Age at HomeDespite the strong desire to age at home, about half dont feel prepared to do so. Fourteen percent indicated that major modifications would be needed, and another 29% said theyre either not ready or theyre unsure if theyre ready. On the other hand, one-quarter say they are prepared right now, and 32% only need to make minor modifications.

The full report can be accessed at: https://f.hubspotusercontent00.net/hubfs/2448101/Silvernest%20Study_Aging%20in%20Place%2c%20Retirement%20and%20Homesharing.pdf

The survey was conducted online in June and July 2021 through a third-party survey platform. The 305 participants are homeowners ages 55-85 who are not Silvernest users. Respondents represented a cross-section of incomes, U.S. Census regions and education levels.

About SilvernestSilvernest was created to change how we can live by delivering the many benefits of homesharing (independence, housing choices, financial wellness, powerful social connections) at scale through an all-in-one online homesharing platform. Features include roommate matching via a proprietary compatibility algorithm, in-app messaging and background screens, a lease creator, rent auto-pay, insurance and an online hub of resources and tools. To date, weve helped homeowners and renters recognize over $50 million in rent income and savings by homesharing with a compatible roommate. Visit us at http://www.silvernest.com, read our blog and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

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New Silvernest Study Finds Growing Interest in Homesharing Among Americans Seeking To Earn in Retirement and Age in Place - PR Web

Alan Steel, investment advisor known for his straight-talking about the financial industry

Died: September 15, 2021

Alan Steel, who has died aged 74, was an investment advisor known for his straight-talking about the financial industry. He was the first person in the industry to expose the Equitable Life scandal and was also highly critical of any products he considered poor value for money, including endowment mortgages and with-profits bonds.

For most of his career, he ran his own company Alan Steel Asset Management, which he set up in his hometown of Linlithgow in 1975. Three times voted the best investment IFA in UK-wide industry polling, the firm today employs 41 staff managing more than 1.5 billion of client assets.

Born in Boness, West Lothian, to Alan Steel, a bricklayer, and Laura, a bookkeeper in a solicitors office, the family moved to Linlithgow when Alan was six. He attended primary school there followed by Linlithgow Academy.

After leaving school, he studied geography at Edinburgh University before training as an actuary with Scottish Widows but it was not for him. In his own words he discovered that he had a personality. And so he launched his asset management business at a time when practically no one else did.

The UK stock market at the time had reached an all-time low that it has never seen since and it was a period when new investors were very few and far between. Undaunted, he moved into an office space given to him by his old Linlithgow Academy school friend and former Hearts and Scotland footballer, Donald Ford. Donald had an accountancy practice in Linlithgow High Street at the time.

Alan set about building a personal bank of industry and investment technical knowledge by immersing himself in business books to give himself a competitive edge. This thirst for knowledge never left him and inspired many of the articles that he wrote regularly for the financial press. This increased knowledge, allied to his original actuarial training, ensured that he better understood and identified the flaws in the technicalities behind some of the financial scandals of the 80s and 90s long before they reached the attention of the media.

Alan was also driven to expose these scandals to a much wider audience, one which was way beyond his own customer base. He was the first person in the industry to expose the huge Equitable Life scandal and the first to shout down the poor value represented by endowment mortgages.

He went on to expose the smoke and mirrors that would eventually lead to the poor performance of one of the industrys then bestselling investment products, the with-profits bond. And his affinity for maths enabled him to publicly challenge the workings of the split capital investment trust, workings that subsequently proved to be totally flawed

The financial scandals now recognised as amongst the biggest of all time. It is therefore to Alans enormous credit that he challenged them all in public before anyone else.

Alans media crusades often created dangerous enemies for him amongst the big financial institutions but despite threatened court action against him Alans constant pursuit of customer protection remained undaunted.

He became a regular commentator in all the UK financial press and broadcast media where he always put his points across in a language all readers, viewers and listeners could understand.

Those who were privileged to receive copies of his regular Letter from Linlithgow each month would laugh out loud at his writing, especially when he often referenced his Grannie McKays sayings to make an important point.

He was very much in demand as an after-dinner speaker and proudly claimed to be the only individual ever to give the main speech in the same year at the two significant historical events that were local and always very dear to him, the Linlithgow Marches and the Boness Fair.

