For Lindsey Donovan Rhea, financial advising is about more than making money. It’s about making relationships. That’s why when she launched her own wealth management firm in 2018 she named it Alia, Latin for “apart.” “We wanted to set ourselves apart,” she says. “We set our clients apart; we’re apart from the norm of our business.”
“You think it’s kind of all about numbers and things like that, and that is important,” Rhea says, “but what I really enjoy is really connecting with my clients and building the relationships that I have and when I got into the business [in 2007], I didn’t really realize that.”
After graduating from University of Memphis, Rhea began her career in finance with Morgan Keegan before becoming part of Veesart Financial in 2011. Today she is recognized with inclusion in LPL Financial’s Chairman’s Club Masters for 2024, being named number 469 out of 22,000-plus advisors. She was also recognized by Forbes as one of America’s Top Women Wealth Advisors 2024, as well as a Top Women Wealth Advisor, Best-in-State for 2024.
In her years in finance, Rhea says the industry is always evolving and changing — most compelling, though, she’s noticed more women working in her field. “It’s still very male-dominated,” she says. “It has been for years.” In fact, about 31% of financial advisors are women, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Yet women, she says, whether by nature or nurture, tend to approach financial advising through an empathetic lens, which is often welcome, especially by women clients. “It’s almost like sometimes I feel like I play the role of a little bit of a therapist sometimes,” she says. “Even with clients with the most thought-out financial plans, during difficult moments, and when you have the death of a loved one or a career transition or a moment in time where you really need to lean on your financial adviser, you want somebody that can understand, and they can listen, and learn with you and learn from you.”
That’s the role a financial advisor should fill, Rhea says. “I try to kind of demystify this scary world because there’s a lot of acronyms and money is a sensitive subject, but at the same time, fortunately, or unfortunately, however you look at it, money helps you to facilitate life, and so it’s hard to get away from it and but it’s something that’s kind of taboo.”
Rhea, for her part, finds herself working with women and women-owned businesses as clients. “I want to grow with women and for women,” she says.
In the last 12 months, Alia Wealth Partners has added three advisors: Ted Cashion in May 2023, Somer Taylor in 2023, and Mark Loft last month. Alia says it achieved its largest single-year of growth, managing more than $388M in assets by year-end 2023.
