Finerman Highlights Importance Of Work-Life Balance & Husband's Role

• By Ashna Tamrakar
• Update : April 11, 2022

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While many have debated whether women can enjoy personal and professional success, hedge fund expert and CEO and co-founder of Metropolitan Capital Advisor, Karen Finerman, has proved that women can have it all. 

She is the author of a well-known book titled 'Finerman's Rules: Secrets I'd Only Tell My Daughters About Business and Life' and a regular panelist and chairwoman on CNBC's Fast Money. She also sits on the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research's Board of Directors. Finerman is a proud mother of two sets of twins (two sons & two daughters) via IVF and has been happily married to Lawrence E. Golub, the president of Golub Capital, for more than two and half decades. 

Finerman tries to strike a work-life balance while working all the time, but she confesses she couldn't do it without her supportive husband, whom she gratefully refers to as their family's "project manager." She believes that everything in life competes for time rather than importance. Everyone everywhere matters in a well-lived lifetime, and the secret is to be fully involved in what you've been doing and with whom you're doing it.

Finerman also loves to take a family trip once in a while from her hectic schedule to maintain freshness in her marital relationship and spend some quality time with her kids. "My husband likes to take seven, eight weeks of holiday a year. We've finally come to a compromise. He takes some on his own, I go with him some, he takes some of the children on some, and some on others. But, no. This thing is like some huge great bubble hanging over me the whole time," she told Guardian in 2007.

Similarly, in a 2013 interview with Forbes, Finerman also talked about key things that helped her find a perfect balance between her personal and professional life. While she knows separating the two lives would be difficult, she believes there should be a physical separation of workplace and personal space.

"Maintaining boundaries is hard. That's why I strongly prefer the physical separation of work and home. I think it is far better to work from work (not from home) for many reasons, but that's a big part of the logic. Every day, turn off your phone/email for some part of the day," she said.

Moreover, when asked how her co-workers let their personal stuff impede professional commitment, she replied, "Women should learn from men to compartmentalize. It's a great skill that some women have naturally, but others have to practice. The goal is to keep one area of your life that might not be going well from causing unnecessary disruptions in another area."

As a successful business lady, she has three career pieces of advice for emerging entrepreneurs.

"1. Know that you will fail at some point, but learn from it. The lessons from that failure will be extremely valuable.

2. Be flexible: Expect to change paths or industries at least once.

3. Sometimes, you have to go backward before you can go forward. The road is never straight and it isn't always in the same direction."

However, it's not that she has faced no obstacles in her career. Finerman believes women get in their own way. "We need to be our own advocate, and not wait until opportunities are handed to us. It is ok to be ambitious. But for some reason, it is ok to BE successful, but not ok to want to be successful," she continued in interaction with Wealth Briefing in 2013.