When asked what his life was like outside financial services, he would simply say family, music, my moothie , Ibiza , red wine and Oliphants pies. Oliphants was his local Linlithgow baker.

His longstanding friend and fellow Linlithgow financial services stalwart John Allison said of Alan that he was successful and innovative in business but still humble. He was kind, loyal, generous, honest and a thoroughly decent man, said John.

Alan always remained totally true to his working-class upbringing. But, unknown to most, he was also a significant financial benefactor and quietly, behind the scenes, he gave great financial support to many local institutions and events.

Steve Forbes, who has been managing director of ASAM since 2005, said he and his colleagues were always impressed by his vast technical knowledge, the camaraderie of his staff and, his sense of humour.

Together we wanted to help him try to make his dream of retirement financial independence for Alan Steel Asset Management clients come true, said Steve, He was a one off and a genius, of that there is certainly no doubt, but he was also a great visionary. Several years ago, he deliberately stood back from the day to day running of the business and assumed the role of company chairman. He couldnt keep away from the office, of course, and each visit was always a breath of fresh air.

His sudden passing has certainly hit us all very hard, but we take great comfort from the fact that his corporate vision and DNA are forever installed in all of us here in Linlithgow. Upholding these ideals now and well into the future will be our lasting tribute to a truly unique individual.

Alan Steel is survived by his wife Fran, son Malcolm and daughter Catherine together with son in law Dylan and daughter in law Helen and his five grandchildren, Hannah, Cameron, Jackson, Frankton and Daisy.

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Obituary - Alan Steel, investment advisor known for his straight-talking about the financial industry - HeraldScotland

YOUR first job is a rite of passage. I remember mine 15 or 16 years old, long hair tied back in a ponytail, serving customers in the caf of a local department store.

The work was hardly backbreaking, but I remember feeling real pride when I got my first payslip. It was proof I finally had some financial independence. Money in the bank I could truly say Id earned.

It would have been a tiny amount all in all. I was only working weekend shifts on the lowest band of the Minimum Wage. And as I got older and moved out, I definitely remember the purchasing power of my wages dropping. Costs went up but the money stayed the same, and so the wage slips felt less significant, less able to cover anything but the basics each month.

That picture will be familiar to many. At Citizens Advice Scotland we are constantly helping people in low paid work to keep their heads above water.

But we also help people with other serious employment issues, like illegal deductions from wages, false redundancies, and discrimination and harassment that far too many workers face. In the last year alone, employment advice was the third biggest need for the network almost 175,000 pieces of advice in total.

Earlier this year, the Low Pay Commission the body set up to advise the UK Government on setting the national minimum wage opened its annual consultation on the state of the UK labour market, and we fed in many of our clients stories to help the Government understand the difficulties workers face every day.

There are some truly shocking cases in our response. Weve seen staff sacked en masse and replaced with a new workforce when restrictions lifted. Weve seen clients made redundant via text message, with no notice, process, or final pay. Weve seen large chain employers refuse to furlough staff on the grounds that the National Insurance contributions would cost too much, leaving them with no income.

People have really suffered over the past year and we know many more will have stayed quiet, thankful to have a job at all.

Problems with furlough were common. CAB clients reported having furlough payments deducted or paid inconsistently, with employers claiming more hours than they were paying out. One client was even told he had to make up his furlough pay, being expected to work 360 hours unpaid to make back time lost to furlough. Its a total abuse of the scheme, and its always the worker who loses out.

But beneath pandemic-specific issues were the standard employment rights breaches that have sadly become normal. Deductions from wages that take them below the legal minimum; clients whose employers refuse them statutory sick pay; even basic rights like receiving a payslip at the end of the month time and again people are denied their most basic rights at work. One case that sticks in my mind was a client who worked as a frontline courier during the pandemic. As his contract said he was self-employed, he had to pay hire fees for the company van he was required to use to do his job. But after an accident at work damaged the bumper of the van, the company attempted to charge him more than 1,000 for repairs (his local CAB eventually negotiated this down to 200). On top of that, he was left unable to work for six weeks, with no income or support from the courier company. These arrangements are growing more and more common, but theyd have been unthinkable even a decade ago.

