Beyond the Boardroom Patricia Farrar-Rivas Co-founder of Veris Wealth Partners
By Rosie Padilla
How did Veris Wealth Partners advocate for so-called ‘gender lens’ investing? [We] started thinking: How can you look at your portfolio and actually see how much of your portfolio’s efforts are either supporting women, companies run by women or have significant numbers of women that are actually making investment decisions. And so we were very much part of the initial launch of gender-lens investing. For a while, we got tagged as only a “gender lens investing” firm. Why do you think it’s important to make sure employees are able to speak freely at work? There is the human tendency to dominate—and there are benefits to these human behaviors in the right place. But how are we making sure that when you are considering something, that you are considering the externalities. And that you are creating an environment where people aren’t afraid to sound stupid. Because often stupid things are ideas that people reject in the beginning, then they go, “Oh, you can’t do that. But, oh wait, you could do this.” Sometimes that interchange can create something that nobody even thought of. You previously worked as a dance teacher and choreographer, what style of dance did you teach? Although I took jazz, ballet and tap— I taught mostly jazz. Occasionally I would sit in and teach ballet for the beginning ballet classes, but mostly jazz. Name a different style of dancing you wish you had emphasized. I wish I had started tap earlier. I took tap in San Francisco, and it was very much street tap. They were so good, and it was so much fun, but it was so hard. It was really hard. But it was fun, I loved watching tap. You say you enjoy a good hike so what is your favorite path around here? It’s kind of funny. I do like to hike up to the old [Sonoma] cemetery and then I will do several loops around it because you can get a really good workout going up there. And then on the Sonoma Overlook Trail too. What is one thing you’d really like to learn to do? I have always dreamed of training to be a falconer. While it is difficult to do in an urban setting, I would love to work with wildlife rescue organizations. While Sonoma Ecology Center does not have a rescue center, it supports wildlife corridors, filming of wildlife and recording wildlife soundscapes. Tell our readers about the art of listening. Being on the Sonoma City Council, I think one good thing is that when the public is speaking, [council members] can’t respond to them. In a sense, I think there is definitely a good practice of just listening. [Laughing] I may have all these thoughts in my head, but the mouth is staying shut. Co-founder of Veris Wealth Partners, an “impact investing” wealth-management firm based in San Francisco, Patricia Farrar-Rivas’ innate confidence has been a must as a woman in the world of finance. Guided by the wise words of her mother, Farrar-Rivas always knew there was inherent value in the ideas she contributed to her field. Veris Wealth Partners was founded in 2007, and Farrar-Rivas held the CEO position for nearly 14 years. As of 2022, Farrar-Rivas, 71, finds herself retired from the world of finance, but engulfed in the world of local government. Farrar-Rivas is currently the vice mayor of the City of Sonoma and also serves as vice chair of the Sonoma Ecology Center Board of Directors. Prior to her work for the city, Farrar-Rivas taught dance to kids, teenagers and adults alike. In the early 1980s, she was an instructor for the now-defunct Sonoma dance company Mirror Stars. This only furthered Farrar-Rivas’ love of the community as it became a production city residents flocked to, with performances at the Little Theatre at Sonoma Valley High School. Though the income wasn’t exactly livable, the experience was priceless. For more information on Farrar-Rivas, head to sonomacity.org/patricia-farrar-rivas.
What do you do in your free time? I like to garden. I like to cook a lot [too]. I am not a very good farmer, but I keep trying, I will get it eventually.
74 NorthBaybiz
September 2024
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