Past Events

Browse our range of successful past educational events

Our past events were highly successful in providing women with education in a broad range of topics ranging from modern investment strategies, legal, psychological and financial relationship responsibilities, retirement paradigms, the psychology of money, behavioural finance, salary negotiation and many more.

Tracy Theemes
Kamal Basra

New Paradigms of Retirement

Monday, October 1, 2018

Our ideas of retirement are being turned upside down with the realities of longer life expectancies, economic upheaval, and constant social change.

In this workshop you will learn:

  • The four new phases of retirement and their financial impact
  • The economic implications of a longer life expectancy
  • Modern income planning strategies
  • How to balance risk with financial security

Tracy is a leading authority on the issues facing women in our economic world. She graduated from the University of British Columbia with a Master of Arts in Psychology and experienced firsthand how poverty created long term disadvantage while working with women and families in some of Vancouver’s poorest neighbourhoods.

Tracy started her financial career as a financial consultant with Smith Barney, a US brokerage firm, and later worked with RBC Dominion Securities in Canada.  In 2009, she co-founded Sophia Financial Group a full-service advisory firm focused on providing a socially conscious, financial planning and investment management firm on Vancouver’s west side.

Read Tracy’s full bio.

Kamal is deeply passionate about creating economic equality by providing education and quality professional investment advice. She started her career after graduating from Simon Fraser University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Molecular Biology. She performed heart disease research at UBC which led to her co-authoring a research paper in a prominent scientific journal. In her early career, she worked as a supervisor with the Canada Revenue Agency.

Kamal is a Certified Financial Planner, a Fellow of the Canadian Securities Institute and fully life insurance licensed. In 2009, she co-founded Sophia Financial Group a full-service advisory firm focused on providing a socially conscious financial planning and portfolio management firm on Vancouver’s west side.

Read Kamal’s full bio.

Tracy Theemes

Empowered Investing for Young Professionals

Monday, October 1, 2018

Landing a great job and feeling like your career is finally launched are momentous milestones of adulthood. But with a salary and employment come decisions about savings, investments, whether to buy or rent and how to pay off student debt.

In this interactive and engaging workshop, you will learn:

  • How to make well informed, confident investment decisions
  • The relationship between asset allocation and investment return
  • Debt versus savings
  • How to balance risk with financial security
  • TFSAs, RRSPs, GICs

Tracy is a leading authority on the issues facing women in our economic world. She graduated from the University of British Columbia with a Master of Arts in Psychology and experienced firsthand how poverty created long term disadvantage while working with women and families in some of Vancouver’s poorest neighbourhoods.

Tracy started her financial career as a financial consultant with Smith Barney, a US brokerage firm, and later worked with RBC Dominion Securities in Canada.  In 2009, she co-founded Sophia Financial Group a full-service advisory firm focused on providing a socially conscious, financial planning and investment management firm on Vancouver’s west side.

Read Tracy’s full bio.

Tracy Theemes

Money, Marriage and Mayhem

Saturday, September 1, 2018

Sponsored by UBC Sauder School of Business, Tracy Theemes will be at the Vancouver Club to teach more about communicating and managing finances in your relationships.

This year, Tracy will be joined by guest expert, Lisa Alexander, Collaborative Family Lawyer & Mediator, to lead this interactive workshop that aims to help you feel more confident in your ability to discuss money and create a prosperous financial life.

Tracy is a leading authority on the issues facing women in our economic world. She graduated from the University of British Columbia with a Master of Arts in Psychology and experienced firsthand how poverty created long term disadvantage while working with women and families in some of Vancouver’s poorest neighbourhoods.

Tracy started her financial career as a financial consultant with Smith Barney, a US brokerage firm, and later worked with RBC Dominion Securities in Canada.  In 2009, she co-founded Sophia Financial Group a full-service advisory firm focused on providing a socially conscious, financial planning and investment management firm on Vancouver’s west side.

Read Tracy’s full bio.

Tracy Theemes

The Psychology of Money

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

When it comes to money, nothing is really as it seems.

The idea that humans are rational and their relationship with money is logical has been soundly disproven in the research. Gender, socio-cultural conditioning, epigenetics, family system theory combined with the dynamics of a changing world create psychological responses that are often unknown and can thwart our most precious financial goals.

In this workshop taught by Tracy Theemes, Financial Advisor, MA, CFP, FCSI, FDS, you will learn:

  • 7 principles of personal financial behaviour
  • 3 factors that affect our relationship with money
  • The basic principles of behavioural finance and their consequences in the field of personal financial planning
  • Ways to overcome your own biases and patterns to achieve a better, more successful and peaceful financial life

Tracy is a leading authority on the issues facing women in our economic world. She graduated from the University of British Columbia with a Master of Arts in Psychology and experienced firsthand how poverty created long term disadvantage while working with women and families in some of Vancouver’s poorest neighbourhoods.

Tracy started her financial career as a financial consultant with Smith Barney, a US brokerage firm, and later worked with RBC Dominion Securities in Canada.  In 2009, she co-founded Sophia Financial Group a full-service advisory firm focused on providing a socially conscious, financial planning and investment management firm on Vancouver’s west side.

Read Tracy’s full bio.

Estate Planning Essentials

Sunday, April 1, 2018

Transferring wealth is a complex affair.

With new estate laws and ever-increasing complications in families, there are many land mines – and opportunities that need to be understood. The days of just writing up a letter of your last wishes with a signature from a neighbour are over. To protect yourself, your family, your assets and leave a legacy to be proud of you will need to prepare carefully. Nicole Garton has guided hundreds of families through the murky and often troubled waters of organizing their estates. Now is the time to figure this out.

Nicole Garton, B.A., LL.B., TEP, founder and principal of Heritage Law, is a lawyer, mediator and parenting coordinator of family law, wills and estates matters. She is accredited by the Law Society of BC to act as a Family Law Mediator, Parenting Coordinator and Family Law Arbitrator. Nicole is certified by Family Mediation Canada as a Comprehensive Family Mediator and is on the executive of the Canadian Bar Association Wills and Estates and Elder Law Sections.