The fall in equity markets globally—including in India—in 2008 had caused heartburns to millions of investors worldwide. Meanwhile, Parag Parikh Financial Advisory Services, a wealth management firm, had started to nudge its portfolio management services clients to start their financial plans to plan their future better—something that had got battered thanks to the market crash.
Sitting in a tiny first-floor office in Great Eastern Building on Shahid Bhagat Singh Marg near Regal Cinema in Mumbai, Kavitha Menon, a senior official at the firm back then, led the firm’s push towards financial planning. A couple, her clients, had a particularly large gap between their income and the financial goals they wanted to reach. Menon had suggested that either they tone down their goals down or the wife (who was a housewife then) start working. The couple didn’t want to compromise on their goals, so the wife decided to take up a job.
