Fiftyfaces Focus 2025 Pride Special

Allison Schmidt a CFP professional and CPA at Higgins & Schmidt Wealth Strategies, which she co-founded with Steven Higgins in 2010. She is based in Denver. Allie works with a select group of individuals and families to create customized tax-efficient financial strategies. Most recently, Allie was recognized in 2026 by Forbes as a Top Women Wealth Advisors: Best-In-State and in 2025 by AdvisorHub as a 100 Women Advisors to Watch**.  Allie is a member of LPL Financial's Advisor Inclusion Council and serves on the leadership team for LPL's Women & Pride Business Communities. Originally from Kankakee, IL, Allie graduated from Butler University in Indianapolis, where she was a member of the Butler Bulldogs women’s basketball team. March Madness is a very big deal in the Schmidt household.Our conversation starts with an empowering childhood in a household that didn't believe in limits for the four daughters of the family. Allie then describes her first forays into financial advisory work after college - and how being good at taking instructions led to her developing good business development and sales skills. Now as a financial planner she describes how she tailors advice to her individual clients and brings a climate of inclusion to the workplace. 

We continue our 2026 Pride Series with this discussion with Nick Wolny who is a managing editor of branded content at Ziff Davis, where he oversees partner content for CNET, PCMag, Mashable, ZDNET, Lifehacker, and ExtremeTech. He is the finance columnist for Out magazine and the author of Money Proud: The Queer Guide to Generate Wealth, Slay Debt, and Build Good Habits to Secure Your Future, which published with HarperCollins in December 2025 and was recommended by The New York Times.Our conversation starts with Nick’s upbringing in rural Illinois and his mastery of the French Horn, which didn’t ultimately present a viable career path. His rural roots also drove him to seek excitement in a larger city and he found himself drawn to journalism, and eventually writing on financial topics. We discuss how his finance column turned into an idea for a book and how his “voice” evolved in the book Money Proud to combine some playfulness with what is ultimately a serious topic – financial literacy, managing debt sensibly and thriving through saving and savvy planning.

Audrey Coulthurst is the Founder and CEO of RIA Pitchworks. She has had a long career in investment management in product management and writer roles.  She is also a critically acclaimed young adult author of the Of Fire and Stars series and Starworld (co-authored with Paula Garner).Our conversation traces Audrey's roots in music and the arts and how she channelled her writing skills in the finance industry in the end. We discuss the art of writing and storytelling and the challenges that AI presents. We discuss coming out in the professional world and how inclusion can still be elusive.Audrey ends with a call to action around being curious and accepting as a path to connection with our fellow humans and as a way to foster our own authenticity. 

We are thrilled to be releasing our sixth ever pride series, and are pleased to be back this year with a strong bench of compelling stories with a strong financial planning thread. We feature storytellers of every kind - from Audrey Coulthurst, young adult author and financial storyteller with RIA Pitchworks, who reminds us to stay curious. We also hear from Nick Wolny, financial columnist of Out Magazine and recent author of the book Money Proud: The Queer Guide to Generate Wealth, Slay Debt, and Build Good Habits to Secure Your Future, which was published by HarperCollins in December 2025. Moving to the domain of pure financial advice we hear from Allie Schmidt co-founder of a financial planning firm in Colorado about her investment beliefs and the role that playing basketball in college played in teaching her grit and teamwork. Andrew Baker of Financial Haus in San Diego discusses his client-centered approach and how his own authenticity generates trust and empowers clients to let their own individuality shine. Stuart Armstrong then reflects on his 40+ year career in financial advice serving the LGBT community among other groups, and reflects openly on his own HIV diagnosis and how he carried this through his life. Shifting gears to client experiences and curating engagement, Jessica Hartley shares and enthusiastic tale of allyship and then her own coming out story, all while being supported in the best possible way by leaders who showed up at the right time.  We end then with a tour de force by Michael Camuñez who is Chair of PRISM: The Association of LGBTQ+ Corporate Directors. He shares the story of his fascinating career, which involved time in the Obama administration and why he feels so passionately about the need to include diversity and LGBT members in particular on corporate boards. His reflections on this topic, which mention themes such as the "courage recession" and the "return of silence" are poignant and thought-provoking, as is this whole series.Please enjoy, and Happy Pride Month 2026.