Morningstar - Q3 2020 - 70

Investors

got turned off, when we were homeless," she says.
"I knew it was all related to money."
Robasciotti passed the California High School
Proficiency Examination and graduated high
school at age 15. She moved out of her mom's
house, got her associate degree at Butte
College, a community college in Oroville, and
then a bachelor's degree at the University
of California, Berkeley.
She resolved then that she would work with
money to help people. In her mind was a
friend's father, a financial advisor in Los Angeles
she met when she was 16. He was the first
wealthy Black person she had ever encountered.
The image stuck with her.
After graduating from Berkeley, she worked at
a few financial firms but felt out of place as a
queer woman of color. She wanted to serve people
like her, groups that had traditionally been
left out of the kind of education she had. At age 25
in 2004, she left to form her own advisory firm
to seek social justice and has never looked back.
In 2006, Maya Philipson joined the firm and
was promoted to partner in 2008. More than 80%
of the firm's clients are women, and more than
70% are LGBTQ+. The firm, with eight employees,
is staffed entirely by women, people of color,
and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
The firm's assets under management in June were
around $140 million.
"Finding this pathway to financial security was
illuminating, but I didn't want to keep the
knowledge to myself," she says. "I wanted to use
my skills to lift up my community."
Impact Screens Yield a Select List

From gender equity to racial justice, social justice
fully informs Robasciotti's investing process.
She developed a series of impact screens based on
what she calls a bottom-up approach. Instead
of imposing typical social screens, such as board
composition or management diversity, she relies
on feedback from community organizations
to determine social impacts and how they should
be measured. "They are constantly informing

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Morningstar Q3 2020

Rachel Robasciotti, founder and CEO, Robasciotti
& Philipson.
How she caught our eye: Built an investmentmanagement firm dedicated to aligning clients'
portfolios with social justice.
Career path: Studied economics at University of
California, Berkeley, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree.
In 2003, at age 24, she was named the top
financial advisor at MetLife Securities. She struck out
on her own as an independent advisor in 2004
to avoid conflicts of interest and serve financially

underserved populations, such as people of color,
women, and the LGBTQ+ community. Before
founding her firm, she obtained her Series 7 and
Series 66 licenses.
Personal: Lives and works in San Francisco. Engaged
to her partner; they live in the same building
as her business partner, Maya Philipson, whom she
also counts as a dear friend. Practices meditation
with the Ridhwan School, which is based in
Berkeley. The organization now uses Zoom to continue
its teaching of courses in human development
and spirituality.
Morningstar - Q3 2020

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