With this in mind, its encouraging to see the UK Government again committing to improving the enforcement of workers rights with the creation of a single specialist enforcement body. But lets also be clear: the Government has been dragging its feet on this. Plans for a single enforcement body were first announced in 2019 and weve seen little progress since then. People need their rights protected now.

There are two things the Government could do to help the lowest paid workers immediately.

First, the Government should provide additional funding to the HMRCs existing compliance team, to encourage it to go after rogue employers who trample on workers rights. Our CAB advisers tell us that, despite the legal powers available to it, the compliance team carry out almost no proactive investigations at present. The Government should explore options to strengthen the HMRCs hand until the new single enforcement body can be established.

Second, the Government should work to protect peoples incomes as we recover from the pandemic. The furlough scheme, which continues to be a lifeline for around 115,000 Scots, is set to end. Those people need the peace of mind that their incomes will be protected should they lose their jobs.

That also means that the Government must cancel the planned cut to Universal Credit (UC).

Remember that UC is not only for the unemployed: over 180,000 people on UC in Scotland are in work. Cutting UC will harm their incomes and even risk pushing them off UC altogether, meaning their entitlement to other passported benefits like the Scottish Child Payment will also end. For some working families, that will mean an overnight income drop of 30 or 40 a week a huge shock for anyone, never mind those on the lowest wages.

It feels like were finally coming out of the long last year. Shops and bars are reopening, and many of us are returning to work. But the last thing our economy needs is falling incomes and mass unemployment. For that recovery to stick, we must protect the lowest paid.

David Scott works in the Social Justice policy team at Citizens Advice Scotland.

Originally posted here:

Protecting the lowest paid must be key to economic recovery - HeraldScotland

Patience isn't just a virtue. On Wall Street, it's a formula for building wealth. Despite the broad-based S&P 500 declining by a double-digit percentage on 38 separate occasions since the beginning of 1950, each and every one of these pullbacks was eventually erased by a bull-market rally.

Put in another context, it really doesn't matter when you put your money to work in stocks. The more important aspect is how long you hold onto your investments. History shows that the longer you hold, the greater your chance of generating life-altering returns.

Best of all, with most online brokerages eliminating commissions and minimum deposit requirements, any amount of capital -- even $200 -- can go a long way toward achieving your financial independence.

If you have $200 ready to invest, which won't be needed for bills or emergencies, it can be put to work in this trio of no-brainer stocks right now.

Image source: Getty Images.

Although growth stocks have ruled the roost on Wall Street for the better part of 12 years, it's value stock Bristol Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY) that stands out as a jaw-dropping, no-brainer buy at the moment.

The great thing about healthcare stocks like Bristol Myers Squibb is they're money machines in any economic environment. Since we don't get the control when we get sick or what ailment(s) we develop, demand for things like drugs, devices, and healthcare services doesn't change just because Wall Street had a bad day or the U.S. economy enters a recession. Operating in a defensive sector means pharmaceutical stocks like Bristol Myers are veritable cash cows.

As you might imagine, internal development has played a big role in lifting sales for the company. For instance, it's on track to generate north of $10 billion in sales from Eliquis, which was developed in cooperation with Pfizer. Eliquis has quickly become the world's leading oral anticoagulant.

There's also cancer immunotherapy Opdivo, which brought in about $7 billion in sales in 2020. Opdivo has 10 approved indications, but it's being studied in dozens of clinical trials as a monotherapy or combination treatments. While not all of these trials will pan out, label expansions are likely over time. This should expand Opdivo's sales potential, lift Bristol Myers' pricing power on the drug, and further insulate its cash flow from future competition.

Bristol Myers Squibb further solidified itself as a great company with its late 2019 acquisition of cancer and immunology company Celgene. This deal added multiple myeloma drug Revlimid into Bristol Myers' portfolio. This is a drug that brought in more than $12 billion in sales last year, and that's grown by a double-digit annual percentage for over a decade. Revlimid is protected from a full onslaught of generic competition until Jan. 31, 2026, which means years of exceptional cash flow still to come.

There's no reason investors should be able to buy this company for just 7.4 times forward-year earnings, and with a 3.3% yield.

Image source: Getty Images.

If high-growth small-cap stocks are what wet your whistle, cannabis company Planet 13 Holdings (OTC:PLNH.F) is a no-brainer stock just begging to be bought.

