Mical Jeanlys-White was a managing director at JP Morgan, growing in her career, making and saving money. She felt financially successful, and was ready to work with an advisor to improve her investment portfolio and grow her wealth.
But it was difficult to find someone who was willing to work with her. Most of the professionals Jeanlys-White talked to required her to have quarter to half a million dollars to invest before they would even consider her as a client.
“I could not believe even someone with my background and education and understanding [of the finance industry], was still having this much of a challenge getting a wealth advisor,” she says.
It’s a problem a lot of Americans face. Nationally, 61 percent of Americans own stocks, but only 27 percent work with a financial advisor to help manage it. Those who do are a lot wealthier than those who don’t — by 290 percent, one study out of Canada found. Financial planning and wealth advisory services are often available exclusively to those who are already affluent — you need between $20,000 to $500,000 in cash to even open an account with a financial advisor, who, on average, charges between $150 to $500 an hour.
This lack of access is contributing to America’s widening racial wealth gap. The Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances found only 39 percent of Black families own stocks. Only 36 percent of Black people earning between $50,000 and $150,000 are working with a financial advisor, compared to 47 percent of White people at the same income level. Black women, like Mical Jeanlys-White, are the least likely of any demographic group to be working with a financial advisor — only 20 percent are using these services.
The issue continued to frustrate Jeanlys-White even after she found her own advisor. One day, in 2021, while riding her Peloton, she had an idea: What if she could create an app that connected more people with financial planning services and helped them build wealth?
So she left JP Morgan after 10 years and in 2022 she launched WealthMore, a Center City-based company that provides financial planning services via an app — which launched its free community plan this month.
Building WealthMore
Jeanlys-White grew up in New York City. Her grandmother had immigrated from Haiti and was a “super saver” — teaching her family members to save up for homes and invest in real estate, but nervous about investing in the stock market.
“She could have been a millionaire and created generational wealth. This work is deeply personal,” Jeanlys-White says. “We can build businesses that do really well while also doing good.”
Jeanlys-White moved to the Philly area to attend Villanova University. Working in the financial sector after college, she got a sense of what questions people have about investing, paying off student loans, and saving for a house and retirement.
“Most of us don’t know how to effectively manage a Roth. Most of us are not portfolio managers and have no idea how to create a diversified portfolio,” Jeanlys-White says.
“We’re inviting everyone and showing them that we have wealth advisors, and what has worked for the wealthy can work for all of us.” — Mical Jeanlys-White, Wealthmore
Ordinary Americans aren’t experts in navigating different kinds of savings plans and choosing stocks to build wealth — yet they’re expected to know how to manage these systems. In the past, about half of American workers had a professional managing at least part of their savings via a company pension plan. Those plans, which were available to many union workers, gave them the security and the savings they needed to retire. Companies would invest on behalf of their workers and would pay them a fixed amount for retirement.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 57 percent of small and 86 to 91 percent of large companies offer retirement plans in the form of 401(k)s — which require employees to select the funds they invest in themselves, with little guidance.
“If I have a legal issue, I’m expected to get a lawyer. If I have a medical issue, I’m expected to have a doctor who’s an expert,” Jeanlys-White says. “We created this massive void where we took professional money managers away and told the average person, you’re now a professional money manager.”
The result: A lot of Americans are struggling to save for retirement. Tanya Frias, a certified financial planner and head of wealth for WealthMore, says that a lot of the clients don’t even know they need to invest the money their employers contribute to their 401(k)s to get the kind of returns they need to retire.
“I’ve had clients who did not not realize that their 401(k) had been sitting in cash for 10 years,” Frias says. “If you’ve never done it before, it can be quite overwhelming.”
Helping everyday people build wealth
When Jeanlys-White was working with engineers on the app, she was conscious of these needs. WealthMore combines advice from qualified financial advisors with educational resources for users, so that they can learn more about investing, saving and meeting their financial goals.
When you download the app, you can join some of the 19 different communities based on your savings goals. So, if you’re interested in saving for retirement, you can join the retirement community. If you’re saving to send your kids to college, you can join the college savings group.
The communities have articles, written and vetted by financial advisors, that offer guidance on what people should invest in to reach these savings goals. “The goal is really to have this supportive community of wealth builders and have everyone feel that they can invest and see the power of that,” Jeanlys-White says.
