Advice From a Pro: Invest in Yourself

Christine Benz tells women to match investment risk to their longer life expectancy.

- By Janet Bodnar

As director of personal finance for Morningstar, the giant financial research firm, Christine Benz dispenses financial advice to all the firm’s clients. I spoke with her about her perspective in her job and what advice she would offer to women in particular.

You recently tweeted that one of your favorite books on investing is Burton Malkiel’s A Random Walk Down Wall Street. Why? It was the top book on my reading list when I started at Morningstar as part of the copy-editing team. I thought it was incredibly well written and even playful, not something I expected from an investing book.

How did you advance from your start on the copy-editing team? Morningstar has a great culture and is very much a meritocracy, and from my earliest days as an analyst I was always getting pushed to do things beyond my comfort level. Morningstar managing director Don Phillips was a great role model.