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About

"Technology, demand and regulatory pressures are transforming retail investing from a supplier-driven push into a consumer-centric pull marketplace. Hearts & Wallets has built the resources to bridge what has been too large of a gap between solution development and emerging consumer needs. We invite you to join us."

LAURA VARAS
CEO & FOUNDER OF HEARTS & WALLETS

WHO WE ARE

Hearts & Wallets is the data and analytics company that specializes in how consumers save, invest and seek financial advice. 

Leading companies use our broad resources to work more efficiently, know more and achieve more. We help clients to develop solutions for better consumer financial outcomes with:

  • three proprietary databases of consumer buying patterns, competitive benchmarks and foresight into future trends 
  • extensive line operating experience in retail saving and investing as well as consumer packaged goods
  • wide-ranging industry perspective

We bridge the gap between the complexity of saving, investing and advice and the power of consumer marketing.

OUR APPROACH

We empower our clients to use resources wisely, develop more effective market solutions, and see emerging trends before others. Leading firms choose Hearts & Wallets because of our expertise, market knowledge and comprehensive data with actionable insights for today and tomorrow. Drive your business and career forward with our experts and three proprietary databases:

100 million data points on investor behaviors and buying patterns covering 1,600 fields for 60,000 U.S. households in our Investor Quantitative™ Database

8,000 “voice of the consumer” verbatims in our Explore Qualitative™ Database

60,000 data points on competitive benchmarks for hundreds of advice experiences with Inside Advice® Benchmarking

See a message from our founder and CEO on the problems Hearts & Wallets solves.

Team

Our team of seasoned professionals combines saving and investing operating experience, consumer marketing expertise and engineering ingenuity.

Laura Varas

Founder & CEO

                                                Laura Varas

Laura Varas

Founder & CEO

Laura Varas is founder and CEO at Hearts & Wallets where she applies her experiences in participating in markets worldwide to create stronger connections between financial solutions and consumer needs. Laura is a thought leader who combines an in-depth knowledge of financial services with a proven ability to predict future trends. 

Laura bridges the investing and marketing worlds with over 25 years of experience in retail finance, consumer packaged goods and strategy consulting. Prior to founding Hearts & Wallets, she held senior positions at Fidelity and Citibank, with earlier roles at Colgate-Palmolive, Grey Advertising and Mercer Management Consulting strategy practice.

Her line experience in financial services provided the insight to create Hearts & Wallets’ must-have databases that answer the questions leaders need to succeed. At Fidelity, Laura led product management, new product development and marketing for Fidelity's equity funds in the retail channel with responsibility for over 100 funds and $150 billion in assets across distribution channels. She drove over $4B in sales with an integrated marketing campaign, and was responsible for a loyalty program that resulted in at least $900MM of net flows. At Citibank, Laura spearheaded new branch openings and an advice software launch in South America.

Laura holds a B.A. in economics from Yale University and an MBA in marketing, strategy and decision sciences from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She speaks Spanish, French and German. Laura is a competitive sailor, trained professional flutist and proud mother of three. She enjoys helping clients to achieve their best performances.

Jon Miller

Chief Technology Officer

Jon Miller

Chief Technology Officer

Jon guides Hearts & Wallets innovative interactive software products and the technology team. He has 25 years of experience in technology development, bringing together the skills of both a hardware and software engineer. Jon holds a U.S. patent for scan testing a digital system using scan chains in integrated circuits.

Prior to joining Hearts & Wallets, he held leadership positions at YLighting.com, Sun Microsystems, Bitmo, Inc., Crystal Dynamics, HeadGames, Inc., and Control Technology Corporate. Jon holds a B.S. in computer science and electrical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In his spare time Jon buys, builds, crashes, and then loses or rebuilds an assortment of remote controlled helicopters, airplanes, cars, trucks, blimps, hovercraft and robotic pets.

