We are delighted to introduce to you Indre BUTKEVICIUTE – wealth coach.
« My name is Indre and my mission is to help women become more educated about the world of investing so they can become active participants when making decisions related to their or their families’ wealth.
My story started almost 12 years ago when I graduated from UCL with a BA in Economics and Business with Eastern European Studies and found myself one morning getting off the tube at Canary Wharf station and entering one of the office buildings housing Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management. It then was my home for the next 8 years. I remember very vividly when I was around 16 years old, visiting London for the first time, when I stepped outside Canary Wharf station I quietly said to myself ‘oh what a dream it would be to work here someday’. I am a huge believer that if you wish for something sooner or later it will come to you, so be very careful with your wishes.
I really enjoyed my years at Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management. I learnt a lot about the business, clients, how to approach certain things and 8 years later I felt it was time to move on and start building my own empire, Lily Advisory, completely oblivious to how hard it can actually be.
Quite often when we hear business success stories the long rocky road towards the success gets lost somewhere. When I started I was completely fuelled by excitement, adrenaline, curiosity and a sense of empowerment. For 12 months that kept me going full speed ahead. However that energy at some point runs out, especially when you are faced with challenges that take you 2 or 3 steps back, you then need to find the strength again to power through and keep going. The whole dynamic of running a business alone is very different from working in a company where you are surrounded by other people. I went from a large corporate world surrounded by a great team, management and infrastructure to going at it all alone. One of the biggest challenges I have faced in the last 4 years is self-doubt. Every idea that you have, you think it over and over and over again for a 100 times until the point that you start doubting about the whole business altogether. And I am sure all entrepreneurs have come to breaking points on numerous occasions where you just want to drop it all and walk away. In order to have the strength to power through these moments and just accept that building a business takes years, you need to surround yourself with strong mentors and motivators. These people are already around you and in your circle. It is people who you trust to give you their honest opinion, people who are not afraid to give you constructive criticism, challenge you and encourage you.
I get quite frustrated when people assume that if you run your own business you live a very flexible, carefree and fun lifestyle. Don’t get me wrong, it is a lot of fun at times to be your own boss, but it also means that you honestly never stop. Your work is your life and your life is your work, the concept of switching off disappears altogether at least for the first 4 years. We will see how it all pans out in the next 4 years. As an example, this summer when I was on my honeymoon I still spent quite a few hours working, because I had a new client and I knew I could not turn down the business just because I was on holiday.
Those who know me very well, will definitely say that the biggest challenge so far for me has been to stay level headed. 4 years down the line and I still go through a rollercoaster of emotions on a regular basis. I believe it is very normal to go from feeling very happy because you have some great projects going to feeling very frustrated and crying your eyes out because this month you did not get any new business. At times I find myself thinking: did I really make the right decision, am I approaching the business in the right way, do I have the right idea, and so on. Reality is, no matter how hard it can get at times, I wouldn’t change it for the world. Having my own business has allowed me to run it the way I feel fits best with my clients and me. I have the ability to be flexible and adapt to the requirements easily, I can make decisions fast and move at the same pace as the market does and I can put all my crazy ideas to the test and see if any of them work.
Coming from a financial background I always felt that women were certainly underrepresented in the financial industry, especially in the senior positions. My other observation was that women were also underrepresented on the investor side as well. Having done some research and reading a few interesting papers I realised that one of the biggest reasons for that was lack of financial education. That is why I founded Lily Advisory in the hope of solving exactly this problem.
The company aims to provide women with the tools required to lead a financially sound lifestyle. Every woman is different and has unique requirements and I want to make sure to offer help for each of the aspects. There are two main parts of the business: 1) wealth coaching for women; and 2) Financially Sound Woman Investment Club.
Wealth coaching provides advice to women who need help in understanding how to manage their finances more effectively and helping them gain the knowledge to allow them to tap into the world of investing. The Financially Sound Woman Investment Club is a platform for like-minded women to get together and learn about investing, share ideas and join forces when making financial decisions while at the same time having some fun together.
My biggest commitment with Lily Advisory is to educate as many women as I possibly can, get them interested in investing and show them the fun and accessible side of it. It is important to bridge the gap between female clients and providers (wealth managers, financial advisers, asset managers and others), because I see things going wrong too often purely due to lack of understanding one another. At times I also feel that when you lack certain knowledge you can be taken advantage of by someone who has the upper hand, and that applies not only in finance of course, but overall. My mission is to eliminate these issues as much as I can and give women the power to take control of their financial affairs so that if things go wrong they have the tools to cope with it.
I am a strong believer that us, women, should help each other advance. I quite often like to use the quote “One woman can make a difference but together we can rock the world” and I absolutely live by it every single day and I thank all the wonderful women around me with whom together we certainly are starting to rock the world slowly step by step. »