Mollie Kaiser, MBA, CLU®, RICP®, QPFC, CFP® & Carol Bates, CFP®, RICP®

Mollie Kaiser and Carol Bates are private wealth advisors with financial planning team Strategic View Advisors. They help clients identify their goals and put the proper resources together in a strategic plan to make those goals a reality. Both Mollie and Carol have almost 20 years of experience in financial planning, investment management and client advising. 

What business services do you offer?

We offer no-stone-unturned comprehensive financial planning services to our clients. Using both qualitative and quantitative data to create holistic financial plans, we follow a thorough discovery process to ensure that each plan is customized to the unique needs of the individuals and families in our care.

In what ways do you stand out in your market?

Our mission is to help our clients Achieve Financial Peace of Mind™ by allowing them to focus on their goals and dreams while we handle the financial minutia. The result of working with us isn’t just a portfolio, distribution strategy or game plan for moving assets from one generation to the next; it is aligning those various parts into a cohesive strategy that connects our clients’ wealth to their values.

Tell us about your team.

Strategic View Advisors is a veteran team of 18 professionals with a combined 100+ years of experience in the financial services industry. We have a deep bench of intellectual capital with six Retirement Income Certified Professionals, one MBA, three CLUs, one Chartered Financial Analyst, and nine Certified Financial Planners™ (CFP^®). For each client that we work with, at least two CFPs are helping craft the plan. We believe that earning your CFP is part of being a good financial steward and is required for the level of service we provide.

Speak about the importance of community and the impact it has on your business.

Our mission statement affirms our commitment to transform the communities in which we live. We hope to accomplish that in part by the financial planning work we do for families, removing financial stress so they are able to spend that energy within their community. Additionally, Strategic View Advisors has a philanthropic arm, SVA CARES, which organizes volunteer opportunities and fundraisers to support community-focused causes including Alzheimer’s prevention, clean beaches, women’s shelters, cancer research and more.  

Are there any considerations you make when working with women vs. men?

For women, there is a perceived barrier to entry into the world of finance. For many years, the sentiment was that women are more risk-averse than men. This turns out not to be true when time is taken to discuss risk on the front end of investment decisions. With an in-depth understanding, women’s risk tolerance increases, and they reap the rewards of making educated financial decisions.

How is your company leading the way with women in positions of authority?

Our firm is committed to promoting female leadership. Women make up 60% of our advisors, and half of our leadership team is represented by women. This was a conscious decision to ensure the women on our team have strong influence in all aspects of the business. Our voices are heard, promoted and respected.

Describe your dream client.

We like working with people who want a lifetime financial partnership. Our holistic advice is designed entirely around our clients’ goals; as they change and grow, so do their goals. We encourage our clients to reach out to us when they are seeking clarity on anything from purchasing a car to transferring wealth to the next generation. We aim to establish a level of competence and trust that allows our clients to Achieve Financial Peace of Mind™, the driving force behind our mission at Strategic View Advisors.

Who needs a financial advisor?

There’s a misconception that you only need an advisor later in life or once you have a certain dollar amount saved. But we strongly believe that everyone should consider working with a financial partner. We work with our clients through marriage, having children, moving, changing jobs, the passing of relatives, inheritances, retirement, caring for aging parents and more. People often wish they had begun working with us earlier in life.

Disclaimer: Mollie Kaiser and Carol Bates use Strategic View Advisors as a marketing name for doing business as representatives of Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company^® (NMWMC) and Northwestern Mutual Investment Services, LLC (NMIS). Strategic View Advisors is not a registered investment adviser, broker-dealer, insurance agency or federal savings bank. Mollie Kaiser provides investment advisory services as Advisors of NMWMC, a subsidiary of The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company, located in Milwaukee, WI (NM) and a federal savings bank, and provides investment brokerage services as Registered Representatives of NMIS, a subsidiary of NM and a registered investment adviser, broker-dealer and member FINRA (finra.org) and SIPC (sipc.org).

Photographed by Shane O’Donnell