Tell us a little about your business (How did it all start?)
Lea Wiviott Boracchia is a serial entrepreneur with multiple successful businesses.
Lea’s passion is helping people and from a very young age growing up with a single mother who had her own business, Lea realized the value in accounting and investment planning matters.
At the strong recommendation of a friend, Lea started at a big finance insurance company at the age of 15. She realized she was helping people 4 times her age with important financial strategies that they really needed. Otherwise, no matter how many millions they had, and they often had a lot, they may run out of money like she saw happen to others without the right planning.
This vision that families can have “it all” is how Boracchia Wiviott Wealth Partners started. Boracchia Wiviott Wealth Partners is Lea and her husband Marc’s independent registered investment advisory and financial planning firm.
The business has morphed into an education-based boutique consulting and investment management firm that helps clients as part of a sophisticated network of financial planers, asset managers, and other key stakeholders.
The mission of the firm is help clients realize their dreams and protect them through retirement planning, education planning, planning for major purchases, qualified and non qualified tax planning, business consulting, risk management protection, treasury management, and more.
In addition to helping individual clients, Lea has become a speaker at the Coachella Valley Women’s Business center and elite institutions and events on topics that range from Women, Work and Balance; to Financial Planning, Investment Management, Qualified and Non Qualified Tax Planning, How Much Is Enough in Retirement, Exit Strategies, and more.
What challenge did CVWBC help you overcome?
The pandemic was very hard on Lea and Marc, who already begun furthering their investment studies and thus decided to build their fee based financial practice slowly and sustainably. At the time her and her husband Marc were new parents as well of a small child, and now they have another, Lea knew and continues to be reminded of the importance financial planning has in helping parents be set up – and prepare, all of our children for success. Kids are not only expensive but also require much time that can’t always fit well into the 9 – 5pm schedule.
Lea has been working closely with Coachella Valley Women’s Business counselor Mary Bullock who she first met in 2020 after connecting with the center for assistance in her pandemic relief application. Lea has received over 20 hours of one – on – one coaching. Through the center, Lea was able to secure disaster relief assistance through the Small Business Administration and gained renewed confidence.
This loan allowed Lea the time to raise her family during the pandemic and expand their business into the Coachella Valley in the way in which they wanted to – organically and as a fee-only financial planning practice.
CVWBC also helped Lea utilize her great listening skills and financial acumen into becoming a respected authority on topics that range from retirement planning to investment management in the Coachella Valley and beyond.
When did you legally start your business?*
Nearly a decade after starting at State Farm, Lea founded her practice with her husband Marc. They started their financial planning practice in 2013 with a big firm and then went completely independent at the end of 2016. BWWP LLC which goes by Boracchia Wiviott Wealth Partners, is owned and operated by Lea and her husband Marc; and it became a registered investment advisory with the state of California in June of 2017.
Please explain how CVWBC assisted you.
Being a woman and minority in business let alone financial planning, a subject
full of pre-conceived notions and implicit bias, is uniquely challenging. On top of this, Lea had been in business for herself a few years when the pandemic hit, and Lea first contacted the Coachella Valley Women’s Business center for support in her disaster relief assistance application.
The center helped instill renewed confidence in Lea which she needed after a series of events – and her company also, thanks to the CVWBC realized their unique position as an employer in Coachella Valley.
The assistance that CVWBC helped Boracchia Wiviott Wealth Partners secure also allowed the team to implement their vision.
Most firms are commission-based and thanks to the loan Lea and Marc were able to focus with their team on their dream of having an objective thus fee – based financial planning firm.
In charging a fee for services, Boracchia Wiviott Wealth Partners is unique because the firm does not advise based on products that pay high commissions.
Many firms are a broker dealer. This means as a broker they get paid more for recommending certain types of investments over others.
Many firms also have self-interest in recommendations because they are a dealer. This means they sell from their own account and offload securities onto their clients. (They get away with it because they have stockholders often or the fines are lower than their profits)
As a fee for service firm, with no brokerage ties or their own dealer, Lea and her team help clients invest in a wider array of services than most insurance or investment agents.
The loan Lea and Marc received thanks to CVWBC helped Marc and Lea continue to run their independent advisory firm Boracchia Wiviott Wealth Partners as full fiduciaries.
The CVWBC and their support helps Lea and her team not need big commissions and rather be able to advise clients at the highest fiduciary capacity.
Lea and her team today are their Coachella Valley client’s most trusted agents on financial matters for personal and business needs. In this way the CVWBC also fulfilled their mission of maximizing the community impact here in the Coachella Valley of and for their clients.
Please share a Testimonial of CVWBC
Mary Bullock and the center provided me with something you cannot begin to understand unless you have walked in another person’s shoes like mine; they gave me my confidence back.
The center showed me that women can and should be in business because they put their money where their mouth is. They showed me my value in the valley, a place that was new to me, I had a property here but did not live here until 2020. So by making mutually beneficial introductions and making time for me, my family and I began to feel right at home. And they amplified my voice by inviting me to be a speaker and letting me run the events how I like to, which is having a rough outline but letting the participants tell me what’s most important to them.
I love that I can be a leader in the community to women and girls everywhere by sharing what’s most relevant given the current socio-economic climate we’re in and building upon. The CVWBC and their unrelenting resources made a world of difference to my personal drive and motivation for success in the Coachella Valley. We’re really grateful and continue to appreciate the introductions to new clients and opportunities to amplify our vision of financial security for all. I’m eternally grateful to Mary, both Michelles, and the whole team at Coachella Valley Women’s Business Center for their unwavering commitment to helping women know that we all belong with money.