It's no lie that marijuana stocks have been nothing short of a buzzkill the past seven months. Shortly after President Joe Biden took office, the expectation was that cannabis reform could actually happen at the federal level. But nearly a year after the election, change still hasn't come to Capitol Hill.

However, what's being overlooked is the fact that 36 states have legalized medical marijuana in some capacity, with half of those states having rules on their books to allow (or eventually allow) recreational consumption and/or retail sales. With the U.S. Justice Department allowing states to regulate their own pot industries, companies like Planet 13 have more than enough avenues to thrive.

Planet 13 is a multistate operator (MSO), but it's absolutely nothing like the other U.S. MSOs. Rather than opening dozens of stores in as many legalized states as possible, Planet 13 has focused on the experience of shopping for cannabis.

It has two operating dispensaries at the moment. Its original location is the SuperStore in Las Vegas, just west of the Strip. This is a 112,000-square-foot store that features a consumer-facing processing center, events stage, caf, and more selling space than you can ever imagine for dried flower, paraphernalia, and derivatives. The other SuperStore is located in Santa Ana, Calif., and will span 55,000 when fully complete. It currently has 16,500 square feet of selling space. No other dispensary comes close to the experience or layout Planet 13 offers its guests.

With the Las Vegas SuperStore a success, Planet 13 is setting its sights on Chicago, where it was recently awarded a license, and Florida, where it's acquiring a cannabis license from Harvest Health & Recreation. Both markets are magnets for tourists, and they're already generating more than $1 billion in annual weed sales. With the company turning the corner to recurring profitability, these new locations could cement Planet 13 as a premier pot stock.

Image source: Getty Images.

A third no-brainer buy with $200 right now is storage solutions giant Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC). If you thought Bristol Myers was cheap at 7.4 times forward-year earnings, Western Digital can be had for less than 4.9 times Wall Street's consensus forward-year earnings.

Traditionally, storage is a highly cyclical and commoditized industry. That's why you'll occasionally see Western Digital valued at a single-digit price-to-earnings ratio. Analysts simply assume that storage providers will increase their output to take advantage of higher prices and oversupply the market, eventually leading to a move lower in prices and profitability. But things could be different this go-around -- especially with the pandemic wreaking havoc on global supply chains.

As I've noted in the past, Western Digital is perfectly positioned to benefit from the gaming console replacement cycle. New gaming consoles typically hit the market every five years. The launch of new consoles last November, and the increased storage capacity needed to operate these next-gen consoles, should provide a healthy short-term bump for Western Digital.

Also helping out in the short run are higher sales for notebooks and personal computers. With the pandemic keeping people in their homes and workforces going remote, demand for notebooks and PCs have soared.

But it's the company's long-term catalysts that could send shares markedly higher. I'm talking about Western Digital's role in providing storage capacity for data centers as businesses shift their data into the cloud. It's quite possible that the company's NAND flash solutions become the preferred storage option in data centers by as soon as mid-decade.

The company will also benefit from the next-generation vehicle replacement cycle. New vehicles, including electric vehicles, are more reliant on storage solutions than ever to operate entertainment systems and other dashboard components.

The point is that Western Digital has more going for it now than at any other time that I can remember in my more than two decades of investing.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

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3 No-Brainer Stocks to Invest $200 In Right Now - The Motley Fool

Over the summer, my three years of dorm life finally came to an end. Finally, I signed a lease with a friend and moved into my first ever apartment for my last year of college. It was an exciting beginning to a new chapter in my life. After all, I always knew eventually I would have to move out of my family home for the last time to continue adulthood on my own.

My new Allston apartment was the beginning of that journey. It marked my first step towards achieving independence, and it meant I avoided the archetype of the post-college, do-nothing loser living in their moms basement. Id never have to live with my parents again, right?

According to Pew Research Center, more than half of young adults were living with one or more parents in July 2020. Considering those of us currently marinating in the comfort-zone of academia are graduating into a world recovering from economic collapse, as the job market continues to be competitive and the wealth gap continues to increase, the luxury of independence is becoming harder and harder to achieve.

The daunting reality is this: many of us graduating in the next few years may have to move back home.

