She helps people build their wealth

A Mumbai-based chartered accountant, Zankhana Shah is India’s first and only woman CFP (Certified Financial Planner) certified by the Financial Planning Standards Board (FPSB) of India. She is listed among a small number of such experts of financial planning — only 150 in India at the moment and is the only woman to achieve this honour. "I am what you may call a new-age chartered accountant," she says, "I am the number cruncher of the future. At 28, I run my own Mumbai-based financial planning outfit called Money Care Financial Planning and am looking forward to spreading my wings."

One of the toppers of Chartered Accountants’ examination, Zankhana worked as a systems consultant for Deloitte trading in the BSE stock market. But this challenge was not enough. She soon started her own company. "All credit for my confidence goes to my father and father-in-law," she says, "In my maternal home, I was pampered and my father, an eminent stockbroker, gave me the freedom to enhance my wealth. My husband too was totally supportive and generous. My father-in-law also encouraged me to go and get whatever I wanted in life. I studied for the CFP course — which is very tough – and passed out with flying colours. Now, as the founder of my company called Moneycare Financial Planning, I work to introduce a new discipline in the lives of entrepreneurs and professionals to increase their wealth-worth with turbo-charge speed.

"What is the turbo-charge of financial growth? I believe that what a person earns hardly matters. How they save and invest is what counts. I look at a client’s goals holistically and create a unique model for the investor so that all his or her needs are satisfied and all goals are met. I believe that wealth-acquisition has three main angles. The first and most important is the health of the individual — physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. If a person is not healthy in all these ways, wealth building gets stymied and does not achieve the full potential of a person, however talented he or she may be.

"The second factor is relationships. A huge number of people even in the highest echelons of society get embroiled in painful relationships and dwell on the past or the future but do not concentrate on the present. This also is a hurdle to wealth-building. The third aspect is goal-setting and realistically achieving them. So as an adviser, I help my clients to resolve their problems in these three areas by offering them as many options as possible. When a financial planner advises people, he does not tell them what to do. He helps them to discover their talent, patience, creativity, normalisation of life, etc, to discover their own strength and confidence to go ahead to create a rich life rather than a moneyed life. In this, we deal with childhood mindsets, notions acquired by setbacks, put downs, bad experiences in the money market and so on. Most important, we work within the self-regulatory professional conduct rules set up by the FPBS, which govern our work."

Currently, there are only 150 CFPs in India, with 50 enlisting after going through the examination process and the remaining being awarded the certificate for their vast experience and past work. "Today, with speed-of-light lifestyles leaving wealth-builders with stress and trauma, our profession, which combines solving all kinds of problems, is in demand. Most people are too taken up with self-made or family-driven problems to be free to build true wealth. All problems finally are related to money or products of money. Money is the driving force of modern life because a person’s independence, lifestyle, social status, relationships and self-worth depend on his or her wealth-creating ability. So if this aspect is set right, other problems have a good chance of being resolved. The CFP can hold a seminar for training a group of people or can give consultations personally. But it is vital that they build a trust and comfort-based relationship with the clients so that all cards are on the table and useful advice can be given without any pressure or force. The final decision always is with the investor."

Zankhana is a woman of the new generation, full of go, confidence and hope for the future. "Women can do anything they want provided their sights are set on logical goals and they are willing to work for what they want. Families – especially husband and children and the matrimonial family – should be supportive. Parents should encourage daughters as much as they support their sons. I am extremely lucky to receive the support of all to go ahead and start my company, which is already showing results. I travel all over the world to meet people in the capital market business and learn a lot from them. At 28, I am still a student and want to see the working of big companies in the investment planning business. I believe that investments, wealth building and financial advisory services are businesses with a tremendous and incredible future and we are headed in the right direction. I am happy to be one of the first to belong to this clan of people who will help to build the wealth of the nation through the portfolios of individual citizens by making them healthy, happy and rich!"