Women & Finance Knowledge Circle: The Single Woman in Retirement

Selected in 2015 as a “Woman to Watch” by Investment News, Eleanor Blayney, MBA, CFP® is nationally recognized as a pioneer known for shaping the practice and ethical standards of the financial planning profession. 

As the only woman partner in a four-partner firm, Eleanor drew upon her female intuition and communication skills to assist clients across the country with their wealth planning needs. She also served as the Consumer Advocate for the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards as well as the coordinator of the Board’s initiative to attract more women into the financial planning profession. 

Throughout her career, Eleanor’s particular focus was on the financial planning needs of women, which she believes can differ significantly from those of men. Her 2010 book Women’s Worth: Finding Your Financial Confidence was written to address the money concerns of working women and their families. Having recently retired from full-time practice, Eleanor and her colleague, Marjorie L. Fox, JD, CFP® have teamed up to write a second book targeted to women in their 60s and beyond—Women Wise. Their advice is based on their own experiences as single women in their sunset years and is inspired by their commitment to share what they have learned with other women.

Founder and CEO of FJY Financial, LLC, a financial planning and investment advisory firm, Marjorie Fox, JD, CFP® retired at the end of 2018 after more than thirty years in the financial planning profession. FJY Financial is known for its white paper “Implementing Internships,” its merger in 2014 with LifePoint Financial Partners in Midland, Texas, and for an internal succession plan that succeeded in passing Marjorie’s ownership interest in the firm to the next generation of owners. The firm was named a “Best Place to Work” by the Washington Business Journal in 2013 and the winner of the Schwab Impact Pacesetter Award in 2015. 

Marjorie served on the Boards of Directors of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, and the NAPFA Consumer Education Foundation. She was named one of the “Twenty Most Influential Women to Watch” by Investment News in 2015, and in 2018 received NAPFA’s Robert J. Underwood Award for Distinguished Service. 

Marjorie is a fourth-generation Californian who earned her BA from Pomona College and a law degree from UCLA. She has lived in Virginia for almost forty years. Marjorie and her longtime friend and professional colleague Eleanor Blayney, MBA, CFP® wrote Women Wise together in an effort to help single women make the important financial and lifestyle decisions that they must make in their later years.