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Mother Daughter Entrepreneurs Wheels Up Wealth Frances and Bridget Harkins are the mother-daughter duo behind Wheels Up Wealth, a local financial planning firm. Frances’ career in the financial sector is what inspired Bridget to forge her own path in the field. When we spoke with the Harkins’, Bridget recalled watching her mom navigate her career while always being the one to handle the family’s finances, and credits her with her own early financial education. So, although Bridget grew up singing and acting, it’s no surprise she chose to follow a career path similar to her mom’s. Frances’ career began in the banking industry, moved to the US Treasury, and eventually landed in the Financial Planning industry. Bridget’s career began in the corporate world at Dimensional Fund Advisors, where she quickly moved up the ranks to become
Regional Director. Bridget described having a “lightbulb moment” there, when she realized that she could help women navigate their finances and have the opportunity to work with her mom by opening her own firm. While Wheels Up Wealth doesn’t exclusively work with women, they’ve developed a niche by acting as a beacon of allyship for women, who so rarely see themselves reflected in financial professionals. The Harkins women described the way they learn from each other and how their previous experiences – tax planning and real estate investments for Frances and research-driven global investment design for Bridget – have come together at Wheels Up Wealth to serve their clients with multifaceted expertise. Bridget noted how working with Frances has allowed her to see a
different dimension of her mom as she works with clients. Frances reflected on how enjoyable it has been to watch Bridget grow in her career and how thrilling it is to see the enthusiasm and confidence the next generation of women is bringing to financial services.
at an early age that one day she wanted to own her own business. Eventually, Michelle grew up and went to college to study design. While she was in school, her mother tragically passed away from complications from an autoimmune disorder. It was in helping to arrange her mother’s funeral sprays that Michelle first came to appreciate flowers. As she continued on with her post-grad life, Michelle was working in corporate America, helping to arrange corporate events. At these events, she would see fantastic displays of flowers coming together to make an event feel magical. Inspired, she viewed this as another call toward working with flowers. So, she quit her corporate job and started
looking for flower shop jobs on Craigslist to gain some experience. From there, she combined the notion she had as a young girl – owning her own business – and this new notion – working with flowers – and thus, Daughter of Luna was born. The name of the shop is an homage to her mother, whose name in Chinese means “moon.” Michelle describes her mother as tireless and hard working. She clearly was an inspiration. Michelle is opening another shop on First Street called Bell and Brass, which is scheduled to open this spring. Bell and Brass is an expansion of Daughter of Luna, focusing more on home goods and furnishings. While Michelle currently has no children, she hopes to one day have a daughter of her own who she can pass the reigns to.
Daughter of Luna As we suspected, there is a sweet mother-daughter story behind the name Daughter of Luna. The owner, Michelle Yong, told us about her parents who immigrated to the US, landing in San Francisco in the 1980s. They opened a gift shop in the Mission, which they ran for 20 years and at which Michelle helped out from a young age. This was a formative experience which h e l p e d Michelle decide
18 • Benicia Magazine