 


John Towle

Chief Client Officer

                                                John Towle

John Towle

Chief Client Officer

John Towle serves as the Chief Client Officer, where he focuses on client service, client engagement and new business development.

John brings over 30 years of experience in financial services, with a focus on product marketing, marketing communications and distribution marketing, to his role at Hearts & Wallets. For the past 15 years, John spent his career in senior marketing and chief marketing officer roles for a number of alternative investment firms, including Cantor Fitzgerald, Cole Real Estate Investments and FS Investments. He launched numerous public and private real estate funds, private debt funds and public venture capital interval funds, raising billions in investor capital through independent advisor and RIA markets.

Prior to that, John led marketing for ING’s (Voya) mutual fund business and oversaw the marketing and distribution support for over 40 funds with approximately $60 billion in assets under management. Earlier, John spent 11 years in retail at Fidelity Investments, marketing a full range of products to the mass affluent and high-net-worth segments.

John holds a B.A. in English from the University of Colorado and an MBA from Babson’s Olin School of Business Management. He enjoys spending time with his wife and two college-aged sons and a variety of sports, including tennis, golf, skiing and fishing.

Yevgeniy Andrikanis

Senior Software Engineer

Yevgeniy Andrikanis

Senior Software Engineer

Yevgeniy Andrikanis is senior software engineer for Hearts & Wallets where he is responsible for full stack software development, including the Hearts & Wallets client databases, backend, CMS, UI, third-party software integration and automated tests. 

 In his work at Hearts & Wallets, Yevgeniy brings together his expertise in custom software solutions and data driven tools as well as his understanding of software architecture, data structure and algorithms. Yevgeniy has extensive experience with design, development and management of ecommerce websites, enterprise applications and corporate intranets. 

 Prior to joining Hearts & Wallets, he was a senior software engineer at YDesign with responsibility for the design, architecture, development and maintenance of company websites, order processing and product management systems. Yevgeniy also served as IT director at Syntec Inc., and a software engineer/team lead at Ask.com.  

He holds a degree aerospace engineering from the Moscow Aviation Institute (State Technical University). Yevgeniy is fluent in Russian. He frequently visits antique shops, collects samovars, builds dioramas and enjoys spending time with his family, friends and his cat, Mickey.

Charles Collins

Lead Frontend Developer

                                                Charles Collins

Charles Collins

Lead Frontend Developer

Charles Collins serves as the lead frontend developer for Hearts & Wallets, delivering high-performance experiences to users of the Trends™ website and Hearts & Wallets software. 

Charles brings over 10 years of expertise in software development and user experience to his role at Hearts & Wallets. Prior to joining Hearts & Wallets, he served as lead user experience developer for Localvore, a software platform that connects consumers with local producers and businesses. At Vermont Design Works, Charles was responsible for front-end development and maintenance for multiple websites. Earlier, he was a software engineer with YDesign Group, where he designed, developed and supported the client-facing product catalog and search for consumer brands. 

Charles studied Graphic Design and Web Development from Champlain College. He speaks some Japanese. When Charles isn’t traveling or climbing, he can be found helping women learn to code through the Girl Develop It and building resiliency in youth as a chaperone with The Chill Foundation.

Carla Ernst

Data Storyteller / Product Manager

                                                Carla Ernst

Carla Ernst

Data Storyteller / Product Manager

Carla Ernst is a data storyteller/product manager for Hearts & Wallets’ Investor Quantitative™ (IQ) Database, IQ Dataminer interactive software, other software development and report creation initiatives. 

As product champion, Carla manages metadata for the IQ™ Database, works with clients and prospects to identify and build new functionality in IQ Dataminer and other software, creates insightful stories through analysis and data visualization, and works cross functionally to drive client engagement with Hearts & Wallets’ products.

With over 10 years of project management experience, Carla offers a wealth of data analytics, economic and design expertise to Hearts & Wallets clients. Prior to joining Hearts & Wallets, she spearheaded strategic planning, quantitative and qualitative research, and analysis for nonprofit literacy programs and other firms.

