Meet TESSA, JULIE, GLORIA and CAROL: the missing women of personal finance town

The “great wealth transfer” needs new characters, move over HENRY and RICHARD.

If you spend your time reading the personal finance pages, you’ll probably have heard about HENRY, the High Earner Not Rich Yet, for some time. More recently, we’ve been introduced to his “nemesis” RICHARD, Retirees In Comfortable Houses Are Refusing to Downsize.  

They’re catchy acronyms that talk to big finance trends. But on a hot Friday afternoon last week, it got me thinking, where are all the women in this personal finance town?  

At Realise Wealth Management, women make up around 44% of our client base. Every day we work with women making thoughtful, ambitious and often complex financial plans. Yet they’re not represented in the stories we tell.  

According to the World Economic Forum, over $80 trillion in assets are expected to pass from the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers to younger generations over the next two decades. Much of that wealth will be controlled by women for the first time. 

The financial planning profession has rightly been discussing how advisers should prepare for this shift. But perhaps the first step is a simple one, include women in the conversation. Move over HENRY and RICHARD, we need some new faces in town.  

So the team and I sat down to map the trends that we’re seeing. The results are not scientific, and these experiences certainly aren’t exclusive to women. But they are patterns we see time and again, and they deserve a place in the conversation. 

TESSA (Top Earner Single Saving Aggressively) 

Amongst our high-net-worth clients, we’re seeing a rise in women like TESSA. 

These are high‑earning, single, often child‑free women who are intentionally building wealth early. With fewer traditional milestones to fund, they’re funnelling surplus income into pensions, ISAs, and long‑term investments.  

JULIE (Juggling Unpaid Labour, Investing Early) 

Around 90% of our female clients have at least one child, and many of them look a lot like JULIE. 

These are women wading through the financial strain of maternity leave, rising living costs, and the unpaid load of managing family life. They’re often drawing on savings to bridge the gap, yet still finding the discipline to invest. They’re not investing for themselves, they’re investing for their children. 

They’re the ones opening Junior ISAs and children’s pensions, determined to give the next generation a smoother path than the one they’ve walked. 

GLORIA (Growing Legacy, Organising Retirement Income Astutely)  

At the other end of the parenting journey sits GLORIA. 

After decades of balancing work, family responsibilities and, in many cases, lower lifetime earnings, she’s now focused on making the most of retirement while helping those she loves. 

We see GLORIAs supporting adult children with property deposits, education costs and fertility treatment, while carefully managing their own retirement income to maintain financial independence and security. 

CAROL (Consolidating Assets, Reclaiming Ownership of Life)  

CAROL is often entering a new chapter. 

These are women who find themselves managing money independently for the first time in decades, often after divorce or bereavement. They’re consolidating scattered pensions, rebuilding confidence, and making decisions that centre their own needs for the first time in years. 

Who are we missing?  

Most people don’t fit neatly into a handful of acronyms. But if HENRY and RICHARD can become part of the stories we tell, perhaps it’s time we broadened the cast of characters. As the future of wealth will be increasingly managed by women, and the stories we tell about money should reflect that. 

Who are we missing from personal finance town? We’d love to hear your suggestions in the comments below.