Members can choose from one of three plan tiers: free, Invest+ and Premium Advice+. The free plan launched this month; it allows people to join communities, read advice articles written by the firm’s financial advisors, participate in savings goal challenges, and book one free onboarding session with a financial advisor to assess their needs and savings goals. Frias says this tier can help people save up enough so they can open one of the paid plans and build wealth by working with an advisor.
Invest+ memberships allows users to invest in advisor-led portfolios, meet with financial planners and get more tailored advice. Those memberships cost $300 per year and users need a minimum of $5,000 for investing. Premium Advice+ plans are for people with more complex financial planning needs. Users need to have $30,000 to open an account and pay $1,500 per year for the service.
WealthMore does not publicly disclose the number of users it has, but say they’re equally divided between men and women, most ages 28 to 45, in 22 states. Comparatively, Allianz’s 2023 Women Money Power Study found that among people with a financial advisor, only 33 percent were women.
“This kind of support is essential for closing the wealth gap and enabling generational wealth creation.” — La Keisha Landrum Pierre, Emmeline Ventures
“Women’s participation in investing is not just about access to capital but also about access to knowledge. WealthMore provides the financial education that allows more women to confidently take the leap from savers to active investors,” says La Keisha Landrum Pierre, cofounder and general partner at Emmeline Ventures, the firm that led WealthMore’s pre-seed fundraising round. Emmeline Ventures invests money in women entrepreneurs, with a focus on companies that improve health, wealth and help care for the environment.
When you sign up for the free plan, WealthMore doesn’t collect much demographic data. You submit your name, email and phone number, but Jeanlys-White is conscious about reaching people of color and those who are investing for the first time. Some of WealthMore’s communities are based on savings goals; others are identity-based, offering space for people to share the challenges they’ve faced when trying to invest. So, there’s a group for women who want to invest together, one for Black women and one for first time investors, amongst others.
“Many times, we will have members join who are like, I didn’t even think I have access to something like this. Or I tried to engage some of the traditional places and felt intimidated,” Jeanlys-White says. “We’re inviting everyone and showing them that we have wealth advisors, and what has worked for the wealthy can work for all of us.”
Landrum Pierre says she sees potential for WealthMore to help more women and people of color launch investment accounts and build wealth because it’s focused on helping people become more comfortable with investing and teaching people how to not just save, but use their money to build generational wealth.
“WealthMore fills a critical gap in financial inclusion by making wealth management and financial advice accessible to everyone, not just the wealthy,” Landrum Pierre says. “By removing these barriers, WealthMore helps level the playing field, ensuring that more individuals — especially those historically underserved — can access quality financial guidance. This kind of support is essential for closing the wealth gap and enabling generational wealth creation.”
Reaching more people
Frias says WealthMore helps people across the financial spectrum, including students managing student loan debt, who can get on payment plans to save and build wealth. She’s seen the excitement people experience when they make — and stick to — a savings plan.
When she worked at other financial planning firms, Frias spent a lot of time thinking about those who couldn’t access these services. It’s not just about a client’s wealth; serving a wider array of people one-on-one requires more time and expense. WealthMore’s scheduling features, and call, text and virtual meet-up options, helps reduce the administrative workload and allow the app to reach more people.
“I think that for the most part people who are financial planners want to do this work. It’s just, can they afford to? I know when I had my practice at bigger firms, this just wasn’t feasible,” Frias says. “[With WealthMore] you can automate and scale a lot of the onboarding. It takes our clients less than five minutes to open an account at WealthMore.”
Jeanlys-White did not share revenue or profitability figures. In 2023, they’d raised $1 million to help fund the app’s launch in 2024. She says the business is focused on growth right now and she hopes to get to 100,000 users in all 50 states in the near future. The business currently has 10 employees and is working with six financial advisors. She’s looking to continue growing the user base and build partnerships with mortgage loan providers, estate planners and others who could help get WealthMore to more people.
“My personal objective is to not see Americans living with financial insecurity. They can get the advice they need to relieve a lot of that insecurity and doubt and not just survive but thrive,” Jeanlys-White says.
This post is a part of Every Voice, Every Vote, a collaborative project managed by The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. The William Penn Foundation provides lead support for Every Voice, Every Vote in 2024 and 2025 with additional funding from The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, Comcast NBC Universal, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Henry L. Kimelman Family Foundation, Judy and Peter Leone, Arctos Foundation, Wyncote Foundation, 25th Century Foundation, Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation, and Philadelphia Health Partnership. To learn more about the project and view a full list of supporters, visit www.everyvoice-everyvote.org. Editorial content is created independently of the project’s donors.
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