CHAPTER I GETTING IT TOGETHER Founding The Club My husband confessed that he was having huge financial problems and hadn''t been paying the mortgage. We were in danger of losing our home. We needed new advisors to replace the lawyer and accountant who''d let us slide into a financial chasm, and I wasn''t sure how to use my own money to protect the two of us. Thank God I''d joined the club. I had networks to reach out to, people to consult. Best of all, when we got advice, I understood the issues. I had a confidence I''d never had before, and to my lasting pride, I''m the one who got us out of trouble. Every woman should have a club like this one.
-- Anonymous From 1985 to 1995, the all-female investment clubs in America -- about 41 percent of the total number of clubs -- outperformed the all-male clubs (13 percent) by three to one. Today''s women aren''t meeting to make quilts. They''re weaving financial safety nets. There are many investment clubs in America, but ours is unique. Thought at the beginning we spent most of our time on investments,that was simply to lay the foundation. We intended to branch out and educate ourselves about money and everything else that affected our financial lives. And that''s just what we have done. When the women who would become The Money Club gathered in a Manhattan apartment for the very first time, there were eighteen people in the room -- married and single, widowed and divorced.
Most were linked only through their friendship with Diane. On the jacket of the book are some of the charter members and others who became important to our success. They are: Top row, left to right: Vivian Serota, a glamorous, earthy, effervescent patron of the arts, has a diverse management and theatrical production background. She serves on the board of Daytop Village International addiction treatment centers and the Guggenheim''s "Learning to Read Through the Arts." She is married and the mother of a married son and married daughter. Carol Levin, a women''s activist, brings the pixie charm of Liza Minnelli, an offhand humor, and tremendous vitality to her beloved Women''s O.W.N.
(Optimum Wellness Now) and many other projects. She and her husband, the CEO of Revlon, have one daughter in high school and a married son and daughter-in-law who have followed them from Minneapolis to New York. Carol Safir, like her husband, Howard, the New York City Police Commissioner, former Fire Commissioner, and onetime Associate Director of the U.S. Marshal Service, has worn many hats, among them real estate agent and international business consultant. An auburn-haired "girl next door," she has a son fresh out of law school and a daughter who is a newly minted FBI agent. Carlyn McCaffrey has a wry wit and sharp mind that have earned her an exalted reputation among trusts and estates attorneys while her genuine concern has earned her the gratitude of her clients. A partner in the New York law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, she has a bicontinental relationship with her husband, who presently works in Europe.
They have four adult children. Second row, left to right: Diane Steiner, with a dazzling smile and great determination, blends empathy and intelligence with a passionate commitment to her clients'' rights that make her a top matrimonial lawyer in one of New York''s premier firms, Sheresky, Aronson & Mayefsky. She is married and the mother of a grown son and daughter. Kate Coburn, lively and curly-haired, packs a lot of energy and drive into a size-four body. Well known in New York real estate circles as the head of retail leasing for Rockefeller Center, she now advises other owners, developers, and retailers on strategic marketing and leasing issues. Diane Terman Felenstein. Gloria Gottlieb, a willowy blonde with a mischievous grin, started an insurance business with her husband just after their marriage. They are now among New York''s top agents.
Their park-view home is filled with modern art and photos of their grown son and daughter. Bottom row, left to right: Margot Green, dark-haired, trim, and elegant, turned her sophisticated taste into a business asset and founded a custom couture establishment. Known to her clientele as "the fastidious fitter," she is the mother of two adult sons. Harriette Rose Katz, a statuesque blonde and leading New York event planner of private and public celebrations, is also a culinary expert and oenophile who has been awarded the title Conseiller Gastronomique des Etats-Unis and heads the New York chapter of La Chaîine des Rôtisseurs. She recently planned the wedding of her daughter. Marilyn Crockett. Jane Bishop Shalam, a delicate beauty, marshals her abundant charm and formidable organizing skills to get extraordinary results as a community activist and as a dedicated club member. Married and the mother of three sons, she''s also helping raise her widowed brother''s preteen daughter.
Carol S. Kogan combines the cool elegance of a fashion model with the mind of a crackerjack executive. Formerly president of several top women''s designer apparel companies including Bill Blass and Oscar de la Renta Studio for Hero and Christian Dior Sportswear for the Jones Apparel Group, she has a business network throughout the United States, Europe, and the Far East. She divides her energies among her own consulting company, her husband''s international movie business, her son, daughter, and new granddaughter. Other founding members of the club, not pictured, include: Donna Bijur and Linda Lieberman, directors of Service Party Rental. Donna is now a consultant in Sweden, and Linda has also launched another business, "Just Linens." Bambi Felberbaum, a board member of several hospitals, is a supporter of philanthropic programs that focus on women''s, children''s, and medical issues. She is married with two adult children.
Karen Fisher is the president of Designer Previews, a designer referral service. Joann Jordan, a real estate broker for fifteen years, is currently with Ashforth Warburg Associates. Joann, who became the second president of the club, is a widow with an adult son and daughter. Pat Weinbach, a designer, heads her own firm specializing in remodeling and renovations. She is married, with three adult children. We had a lot of experience under our collective belt. Among us, we had traveled the world, met with statesmen and popes, been invited to the White House and the Academy Awards, run volunteer organizations with million-dollar budgets, and demonstrated our competence in executive offices and professional suites. But those of us who were married didn''t discuss money issues with our husbands, to whom we''d left all the financial control.
If single, we stumbled along as best we could. Very little stumped us in other areas, but we knew nothing about dealing with our money. We didn''t know how to calculate what we had, what to do about it, how to protect it, even how to find and talk to people who could help us. The very subject of personal finance frightened us. Our group included women with power and access in their own right and/or married to highly placed professionals, some of whom were top executives at leading investment banking and accounting firms. Being generally well connected, we had access to information that others might not. But having money and access isn''t the same as feeling in control of the money or knowing how to use the access. As a group, we were as financially unsophisticated as could be.
Even the wives of top-echelon money men didn''t know any more about finance than anyone else. Money, investing, personal finance -- these subjects are on the dark side of the moon for many women, including all of us. And though on the surface every woman in our group was traveling in privileged circles, we eventually realized that almost all had faced a personal crisis around an issue of money. Our families had struggled, we''d seen fathers and husbands fail, we''d been obliged to support ourselves on our own and been left in a financial lurch when widowed or divorced. One of our members was just in her twenties when her husband died of heart failure, leaving her with a baby; remarrying a few years later, she was widowed a second time. After her divorce, another member went to withdraw savings from the bank and discovered her husband had drained the account. As a young wife, another had helped her husband write checks for bills each week and later found that he''d put the carefully stamped envelopes into the incinerator instead of the mail slot. Another came home one Sunday to discover her husband gone and the house picked clean.
Every piece of furniture and shred of clothing had been stored or sold. She never saw any of it again. Even after joining our club, some members had to come to grips with devastating changes. Two lost high-powered jobs and all the financial benefits that come with them. When we considered doubling the amount of our monthly contributions, they told us that if the obligation went up, they''d have to drop out, so we kept the status quo. When someone''s husband had a business failure that forced him into bankruptcy, we joined forces to help her out during that difficult period. Our second president, Joann Jordan, lost her husband suddenly and without warning. Becoming immersed in club activities was one means of coping.
"It was a diversion from my grief and a form of self-protection, because it helped me learn how to maximize my finances." Being in the club has made.