Stephanie's story
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
Robert Frost's famous poem "The road not taken" has always struck a chord with Stephanie,
"This poem reflects something I learned from my father: follow your own path even when things aretough.”
First steps
Stephanie’s story may have begun in Aspen, in that small town of 2,500 inhabitants where she grew up. Or perhaps it began earlier, during the great 19th century famine in Germany, the country her great-grandfather left to come to the United States in search of a better future. Then again, everything may have started with her grandfather, the family’s first university graduate and pride of the family or when Stephanie’s father, Dwight, moved to the Rocky Mountains he had fallen in love with as a child to raise a family of his own. The truth is that these roads less traveled, that path that we tend to forego but that makes all the difference, turned out to be the Shellmans' chosen path.
Her father, an example
How did Stephanie get to this little town in the mountains? Her father, Dwight, worked for a large law firm in Denver and was temporarily sent to Aspen to help on a case. When it was time to return home, he would not, could not. Aspen was already a part of him. So he left his prestigious career behind and started his own firm.
In the 1970s, Aspen woke up. The rich and famous arrived in hoards and the real estate developers came with them. Dwight began his journey as a public servant. He spent most of his life working to keep Aspen's small-town feel and giving back to the community he loved so much.
"He never did things for money. His path was to put the town’s quality of life before money. His work had a lasting effect on our community," Stephanie recalls about her father.
Stephanie's privileged education in Aspen allowed her to apply to the best universities, all far away from her home town.
“My friends wanted to go to big-name universities like Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. But, I had my heart set on a small women’s college outside of Boston, Wellesley College.”
In attending Wellesley, Stephanie followed in the steps of such leaders like Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright and renowned journalists, authors, actresses, astronauts, and scientists.
At Wellesley, Stephanie majored in Spanish and during her senior year, decided that she wanted to live in a place where she could use her language skills every day. Around the same time, her mother, who had been financially dependent on her father, decided to separate and strike out independently. For the first time, Stephanie started to think about money, how important it would be in allowing her to live the way she wanted, and how little she knew about it.
So at 21, with her college diploma under her arm, she decided to find a job where she could learn about money and live overseas. An international bank seemed like a good place to start. So she applied to and was hired by Bank of Boston, a bank with a strong presence in Latin America.
"One day, my boss called me into his office and told me that there was a position available in a small branch in Uruguay. No one else wanted the job. No one knew where Uruguay was, and there was no upside from a career perspective. But I was never really interested in pursuing a career in banking. I just wanted to live and work in Latin America. My boss told me that I could go if I accepted immediately. So I said "yes!". It was my chance. I was sent to Montevideo in 1985.
Uruguay, her place in the world
That decision changed Stephanie's life forever. She married Andrés and fell in love with the country, its small and human size, the infinite ocean, the vast green expanses, and the civility of its people.
"The United States is a great country, but I watched my friends decide between working and being a mom. I felt that in Uruguay, I could do both well. I also loved my husband's closeness with his extended family and lifelong friends and I wanted that life for my children.
"I had never wanted to be a banker, but I became one anyway."
Stephanie spent 20 years managing institutional investments, first in credit and then in other types of investments, at the Bank of Boston and then at ING. In those positions, she learned that banks held enormous power. They could help people and companies move forward, but they could also destroy lives.
Stephanie finds her path
In 2002, during the Uruguayan banking crisis, she saw many friends and acquaintances lose their savings.
"I didn't know anything about helping people invest their own money, but I was sure I knew more than the people my friends were using up to that point. I also knew I could learn how to do it. I did a lot of research and I discovered that in the US, fee-based investment professionals worked directly for clients as advocates. I decided to bring that model to Uruguay."
Initially, her private banking friends thought she was crazy, since no one provided investment advice for a fee. To make a living as an advisor back then, you had to work for a bank or a broker-dealer. But those institutions focused on the money and not on people's lives.
"I realized that banks and brokers sold what was best for them, not what was best for the clients. And the costs were very high and hidden. So people thought they were paying nothing when they were paying a lot."
“My father taught me to do the right thing, even when no one was looking. To me, I would have been lying if I did what what every one else was doing at the time .”
In 2003, Stephanie left the banking industry. She started Shellman Wealth, an independent investment advisory firm, one of the first in the country. Since its inception, the firm has charged clients directly for its services and does not accept commissions for the products it uses. To this day, it is a pioneer in this regard.
“Being transparent in a world where everything is hidden is hard. It´s a road less traveled. But I go to sleep every night, knowing that we tell the truth to our clients who have confided their future in us”.
The path becomes purpose
They say that those who take the road less traveled discover their purpose on the way. In that second half of her life, Stephanie found hers: helping ordinary people make the right financial decisions to improve their lives.
Today this purpose has a name, the My Money My Problem movement. My Money My Problem works to help people take responsibility for their financial decisions and make the investment process simpler and more human. The Movement started with Stephanie's book Mi Dinero Mi Problema, published in 2019. And it continues with a website that provides Uruguayans with free planning and investing tools. In addition, she promotes the ideas behind the Movement to professionals and individual investors alike in her university and on-line courses.
