Financial planning before a crisis with Victoria Gillespie

This week’s episode of the Girlfunds podcast features the chief marketing and communications officer at the National Association of Realtors, the largest trade association in the country. In this episode, Victoria Gillespie shares how she helped mentor and lead her team, along with the 1.4 million realtors who the association serves, through COVID-19. 

Throughout the pandemic, Gillespie and the marketing team at NAR focused their efforts on sharing resources and information with Realtors to help their businesses survive and continue to thrive. During the interview, she shares some financial takeaways after navigating a crisis like COVID-19 that could apply to anyone.

For some background on Gillespie, she is a HousingWire 2020 Women of Influence and has more than 25 years of experience in the real estate and financial services sectors, most recently as senior vice president of enterprise marketing and communications for Northwest Federal Credit Union. In her role, she oversees marketing, content, creative, digital, and public relations strategy to drive member engagement and satisfaction and strengthen NAR’s relationship with consumers.

Here’s one Girlfunds takeaway tip from Victoria Gillespie:

“One of the lessons I think that comes back to not just our Realtor audience but for all of us in our financial plans, and not our budgets, but our planning is that all of us need an emergency nest egg. I don’t care how much money you make or how little you make, we must learn to have six months of our living expenses put somewhere safely, not at market rates, where they’re going to fluctuate in the stock market but where we know we can get to it when we need it.”

Join the two best friends who met as financial journalists at HousingWire, Brena Nath, a twenty-something first-time homebuyer with her husband and pups, and Sarah Wheeler, an empty nester on her third home, every week for our girls night focused on everything from affording your best friend’s wedding to how to turn your side hustle into your main hustle. Each week, Girlfunds will have a special guest join us as we intertwine finance and friendship. And don’t worry, you don’t have to have your finances all together to join our girls nights. We’re all in this together to learn – women supporting women – and in the words of our producer, so we can all be #confidentqueens.