Focus on future helps her thrive

DIRECT CONTACT: StrategicPoint Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer Betsy A. Purinton, pictured above in a black top, speaks with, from left, financial advisers Sean Giles and Chrissy Canapari and Managing Director and Chief Compliance Officer Richard Anzelone. / PBN FILE PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
DIRECT CONTACT: StrategicPoint Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer Betsy A. Purinton, pictured above in a black top, speaks with, from left, financial advisers Sean Giles and Chrissy Canapari and Managing Director and Chief Compliance Officer Richard Anzelone. / PBN FILE PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

Betsey A. Purinton, 64, the managing director and chief investment officer for StrategicPoint Investment Advisors in Providence, is 13 years into her latest career – and still growing.

Previously a teacher, an administrator and a stay-at-home mom, this financial adviser rose in a midlife career change to her current leadership position, helping women gain financial independence along the way.

Born in Evanston, Ill., Purinton earned a bachelor’s degree in 1972 and a master’s degree in 1975 in economics from the University of Colorado.

After teaching middle school, and high school history and social studies, she spent 1978 through 1983 as director of admissions and community relations at the Professional Children’s School in New York City.

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Along the way, in 1982, she married, started a family and took time off to raise her three children.

In 1999, as her children were getting older, Purinton decided to study financial planning through coursework at Bryant University’s Executive Development Center. She passed the FINRA’s Series 65, a Uniform Investment Adviser Law Examination, in 2001, when she was hired at StrategicPoint.

The reasons for pursuing this new career had as much to do with the upbringing she and her sister received as it did her career motives.

During the Great Depression, her grandfather and grandmother, Thaddias and Irene Walker, put hard-earned money into the trust of someone who bought mortgages, and lost “a great deal” of money, she recalled.

“They never wanted us to be in a situation where we couldn’t be independent,” she said.

As StrategicPoint’s chief investment officer, she tries to develop agendas and guide tactical asset allocations by consensus, while adjusting portfolios based on what’s happening in the economy.

She also enjoys mentoring others as she was mentored by former StrategicPoint principal Jill Schlesinger.

Besides being naturally eager to help solve problems, Purinton has always sensed that it is important on occasion to “get out of your comfort zone.”

For about five years in the mid-2000s, she co-hosted a radio show called “Making Money,” that is now no longer on the air. She felt a responsibility to provide information to the public because, often, financial information is not reliably sourced, she said.

Purinton also founded StrategicPoint’s Women’s Planning Initiative in 2009 to help women become and remain financially secure and independent.

As for the future, StrategicPoint is “very open to expanding beyond what we have now – not necessarily just opening a branch. We could look at merging with other firms, bringing on-board additional advisers, or helping firms with succession planning.”

In addition, she said, the firm has additional “resources we can tap into. We’re very excited about where the firm is headed.”•

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