Despite this increasingly becoming the reality for millennials and zoomers, the stigma surrounding moving back home is still real. Anecdotally, I can say many people in my circle are trying to avoid having to live with their parents at all costs myself included. So, its important to ask ourselves why there is such an emphasis on home-ownership.

Part of what makes living far from home so appealing to young Americans is the cultural emphasis on financial independence. The Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University theorized that wealth creation, residential stability and a sense of control are three major factors that contribute to the desire for home-ownership. These traits are shared with the mythologized American Dream that promises prosperity in exchange for working hard.

Which is to say, for those whove internalized that narrative that working hard means accumulating wealth the contrapositive must also be true: if you lack wealth it means you havent worked hard enough to earn it. So, when we see people with college degrees houseless, living at home with their parents, we assume they must be lazy and irresponsible.

It is easy to fantasize that I will be financially independent after I graduate by overworking myself. But when economic collapses like recessions occur more and more frequently, and the cost of living increases as wages remain stagnant, that becomes harder to justify.

Although home-ownership is perceived to be a sign of upward mobility, the truth is there are only so many seats at the top. Many Americans cant afford the luxury of home-ownership, and many of us graduating in the next couple of years may find ourselves in the same boat. When we internalize that how much wealth we accumulate correlates to how hard we work, were reinforcing a classist ideology that hurts not just others but ourselves.

If Im going to cope with the fact that my path towards success may not follow American tradition, I may as well do so in my childhood bedroom.

Originally posted here:

Sincerely, Ally: Why is there a stigma of living with your parents? The Daily Free Press - Daily Free Press

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For 15 years, Yvette Dessin spent long workdays with her elderly patients, accompanying them on walks, cooking them meals and bathing those who needed that most intimate kind of care. If a patient died, Dessin and her adult daughter attended the funeral services to pay their respects.

Dessin worked up to 60 hours a week as a home health aide, her daughter said, making minimum wage. She often worried about being able to pay the mortgage on her Queens, New York, home. She was one of roughly 2.4 million home care workers in the United States most of them low-income women of color and many of them immigrants who assist elderly or disabled patients in private residences or group homes.

The industry is in the midst of enormous growth. By 2030, 21% of the U.S. population will be at the retirement age, up from 15% in 2014, and older adults have long been moving away from institutionalized care. In a 2018 AARP survey, 76% of those age 50 and older said they preferred to remain in their current residence as they age. In 2019, national spending on home health care reached a high of $113.5 billion, a 40% increase from 2013, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The ranks of home care aides are expected to grow by more than those of any other job in the next decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is also among the lowest-paying occupations on the list.

Nearly 1 in 5 aides lives below the poverty line. In six states, the average hourly wage for home care aides is less than $11, and nationally, the median pay has increased just $1.75 an hour over the past decade, when adjusted for inflation.

Much of the aides low wages are paid for with taxpayer dollars about two-thirds of home care revenue is through public programs, primarily Medicaid, according to the nonprofit PHI, which monitors the eldercare workforce. The state and the federal government and sometimes the local municipality split the cost of Medicaid, which makes for varying rules from state to state, including on what services home health aides can provide.

The pandemic only made things worse, exposing the vulnerability not only of the elderly and infirm but also of those who care for them. As COVID-19 spread across the country, many families turned to home health care as an alternative to nursing homes, which had become hot spots for the virus. Shortages of personal protective equipment made the work risky.

Although home health aides qualify for sick leave under New York City law, many people interviewed were unaware of that or did not feel as if they were truly permitted to take time off.

In conversations with more than 50 home health aides around the country, many workers described unpaid or late-paid wages, unaffordable benefits and chronic injuries.

For some, like Dessin, those conditions amid a pandemic proved fatal. She was at high risk because of her age and preexisting conditions and became one of at least 275 aides at her company who contracted the virus, according to her union. Her company said she was one of seven of its employees to die from COVID-19.

Dessins daughter, Dany St. Laurent, believes that her mother felt trapped during the pandemic. Her work came before everything, she said. Including herself.

[[bold subhed]]

Private work, public regulation

Americare, Dessins employer, is one of about 1,500 home health care providers in New York state, and among the citys largest, with more than 5,000 employees and about as many patients in the five boroughs and surrounding counties.

The private nature of the work makes oversight of home care agencies challenging, even when regulators try to step in.

