Financial literacy advisor in Montreal offers women safe space to learn about money

Lin Sok, an independent financial security advisor and mortgage broker, runs a women’s financial literacy group in Montreal and offers a breakfast club for women entrepreneurs in the city.

“I feel that I have the voice and I have the power to bring women up with me,” she said.

“I’m Asian. I look young. I was 23, so I looked like I was 15.

“And I was disrespected big time when I first started.”

Her career in finance started by what she says was an accident. “I was a young mom, so the gentleman who came over to the house to sell me an RESP for my son recommended or said ‘why don’t you join the financial services industry.’

“So I started in 2003 and it was really by accident.”

Lin says she “worked in a predominantly male office and wealth management and they did not let me forget how young I looked, how inexperienced they thought I was.

“So that’s what motivated me to do well when I started out.”

In 2020, Lin started offering free financial literacy sessions to women over Zoom every Tuesday. That’s a practice she continues ever since.

“Every week we discuss a different topic related to personal finance, investing, entrepreneurship or real estate.

“Everything is explained in simple everyday language.

“No jargon, no take my course.

“You know it’s all free, open and I encourage open discussion.”

While Lin has lived in Canada most of her life, the circumstances of her birth were very different.

“I was actually born in Thailand in a refugee camp during the Khmer Rouge genocide and then after I was born my parents and I and my brother came here to Canada.

“I was just a baby so I don’t remember it but I do have pictures from when I was born in the refugee camp.”

Lin got back into the finance industry after her divorce. “I had taken a hiatus from my career and when I decided to go back I really wanted to focus on women because I’ve been through a lot as a woman, as a single mother of four, going through a divorce.

“All those things that you learn about finance when you’re working in the industry went out the window so that was my focus.”

Working with women taught Lin a lot about common factors many women experience.

“It’s a lack of knowledge that turns into fear, so we always fear what we don’t know. So I spend a lot of time educating women and once I educate, once they attend one of my sessions, once I work with them, the fear is all of a sudden alleviated.

“It’s all related to fear so I think that’s the number one challenge that women face.

“I grew up in a very patriarchal home so I always had that against me and it’s almost as if and throughout my career behind the scenes one day maybe a psychiatrist will dissect my case but I feel that I have the voice and I have the power to bring women up with me. I just have this this big goal to encourage women and to tell women there’s nothing to fear.”