Alumna Among Nation’s Top 100 Women Financial Advisors

by Jim Raper

Laurie Zittrain Jones ’86 is one of the nation’s Top 100 Women Financial Advisors, but as a student at Old Dominion she prepared for a career in international relations.

She took political science courses, and remembers with particular fondness the geography classes taught by Professor Chris Drake. Her Model United Nations participation at ODU led to her appointment as a delegate to the National Model U.N. She chose to major in history because she saw history as the prime determinant of international relations.

But after graduation, her job hunt in Washington, D.C., produced employment in a quite different field: banking. She has worked in the financial services sector ever since.

“It may be hard to see how my experiences at ODU prepared me for the job I have now, but they did,” she says. “My education was broad based. The Model U.N. participation taught me a lot about working with people and about public speaking. That is so much of what I do now. Being a financial manager is not just about math and numbers. It’s more about people, and that’s what I took away from ODU.”

Jones’ career success was writ large in June 2006 when a cover article in the financial newspaper Barron’s named her one of the country’s Top 100 Women Financial Advisors. The honorees were chosen by financial services author and consultant R.J. Shook of the Winner’s Circle organization. Jones made the list at No. 97. In November, she was a special guest at the first Top Women Financial Advisors Summit in Orlando, sponsored by Barron’s and Winner’s Circle. Before an audience representing the world’s top brokerage firms, she and the other members of the Top 100 were presented plaques by Barron’s editor and president, Ed Finn.

As a senior vice president of Wachovia Securities, Jones works in the firm’s offices in Virginia Beach and on the Eastern Shore. She has worked in securities sales since 1989, when she left banking and joined Merrill Lynch. She acknowledges that she was a pioneer of sorts. Women stockbrokers were rare in 1989, and even as late as 2003, only 13 percent of the nation’s retail brokers were female. The percentage jumped to 19 in 2005.

Jones believes that women bring excellent listening skills to the securities sales business, but she prefers not to dwell on gender comparisons. “I’d love to see the day when they don’t need specific categories for women financial advisors, like the Top 100 Women,” she says.

Barron’s also publishes the more-established Top 100 Financial Advisors list that is dominated by men, but Jones notes that more and more women are joining that inner circle.

For the time being, she says, “the pressure is to be on the Top 100 women’s list again next year.” The designation pleases her established clients and has helped introduce her to new clients.

She and her husband, Walter Jones, have formed an eight-person team within Wachovia Securities – Jones Wealth Management – in order to devote more of their time to meeting with and serving clients. Many of their clients are couples who are retired or nearing retirement, and most have a net worth of $1 million to $3 million, she says. Her typical account ranges from $500,000 to $1.5 million.

“I’m proud to be part of the Jones Wealth Management team,” she says, “and a little embarrassed to be getting this individual credit.”