In 2018, an investigation by the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection found that Americare was among more than 30 home care agencies that had failed to follow paid sick leave regulations. It determined that Americares sick time policies violated city law and noted that the company had a history of noncompliance with labor laws. The company was ordered to change its policies, notify employees of their rights and train managers on complying with city sick leave law.

The company is also the subject of a lawsuit by workers claiming a systemic, long-standing underpayment of wages going back to 2005. In court documents, Americare denied the accusations. Oral arguments regarding the workers motion for the case to proceed as a class action are scheduled to begin later this year.

Americare was investigated twice by the attorney generals office for Medicaid compliance issues in 2005 for improper billing and in 2008 for failing to detect workers with falsified training certificates. The investigations resulted in a total of $15 million in reimbursements.

In an interview, an Americare representative said that Medicaid audit settlements were common in the industry.

There are an estimated 65,000 home care agencies across the country. Americare may have a fraught history, but it is also a microcosm for the industry itself.

[[bold subhed]]

Doing what she loved

When Dessin moved to New York from Haiti in the mid-1980s, she realized that the unpaid caregiving work she had been doing in her home country was a marketable skill.

Speaking nine months after her mothers death, St. Laurent described how life in New York looked from Haiti as if money grows on trees, she told us last winter. From what theyve seen on the internet, you could just go in the garden and pick up $100.

For almost two decades, Dessin ran a day care center out of her apartment. In 2005, at 50 years old, she decided to pursue a home health aide certification. When she completed the training program that fall, she had her certificate framed.

This lure of education and financial independence also drew Helen Monah, a Guyanese immigrant who moved to New York City in 2018 and began home health care training. She texted her daughter, Rubena Durbin, photos of her progress a stack of open textbooks and pictures of herself in glasses and scrubs. In December, she was hired by Americare.

She was so happy to be working in that environment doing what she loved, Durbin said.

The work itself was onerous. Apart from regular patient care, Americare home health aides are also required to provide light housekeeping, including washing toilets, removing garbage and dusting, according to an employee handbook obtained during the citys 2018 investigation.

It also puts aides in close contact with their clients. They often have to lift and lower their patients, with their bodies pressed together and faces inches apart.

An Americare executive acknowledged that early in the pandemic, personal protective equipment was in short supply, so the company gave priority to workers assigned to high-risk patients. The executive said that the company distributed information in multiple languages on how workers could protect themselves and that workers were permitted to use paid time off as needed, adding that at one point in April 2020, as many as 250 aides were quarantining.

Numerous Americare nurses, therapists and aides said they would not be able to work due to their own underlying conditions, family concerns or general anxiety decisions that weve honored and respected, said Gallagher, Americares vice president.

As of August 2021, at least 275 Americare aides had been infected with COVID-19, according to Francine Streich, a field director at United Food and Commercial Workers Local 2013, the union representing Americare workers. She noted, though, that the number was probably an undercount, as the company had stopped providing numbers of cases to the union. Americare said that number was accurate as of February; it did not provide an updated number.

As the pandemic began spreading through the city, St. Laurent and Durbin both tried to persuade their mothers to quit. But their paychecks helped them achieve the financial independence both women had yearned for for most of their lives.

Dessin spent March 2020 working as many hours as possible 40 hours a week from Americare and more from another company. Later that month, she came home from work exhausted.

Mom, stay home, call out sick, her daughter, St. Laurent, pleaded, as Dessin sat down to catch her breath on the couch.

But Dessin was only five months away from when she had planned to retire and decided to keep working. Several days later, her condition had worsened. Dessin struggled to walk and needed her daughter to wash her hair as she sat on a chair in the bathtub.

The next day, St. Laurent drove her mother to the hospital. She was put on a ventilator that same night. Four days later, on April 7, Dessin was gone.

Meanwhile, Monah had bought a ticket back to Guyana for her sons wedding, her first visit in four years. After this trip, she told her daughter, maybe she would go on a cruise. Once she got to New York and started making her own money, she wanted to live, Durbin said.

Durbin was concerned when her mother told her that an aide who had worked a shift before her at a patients house was coughing, but Monah assured her daughter that she had cleaned the area with supplies she bought with her own money.