Carla holds a B.A. in economics from the University of Colorado and a B.S. in landscape architecture from Colorado State University as well as an M.A. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley. She loves to travel to new places and is open to all adventures that happen along the way.

Betsy Seeley

Subject Matter Expert

                                                Betsy Seeley

Betsy Seeley

Subject Matter Expert

Betsy is a subject matter expert who oversees the Inside Advice® personal finance advice benchmarking at Hearts & Wallets. She is responsible for both publicly available calculator assessments and confidential, supportive assessments working with clients.

Betsy brings over 25 years of customer-focused financial services experience to clients. Prior to joining Hearts & Wallets, her background included developing and executing innovative operating strategies to build advice and guidance delivery operations at TIAA and Voya Retirement. Her prior senior leadership roles also included Citicorp Diners Club and athenahealth, where she led strategies to improve Net Promoter Score, distinctiveness and client satisfaction scores. In addition, she built scalable and profitable process and technology platforms. Betsy received her B.A. in literature from Middlebury College and her MBA from Harvard University. She is an avid runner and cross-country skier and the proud mom of two adult daughters.

Lynn Walters

VP, Public Relations & Marketing

                                                Lynn Walters

Lynn Walters

VP, Public Relations & Marketing

Lynn guides public relations and marketing at Hearts & Wallets. She works closely with journalists, providing Hearts & Wallets data and insights to fuel their stories. Lynn also oversees marketing communications and branding for the company.

Lynn is a seasoned professional with over 25 years of experience as a communications consultant and former journalist with The Boston Globe. Prior to joining Hearts & Wallets, she worked closely with many financial services and communications leaders, including Bank of America (Fleet), Comcast and Cox Communications. Lynn led public relations as Vice President of Leonard/Monahan, a recognized creative leader within the advertising industry. Earlier in her career, she managed the editorial team at FM Global, the world's largest business property insurer. She holds a B.A. in communications from Wake Forest University and an M.S. in journalism from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Ask her about her extensive fossil collection.

Amber Katris

Subject Matter Expert

                                                Amber Katris

Amber Katris

Subject Matter Expert
Amber Katris is a subject matter expert with Hearts & Wallets, covering the Hearts & Wallets Portrait™ marketing sizing, and focusing on household finance, retirement, money movement, investment products and asset managers from the proprietary Hearts & Wallets Investor Quantitative™ Database.

Amber has over 10 years of experience in accounting and finance at global corporations, including Quaker Oats and technology companies. She is a licensed CPA and has taught college-level business courses. Amber holds a B.S. in accounting from Purdue University and an MBA in marketing and finance from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She speaks some Spanish. Amber loves to travel. She has already visited 20 countries and plans to one day pack up her family of six in an RV to tour the 50 states.

Beth Krettecos

Subject Matter Expert

                                                Beth Krettecos

Beth Krettecos

Subject Matter Expert
Beth Krettecos is a subject matter expert with Hearts & Wallets, covering consumer behavior and retail financial firm, or "store," competitive data, trends and insights leveraged from the proprietary Hearts & Wallets Investor Quantitative™ Database.

Beth has over 15 years of experience in consumer packaged goods, marketing, technology and strategy consulting with major consumer, financial and technology companies, including Colgate-Palmolive, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Cambridge Technology Partners. She holds a B.S. in business from the University of Virginia and an MBA in marketing, strategy and finance from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.  Beth, a New Jersey native, enjoys spending time and traveling with her husband and two young children.
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Hearts & Wallets reports and research are for internal use only. Reports, wording of survey questions, structure of fields and data points are the property of Hearts & Wallets and are protected by copyright. Access to them is provided to you for internal strategic use only, and they cannot be used outside of your company without written consent from Hearts & Wallets LLC. Please contact Client Success to add more users for internal strategic access or to inquire about flexible options for licensing content for external use.

By clicking “I Agree”, you agree to our terms of use and that you have read our privacy policy.

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