One of my favorite parts of each month is sitting down to highlight an incredible business.
We have traveled the globe with our highlights, learning about the ins and outs of multiple businesses ranging from authentic mezcal, Australian letterpress, and California ceramics.
This month I am focusing on a wonderful client, Danika Waddel, the founder, and lead planner of Xena Financial Planning.
If you are anything like most, the conversation surrounding finances can be incredibly overwhelming. With how often women are left out of the finance conversations, it is no wonder entering the conversation often feels intimidating.
Danika removes all feelings of uncertainty, instead educating her clients and inviting women into the conversation of money.
Like many women, Danika knows from first-hand experience how often women are left out of finance and investing conversations.
As the founder, Danika’s focus is on women in the tech industry who receive equity compensation, typically in the early to mid-stage of their careers. Her goal is to help her clients make sense of all their options, working directly with her clients to navigate all that life is throwing their way.
Women make up a surprisingly small portion of the tech industry, around 30%, making Xena’s commitment to empowering women even more respectable. Xena is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion while creating a judgement free community where every woman is treated as an individual, one with her own life experiences and dreams.
As a woman who started my own business after an incredible journey of learning from others, I have immense respect for any woman who steps into the role of a businesswoman, especially in a male dominated industry like finance.
Danika’s path into finance was not linear, rather she spent the 15 years post college (with her BA in Mathematics! What a wizz!) in multiple accounting roles where she felt human connection had almost entirely disappeared. This lack of connection encouraged her to build her own practice, one that allows her to be “more nimble and innovative, while specializing in a particular niche”.
As you enter Xena’s service page, you can feel the power of the women, and their dreams, behind this firm.
Danika’s uses Gloria Steinem’s powerful words on her homepage…
“Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lost the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.”
Thank you, Danika for the gentle reminder to never forget the importance of dreaming.