By April, she, too, had become ill and was treating her flulike symptoms with home remedies and over-the-counter medicines. On April 11, she began experiencing acute pain in her legs and stomach.

At the hospital, doctors diagnosed a blood clot in her stomach related to COVID-19 and recommended surgery. She sent her daughter a voice note via WhatsApp. Im going to make it, she said through fits of raspy coughing. Im a fighter.

But Monah never woke up, and on April 26 three weeks after Dessins death she, too, died.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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Home care workers feel stressed and alone - Finance and Commerce

Nearly 50 years after Katherine Graham of The Washington Post became the first-ever woman to run a Fortune 500 company, just 8% of Americas largest companies have female CEOs.

Indra Nooyi, the former chairman and CEO of PepsiCo who pushed for transformational change at the company through innovation of healthier products, once belonged to that small club.

In a new memoir called My Life in Full: Work, Family and our Future, Nooyi reflects on her career and the challenge of balancing work and family. Click the audio player above to hear Nooyis conversation with Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal. The following is an excerpt from the book.

One foggy Tuesday in November 2009, after hours of meetings in Washington, DC, with two dozen top US and Indian business executives, I found myself standing between the president of the United States and the prime minister of India.

Barack Obama and Manmohan Singh had entered the room for an update on our groups progress, and President Obama began introducing the American team to his Indian counterpart. When he got to me Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo Prime Minister Singh exclaimed, Oh! But she is one of us!

And the president, with a big smile and without missing a beat, responded, Ah, but she is one of us, too!

Its a moment Ill never forget spontaneous kindness from the leaders of the two great countries that have given me so much. I am still the girl who grew up in a close family in Madras, in the South of India, and I am deeply connected to the lessons and culture of my youth. I am also the woman who arrived in the US at age twenty-three to study and work and, somehow, rose to lead an iconic company, a journey that I believe is possible only in America. I belong in both worlds.

Looking back, I see how my life is full of this kind of duality competing forces that have pushed and pulled me from one chapter to another. And I see how this is true of everyone. We are all balancing, juggling, compromising, doing our best to find our place, move ahead, and manage our relationships and responsibilities. Its not easy in a society that changes very fast yet sticks to some age-old habits and rules of behavior that feel out of our control.

The twin demands that define me have always been my family and my work. I joined PepsiCo, in 1994, in part because the companys headquarters were close to my house. I had two daughters, ages ten and one-and-a-half at the time, and a husband whose office was nearby. PepsiCos job offer made sense, we thought, because the commute was short. Id be able to drive to the school or home to the baby in fifteen minutes. Of course, this is not the only reason I chose PepsiCo, an exuberant, optimistic company that I whole-heartedly enjoyed from the moment I walked in. I also felt that PepsiCo was a place that was open to changing with the times.

That was important. I was female, an immigrant, and a person of color entering an executive floor where I was different from everyone else. My career had started when the dynamics between women and men at work were not the same as they are now. In fourteen years as a consultant and corporate strategist, I had never had a woman boss. I had no female mentors. I wasnt upset when I was excluded from the customs of male power; I was just happy to be included at all. But by the time I got to PepsiCo, waves of educated, ambitious women were pouring into the workforce, and I could sense the atmosphere changing. The competition between men and women was becoming more acute, and, in the subsequent decades, women have altered the game in ways that would have been unthinkable to me early on. As a business leader, I always tried to anticipate and respond to the shifting culture. As a woman and the mother of girls, I wanted to do everything possible to encourage it.

As my career progressed, and my children grew up, I wrestled with the ever present conflicts of working motherhood. For fifteen years, I kept a whiteboard in my office that only my daughters could write on or erase. Over time, that board was a comforting kaleidoscope of doodles and messages, a constant reminder of the people closest to me and those to whom I really belong. When I moved out of my office, I kept a canvas replica of its last iteration: Hey Mom, I love you very, very much. XOXOXOX. Hang in there. Never forget that you have people that love you! Have a great day! Hey Mom, you are the absolute best! Keep doing what you are doing! the image exclaims, with cartoon characters and pictures of suns and clouds, all in green and blue dry-erase marker.

As a high profile female CEO, I was also asked over and over to discuss work and family conflicts in front of large audiences. I once commented that I wasnt sure my daughters thought I was a good mother dont all moms feel that way sometimes? and an Indian TV network produced a full hour prime time discussion program, without me, on what Indra Nooyi said about working women.

