Building Bridges
Whether she’s mentoring young women or helping clients plan for the future, Jill B. Steinberg of Beacon Pointe Advisors has a passion for nurturing life-changing relationships.
by Bill Donahue

When Jill B. Steinberg, MBA, CDFA®, looks back on her career as an award-winning financial advisor, a successful business leader, and a respected mentor to young women, she immediately thinks about one of her earliest memories—Camp Walden, an all-girls’ summer camp in Denmark, Maine.

“I went there for seven summers, and the camp challenged me in the best possible way,” says Steinberg, the Managing Director and Partner of Beacon Pointe Advisors in Bala Cynwyd. “We had no electricity the first five summers, so you read by flashlight and walked to the shower house in the dark. We also did a lot of outside trips—hiking, climbing Katahdin and Mt. Washington, canoe trips, living in tents. I never did anything like that before going there. It was a great experience.”
 
Those formative summers had such an impact on her that it inspired the name of her first firm. She founded Walden Capital Advisors in 2006 and ran it successfully for 10 years before merging Walden Capital with Beacon Pointe.  
 
“Those years at camp taught me leadership, resilience, confidence, and the power of connections and relationships, especially with other women,” she adds. “I have a lot of lifelong female friends that I met at Camp Walden. It made me realize the power of connecting with other women, and that’s been a theme that has carried through my life.”
 
Although Steinberg enjoys working with clients of all ages, backgrounds, and circumstances, she gains particular satisfaction from working with women—especially those who are in the midst of a life transition.
 
“At least half of my clients are women, whether they’re single, widowed, divorced, or going through some sort of an adjustment in their lives,” she says. “Studies show that women tend to outlive men, so at some point most women will have to manage their own finances. What I love about this work is that it combines people and finance. I know my clients’ families, their hopes and dreams, their fears. I also love that I’m able to give them peace of mind through a transition—and then help them as they start on their next journey.”
 
Finding Balance
As a 10-time winner of the Five Star Wealth Manager Award through Philadelphia magazine, Steinberg believes her responsibility to clients involves much more than helping them grow and protect their wealth. She likes to remind them that life is for enjoying, not just for accumulating assets. After all, she understands the fragility of life all too well.
 
Steinberg’s daughter Blaine was an inspiration to many. In addition to being an academic all-star, Blaine was a highly skilled athlete who excelled in lacrosse and soccer, and captained both of her high school teams. Her performance on and off the field earned her a spot on the lacrosse team at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Although multiple concussions ended her college athletic career, Blaine deftly pivoted to other passions, such as sports broadcasting and athletic fundraising, while maintaining a high level of conditioning.
 
Eight years ago, Blaine was heading to the gym for a workout. She had complained of chest pain and shortness of breath, but she was young and in excellent health, so she thought nothing of it. A few minutes later, a heart attack caused by an undiagnosed condition claimed her life. She was 20 years old.
 
“It was our worst nightmare,” Steinberg recalls. “We lived through what tragedy can do to a family.  We adopted the saying: ‘When something bad happens, you have three options: It can defeat you, it can define you, or you can let it strengthen you.’ Only the latter was an option for us, and we knew we wanted to do something in Blaine’s memory.”
 
Today, the Live Like Blaine Foundation offers transformative leadership programming and mentoring to young female athletes while creating connections among members of a growing and diverse community. The nonprofit foundation strives to instill leadership skills in young female athletes and empower them to become confident, resilient, and positive leaders. Live Like Blaine provides multiple avenues for accomplishing these goals, including an annual Captains’ Practice Leadership Conference, the full-year Live Like Blaine Leadership Academy, and a summer scholarship program for experiences that combine sports and leadership.
 
Steinberg’s work with the foundation has inspired her in more ways than one. It has even informed her approach to advising clients.
 
“When I first started in this career, I would teach people to save, save, save,” she says. “I still do, but you also need to live your life, because you just don’t know what’s going to happen. I never regret any money I’ve spent on family vacations, because those are the things that stay with you. Having gone through the experience my family went through, I talk to my clients about finding that balance.”
 
‘A Great Field for Women’
Steinberg has become used to being an outlier of sorts. She studied economics at Princeton University and worked in corporate finance on Wall Street, both environments dominated by men. To this day she remains in the minority of advisors working in her field. She is thankful, however, to see a shift in that trend and has even helped reverse it by mentoring young women in need of guidance and support.  
 
“I have always related well to men and enjoy working with men, but I feel that the financial world needs more female advisors,” she says. “It’s not always the case, but women tend to be empathetic, patient, and good listeners, all of which are essential skills in this field. Financial services is also a great field for women, because it allows you to have a challenging career with more control over your life.”
 
Steinberg is in good company at Beacon Pointe, which is the country’s largest female-run Registered Investment Advisory firm. CEO Shannon Eusey co-founded the firm, and women account for approximately 50 percent of its leadership team. Beacon Pointe also strives to mentor, educate, and empower female clients and advisors through initiatives such as the Women’s Advisory Institute (WAI), of which Steinberg is an active member; in fact, she received the inaugural WAI Advisor of the Year Award for her efforts to help the institute achieve its goals.
 
“I feel there’s still a stigma with younger girls going into math and science,” Steinberg says. “That’s where it starts. Schools have all these STEM programs, but there’s still a disparity between girls and boys going into those programs. Some people shy away from this career because they think it’s all numbers. The truth is that it’s about half that and half psychology. You also need people skills—being able to both build trust  and connect with people.”
 
The ability to establish connections with others, as well as maintaining those connections, has enriched Steinberg’s life. She recently attended the wedding of the daughter of someone she met when she was 10 years old—namely, a “sister” from summers at Camp Walden. Likewise, Steinberg treasures the fact that so many of her relationships with clients are long-term, and she has experienced the joy of seeing them achieve many of their life goals, such as educating children, buying a second home, and retiring.
 
“I have a passion for finance, but I also have a passion for helping people realize their dreams, whether it’s a client who wants to retire or a young woman who wants to build a career in this business,” she says. “I like making connections with people and hearing their stories, because everyone’s story is different. That’s what has made this work so rewarding for so long.”
 
Jill B. Steinberg, MBA, CDFA®
Beacon Pointe Advisors
Two Bala Plaza, Suite 806
Bala Cynwyd, PA 19004
(610) 664-6100
beaconpointe.com
jsteinberg@beaconpointe.com
 
Photo by Alison Dunlap
 
Published (and copyrighted) in Suburban Life, September 2022.
 

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