Ellevest

Ellevest was co-founded by Sallie Krawcheck, a former Wall Street executive who previously led major wealth management divisions including Merrill Lynch Wealth Management and Smith Barney. Krawcheck serves as CEO and is the public face of the brand, regularly appearing in Ellevest's social content to advocate for women's financial empowerment.

Ellevest describes itself as built for 'women, families, and the next generation,' so its services extend beyond women exclusively. That said, its core financial planning philosophy is built around challenges women specifically face, including the gender pay gap, career interruptions, and longer average life expectancy in retirement.

Loud budgeting is the practice of openly declaring financial boundaries — telling people you're skipping something because it doesn't fit your budget rather than inventing an excuse. Ellevest promotes it as part of their broader push to normalize honest, shame-free money conversations, especially among women who are actively building wealth.

Ellevest's content explicitly advises negotiating over the phone or in person rather than by email. Their reasoning is that live conversation lets you control tone, respond in real time to pushback, and makes it much harder for an employer to stall or dismiss your ask with a one-line reply.

The gender investing gap refers to the pattern where women, on average, keep more of their money in cash savings rather than investing it — which compounds over decades into a significant wealth shortfall compared to men. Ellevest was built specifically to close that gap by encouraging and enabling women to invest earlier and with a long-term strategy.

Krawcheck argues that mainstream financial products and advice were historically designed by men for men, meaning they routinely fail to account for women's real salary curves, career breaks, or longer retirements. Ellevest positions itself as a direct corrective — wealth management built around how women's financial lives actually work, not a male-default model.

Ellevest is a wealth management and financial planning platform, not a traditional bank. It offers investment accounts and financial planning services centered on goal-based investing, with its tools and advice calibrated to the financial realities women face that standard platforms typically ignore.

Ellevest has offered membership-based access to its wealth management and financial planning services, giving members a path to investment accounts and professional planning guidance without the high minimums that typically gate traditional wealth management. Their model is designed to make serious financial planning more accessible to women earlier in their careers.

Ellevest's social audience is roughly three-quarters female, with the core demographic concentrated in the millennial and older Gen Z range — people in their mid-twenties to mid-forties who are actively working on building wealth. Their content is squarely aimed at women who want to close their own personal investing gap.

Ellevest is most consistently active on Instagram, which holds the vast majority of their social following, with YouTube as their stated primary platform for longer-form content. Their TikTok account has been largely inactive for years, so Instagram is the best place to follow their day-to-day posts and CEO commentary.