The twin demands that define me have always been my family and my work.

Over the years, I met thousands of people worried about how to be true to their families, their jobs, and their ambitions to be good citizens. This engagement had a great impact on me; I learned and absorbed the details at a visceral level. I thought about how family is such a powerful source of human strength but realized that creating and nurturing families is a source of stress for so many.

At the same time, I was among a vaunted group of global leaders regularly invited into rooms with the most influential leaders on the planet. And I came to notice that the painful stories about how people especially women struggle to blend their lives and were entirely absent in those rooms. The titans of industry, politics, and economics talked about advancing the world through finance, technology, and flying to Mars. Family the actual messy, delightful, difficult, and treasured core of how most of us live was fringe.

This disconnect has profound consequences. Our failure to address work and family pressures in the senior reaches of global decision making restrains hundreds of millions of women every day, not only from rising and leading, but also from blending a satisfying career with a healthy partnership and motherhood. In a prosperous marketplace, we need all women to have the choice to work in paid jobs outside the home and for our social and economic infrastructure to entirely support that choice. Womens financial independence and security, so central to their equality, are at stake.

More broadly, ignoring the fact that the work world is still largely skewed toward the ideal worker of yore an unencumbered male breadwinner depletes us all. Men, too. Companies lose out because productivity, innovation, and profit suffer when so many employees feel they cant bring their whole selves to work. Families lose out because they spend so much energy coping with old systems, from short school hours to a lack of parental leave or elder care, that dont mesh with their reality.

And, of course, the entire global community suffers. Many young people, worried about how they will manage it all, are choosing not to have children. This could not only have dire economic consequences in the decades to come, but, on a very personal note, I find this detail sad. With everything I have accomplished, my greatest joy was having children, and I wouldnt want anyone to miss the experience if they want it.

Ignoring the fact that the work world is still largely skewed toward the ideal worker ofyore an unencumbered male breadwinner depletes us all.

I believe that we must address the work and family conundrum by focusing on our infrastructure around care with an energy and ingenuity like never before. We should consider this a moonshot, starting with ensuring that every worker has access to paid leave, flexibility, and predictability to help them handle the ebb and flow of work and family life, and then moving fast to develop the most innovative and comprehensive childcare and eldercare solutions that our greatest minds can devise.

This mission will require leadership that we dont often see. I think the fundamental role of a leader is to look for ways to shape the decades ahead, not just react to the present, and to help others accept the discomfort of disruptions to the status quo. We need the wisdom of business leaders, policy makers, and all women and men passionate about easing the work and family burden to come together here. With a can-do sense of optimism and a must-do sense of responsibility, we can transform our society.

Transformation is difficult, but I have learned that with courage and persistence and the inevitable give and take it can happen. When I became PepsiCos CEO, in 2006, I laid out an extremely ambitious plan to address the underlying tensions in a company still rooted in selling soda and chips. I knew we had to balance supporting our prizedPepsi-Cola and Doritos brands with afull throttle effort to make and market more healthy products. We had to keep stocking stores and pantries with convenient, delicious snacks and beverages but account for the environmental impact of that growth. We had to attract and retain the very best thinkers in their fields but ensure that PepsiCo was also a terrific place to work for a quarter of a million people. I called this mission Performance with Purpose, and, for a dozen years, I weighed every decision against these measures, making constant trade offs to achieve a more sustainable, contemporary organization.

In the months before I left PepsiCo, in 2018, I thought about how I would contribute in the years ahead, knowing that I am one in a chain of woman leaders who can help move us forward for generations to come. I set out to write a book and insisted to all around me that it would not be a memoir. Instead, I thought, I would devote every ounce of my experience and intellect to a manual for fixing how we mix work and family.

The book you hold is not that book.

First, I soon found that the research on work and family has been done. From every angle, in every corner of the world, the arguments and ideas for supporting families from maternity leave to early childhood education to multigenerational living have been compiled, analyzed, scored, and debated by brilliant minds. I didnt need to repeat all that.

Second, everything I bring to this issue, I know now, comes from my own life in full.

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Former PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi on the work and family conundrum - Marketplace