In fact, in her role as chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab, clarifying seemingly impenetrable financial topics for the average person is a big part of her day.

“Too often with people who are pundits, it seems that their number one goal is to sound like the smartest girl or guy in the room, and more often than not they’re going to turn people off,” she says.

At Schwab, Sonders keeps a lot of plates spinning, providing market and economic analysis as well as spearheading investor education initiatives. She often shares her views as an expert guest on a range of television programs on CNBC, Fox Business, Bloomberg TV and Radio, and CNN, to name a few.

“We’re all time constrained, and there is an appreciation for [experts] to get to the point and to take complex [financial] topics and explain them in a way that’s easier to understand,” she says.

She maintains that investing is about more than just facts and figures, a widely held false impression that turns many people off before they even get started.

“I don’t use math to any significant degree in anything that I do on a day-to-day basis,” she says, emphasizing that strategy and analysis often are more at play. “There is this misperception [that this business] is all about stats and accounting.”

A Process, Not a Gamble

When it comes to investing, the 1990 Gabelli School of Business MBA graduate wants people to know that following the hot tip of the moment (or the trending topic on Twitter) is hardly wise.

In fact, there’s one question she’s asked often that she hates: Should investors “get in” or “get out” of the market right now?

“I have a love-hate relationship with that question,” she says. “I hate it because it’s a ridiculous question, but I love it because it gives me an opportunity to pontificate on why it’s a ridiculous question.

“Neither get in nor get out is an investing strategy,” she says. “That’s simply gambling on a moment in time. Investing should never be about a moment in time, it should always be about a process over time.”

And one-size-fits-all advice just doesn’t cut it in her view.

“I hate the cookie-cutter approach,” says Sonders, who adds that a 24-year-old with an appetite for risk warrants a far different investing strategy than a 70-year-old retiree.

Moving Beyond Gordon Gekko

In addition to slicing through what she calls a cacophony of financial advice due to social media and a 24-hour news cycle, Sonders is also adamant about clearing up some misperceptions about Wall Street—and the role that women can play there.

“One of the biggest shames of the aftermath of the financial crisis is how big of a black eye the industry has gotten,” Sonders says.

Wall Street and the broader financial services space are not brimming with Gordon Gekko-type clones, she says, referring to the fictional corporate raider who argued that “greed … is good.” She says that such a view discounts what a positive impact the industry has on so many individuals’ lives, and it overlooks opportunities that exist there for those who don’t fit that stereotype. “[Some people] may not understand what the broader industry does for investors, and for companies and our economy,” she says.

And that brings her to another myth about financial services: that it’s solely a boys’ club.

Women in Finance—a Bull Market

Sonders posits that the boys’-club culture likely dates back to a time when the typical path to Wall Street was through training programs set up by wire houses, which eventually funneled young professionals onto trading floors.

“There’s no question that’s kind of the classic boys’ network,” she says. “That sense of [women] feeling out of place [in the industry] might have been greater in that era. That’s not the path I took. I had a very different set of experiences.”

In addition to working with many women at the start of her career—she began at the Zweig/Avatar Group before moving in 1999 to U.S. Trust, which was acquired by Schwab a year later—she says the firms she worked for believed in promoting from within and rewarding workers based on their merit, not their gender.

“My only two jobs have been at firms that have been blind to gender,” she says.

Today, she emphasizes that there are so many “different and unique opportunities [for women] to start out in the business,” with the wealth management and private client spaces being particularly ripe for opportunity.

“We crossed the chasm where more than half the wealth in the U.S. is controlled by women,” she says. “It’s an awesome time for women,” she adds.

Looking back at her career, Sonders has no regrets.

“I have kind of a creed or motto that I think about in my life,” she says. “When I’m asked, what would you change? In general, my response is I wouldn’t change a thing. … The slightest little change would have put [me] on a completely different path.”

—Kelsey Butler, FCLC ’10

For more of Liz Ann Sonders’ thoughts on her career and opportunities for women on Wall Street, listen to her November 2017 conversation with fellow Fordham alumna Veronica Dagher, GABELLI ’00, ’05, host of The Wall Street Journal’s podcast Secrets of Wealthy Women.

The School of Professional and Continuing Studies (PCS) has launched the Fordham Real Estate Institute at Lincoln Center, designed for professionals and investors who want to boost their expertise to the next level.

“Lincoln Center is a such a classy and convenient destination,” said Robert Morgenstern, director of the new program. “To have Fordham as the school and Lincoln Center as the location, with quality faculty and programming that professionals want, is a perfect combination.”

Anthony Davidson, Ph.D., the dean of PCS, said the program is part of the expansion of the school. It offers online components that he plans to incorporate into other disciplines as well.

Davidson said Morgenstern will be working with faculty experts with years of experience in the real estate and construction industries in New York City, “one of the world’s most dynamic and sophisticated real estate markets.”

Students will be able to pursue a six-course certificate or take select courses in four tracks: Finance and Investment, Financial Modeling, Development, and Construction Project Management. Areas of study range from valuation and private equity to investment analysis and project management.

“These certificate programs present the core competencies and professional skills needed throughout the lifecycle of a property, from initial development through disposition” said Morgenstern. “Each phase of the process has its own specialized set of skills and requirements, and we strive to deliver those to the student using real world, practical applications.”

Morgenstern said that the certificate could appeal broadly—from owners and investors who want to learn how to converse with contractors working on their projects to construction tradespeople who want to move up in their career.

“We’ll be offering those professionals solid instruction by people who work every day in the industry, imparting what they know,” he said.

The Real Estate Finance and Investment track includes property financial analysis, valuation, debt finance, private equity and investment analysis.

Another track, Real Estate Financial Modeling, is a skill set that is in demand, he said.

“It’s about setting up spreadsheets, getting the inputs right, determining value, and finding an effective way to present that information” said Morgenstern. “These are critical skills.”

The Real Estate Development track starts at site selection and moves through market and feasibility analysis, finance, construction and asset stabilization.   

Lecturers are from the Tri-State area, so the New York market’s nuances will certainly come up in the classroom, said Morgenstern. Online courses retain equal weight toward the certificate, and the topics will be relevant and transferrable to national and international markets.

Finally, Construction Project Management will be geared toward the construction process— from scheduling and estimating to budgets, cost control, safety management, and quality control. This track may appeal to architects who have designed but now want to be more involved in construction management or the broader development phases of projects, said Morgenstern.

“The professional certificate programs are designed to help current and up-and-coming industry professionals move to the next level in their careers, and that is exactly what our school is all about,” said Dean Davidson.