I am here today with the incredibly kind, generous, and brilliant Wendy Li. Wendy is the co-founder and Chief Investment Officer at Ivy Invest, where she's democratizing access to the same sophisticated investment strategies typically reserved for billion-dollar endowments and foundations.

Today, we take a deep dive into Wendy's remarkable journey from growing up in a tight-budget immigrant family in Pennsylvania to becoming a top institutional investor managing multi-billion dollar portfolios. You'll hear about her early relationship with money shaped by her parents' financial struggles and eventual success, her unexpected discovery of finance as a career path at Columbia, and her unique experience working in the investment offices of prestigious institutions like the Met Museum.

Wendy shares candid insights about being a natural saver from her early twenties, the power of compounding through market volatility, and her bird's-eye view of the vast landscape of investment opportunities most individual investors never see. She opens up about the scary but ultimately rewarding decision to leave the security of institutional investing to build Ivy Invest, and how her mission is to bridge the gap between what billion-dollar institutions can access and what individual investors have available to them.

Listen as Wendy discusses her "endowment in a box" approach, the importance of building financial cushions that provide life optionality, and her vision for helping the next generation of investors build wealth in ways they didn't previously think possible. It's a conversation filled with practical wisdom on investing, risk-taking, and creating meaningful impact through financial innovation.

Key Topics:

1. Growing up in an immigrant family with financial struggles that transformed when her father completed his PhD and entered the semiconductor industry
2. Discovering finance as a career path at Columbia through Wall Street recruiting, despite initially planning to become a lawyer
3. Starting her career at the Met Museum's investment office under female leadership and learning the institutional investing landscape
4. Developing a natural saving mindset in her twenties, living frugally in NYC to maximize investments and build wealth through market volatility
5. Understanding the vast world of alternative investments as an institutional investor - from private equity to real estate to specialized credit strategies
6. Making the difficult decision to leave institutional investing security to co-found Ivy Invest with her family's support
7. Building "endowment in a box" - democratizing access to sophisticated asset classes with just a $1,000 minimum investment
8. Balancing legacy building through both family relationships and creating pathways for others to build wealth

Connect with Wendy online:

Website: https://www.ivyinvest.co/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendy-li-cfa/

 

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