Jasmine Renae Ball, MSW, CRC, CFP®, Bamboo Financial Partners Founder and Financial Planner: “We take a proactive approach to helping you develop a strategy to address your financial goals and objectives, using the most efficient methods available.”

The Silicon Review

It takes knowledge, experience, devotion, and expertise to create an investment portfolio that is tailored to your own long-term objectives and financial aspirations. A seasoned financial advisor can offer specialized guidance to help investors in today's dynamic financial markets reach their goals. Globally, countless companies provide excellent financial guidance services, but Bamboo Financial Partners stands out from the rest. At Bamboo, their services help partners work towards their lifelong goals through finance. Practically, that might look like establishing a budget, understanding investment options, creating a 401k for companies, starting a college fund, looking at social security strategies, better understanding Medicare, and more.

Their team strives to meet their clients where they are and plan from there to help them work toward their goals. Bamboo provides guidance and planning in the areas of investing, insurance, long-term care, retirement planning, education planning, and overall financial planning. The company’s services can be fee-based or fee-only, depending upon what best suits its partners' needs.

In conversation with Jasmine Renae Ball, MSW, CRC, CFP®, Founder & Financial Planner of Bamboo Financial Partners

Q. How would you describe your professional journey so far? Tell us about a few roadblocks and learning lessons that helped you grow through the years.

I grew up in a rural farm town in Northern California with my mom, dad, three sisters, and some farm animals. I was the valedictorian of my graduating high school class of five students and the first in my family to go to college. I received a merit and financial need-based scholarship to go to Macalester College in St. Paul, MN. While there, I double majored in education and psychology and worked 3-5 jobs per week while taking full-time classes. I loved the idea of understanding people better and using that knowledge to better educate them, but I wasn’t sure working in a traditional classroom setting was something I wanted as a career. One of my part-time jobs was as a babysitter for a family, and the mom was actually a financial advisor. Through that relationship, I began to learn more about her career and became intrigued at the opportunity to learn more. As time moved along she needed additional help with her practice, so she brought me on as a part-time assistant. This afforded me the opportunity to learn from a more involved perspective. While working with this amazing team, I learned about a career I had never heard of and found that this was a career that I could be passionate about. So after I graduated college, I joined that same company my mentor worked for full-time in their New Representative Training Program. Through the years there have been two major roadblocks that I've encountered, and thankfully, they have taught me valuable lessons in my professional development. First, there are the learning curves of not growing up knowing anything about this industry, profession, or even investing. My parents rarely saved money and never invested—mostly because this was something they were not taught. Additionally, I didn’t study economics or finance in college, so all the concepts were completely foreign to me. When I finally had the opportunity to join the financial industry, I was learning everything from scratch, and I also didn’t have family to collaborate with or talk to about some of the wealth knowledge they had accumulated. I had to be the first person to really break that cycle of living paycheck to paycheck and learn about how being disciplined with my finances and using other financial tools could help to create wealth. The other roadblock that I still often encounter is that the financial services industry is not very diverse. I have the CFP designation which is one of the most distinguished designations in my profession. Though there are over 90,000 CFPs, only about 20% are female and less than 2% are Black. That means me, being a black female CFP, am an anomaly. As an anomaly, there are different challenges I’ll face, but that’s precisely one of the reasons I chose to pursue my CFP and why I chose to found Bamboo Financial Partners. Though I may be one of the first, I hope that by being an example I’m making the path easier for others, and I most certainly won’t be the last. I believe both clients and those looking to be financial advisors deserve options that reflect our diverse world.

Q. Trust is one of the most important currencies of leadership that requires authenticity and consistency to maintain. What’s your take on this?

I most cherish authenticity, transparency, integrity, and humility in leadership. I believe everyone has a purpose, and as long as you’re living out your purpose, you are not higher or lower than anyone else. That means whether you’re the CEO or the custodian, your value does not change, only your role does. I know that if I inspire just one person to create a better future for themselves, I’ve been successful. My vision for myself as a leader is that I leave our world better than I found it, using the tools at my disposal. I love how we are all created so uniquely and with different purposes. I love to help people, and I know that I’ve been purposely trained to do so in the financial sector. Finances are simply the medium I use to help people work towards their goals, educate themselves on finances, and feel empowered to take control of their financial future. I hope that I can influence change by my own example, so that I can say, "Follow me." I always want to practice what I preach by being transparent with pros and cons, and I believe that authenticity and integrity will shine through. My goal is to be Christlike and to be a servant leader. I am here to serve, and that service will be my leadership example. I’ll never stop helping that recent college graduate who has a lot of debt and a little income; I’ll never stop working with that single parent who lacks understanding of financial disciplines; and I’ll never stop working with an experienced investor who wants sound guidance on continuing to build their wealth. Bamboo Financial Partners is and will continue to be bigger than just one person or one leader; it’s a concept and a principle.

Q. How do you see Bamboo Financial Partners changing in five years, and how do you see yourself creating that change?

I believe that though Bamboo may be one of the first companies to take into account the whole being as well as the community, we won’t be the only or the last. More people are starting to realize that the old way of doing finances isn’t what most people want today. They want a financial advisor who is concerned, trustworthy, and with whom they feel a partnership, that we are on the same page and can work toward the same goals. Finances are more than numbers, and I believe the Bamboo concept will be more widespread in 5 years.