WHITNEY McDANIEL AND KATHERINE CUPPIA PHIFER
Empowering Women and Champions to the Community
story by WENDY NILSEN POLLITZER photos by SUSAN DELOACH
Wells Fargo Advisors is committed to attracting, retaining and promoting women as the cornerstone of their business. They aim to have the industry’s most talented and diverse workforce, and that’s certainly the case for the Beaufort, SC Branch, located at 211 Scott Street in Historic Downtown Beaufort. The branch office includes two women who have earned the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ certification and are actively involved in the community. Whitney McDaniel and Katie Cuppia Phifer provide a full range of financial products and services and are dedicated to diversity and inclusion as core values. These two women strive to be respected as principled leaders, and they are empowering other women in the community to succeed through economic and social growth, collaboration and confidence.
Whitney McDaniel, CFP®
Associate Vice President-Investments
Whitney McDaniel works to personify grace. She knows the meaning of community and wants to give back as much as she can. She is forever grateful to the women before her who taught her how to embrace philanthropy with authenticity. The glory of her good deeds truly rests in her heart without the need for affirmation.
McDaniel graduated from the University of Kentucky in the early nineties. The summer following commencement, she used the $300 she earned from graduation gifts to drive to Hilton Head for some well-deserved fun in the sun. She checked into a motel upon arriving, went to a popular fast food restaurant for breakfast, opened the newspaper and started circling ads in the classifieds for both employment and a place to live. She found both.
McDaniel worked for a department store chain in her first year on Hilton Head Island. While working her second job in retail, she discussed her future with the husband of one of her co-workers at an employee Christmas party. He was in banking and introduced her to the head of Human Resources. She accepted an entry level position and worked her way up to creating new accounts in lending. Then, in 1994, she was offered a Branch Manager position in Beaufort. She would have to move in order to build key relationships in the community. Leaving Hilton Head wasn’t exciting to her back then, but she did so to further her career. And she happily never looked back.
A female member of the bank advisory board and owner of a local real estate company welcomed McDaniel to the new bank branch, connected her with home owners looking to rent a guest cottage and became the first of many community-minded women in Beaufort McDaniel would meet. She became a mentor. Only a few days after McDaniel moved in, she came home from work to a bouquet of flowers tied to her mailbox with a personal note from a neighbor welcoming her to Beaufort. These two women, along with many other local women, supported McDaniel in her effort to succeed. They were sincere and forward thinking. They became role models. McDaniel began to pattern her personal and professional life after these women.
As the Branch Manager of a predecessor bank of Bank of America, McDaniel called on residents of Fripp Island. She frequently took orange juice and donuts to the real estate office to help make contracts. One morning she met an agent, Todd McDaniel. He asked her what she was doing that evening. She responded that she was attending a Chamber of Commerce business event at a local sailing club. He came to the event, and that evening would be considered their first date. Five weeks later, they were engaged.
After a year engagement, Todd and Whitney were married. For the next 3 years, McDaniel continued in banking while she and Todd socially and professionally invested in the community.
McDaniel took four years off work after she had children. She stayed at home to provide nurturing and care for her two boys. While she was at home, she remained an integral part of the community, serving as a Sunday School teacher at First Presbyterian. She was also a Board member of the Byrne Miller Dance Company that hosted performances three to four times per year at the University of SC-Beaufort. A position that encouraged its members to give back to the community.
When she was ready to go back to work, a Branch Manager position was open at the same branch she worked years prior. After corporate restructuring, hiring was not done at the local level, and the position was offered to someone else. In 2002, McDaniel learned AG Edwards was looking for a brokerage-trainee. McDaniel accepted the commission-based position. Eighteen years later, through a merger between two companies, McDaniel now works at Wells Fargo Advisors as an Associate Vice President- Investment Officer who holds the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ certification.
“I love meeting people from all walks of life and discussing their long term investment goals. We talk about what’s important, what matters, and I listen,” says McDaniel.
McDaniel serves as Secretary of the Rotary Club of Beaufort and Treasurer of the Beaufort Regional Chamber of Commerce. She believes in doing the right thing, and she believes in giving back. And more than any grand gesture, she believes in the power of a hug. Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, McDaniel ended many meetings with a hug to assure herself and her clients that they were in this (business) together. We may not be hugging now, but she wants 2021 to be the year of the hug, as we recall that we were all in this (thing called life) together. Thank you, Whitney McDaniel, for reminding us of that.
Katherine Cuppia Phifer, CFP®
Associate Vice President- Investments
Katherine Cuppia Phifer was born and raised in Beaufort. She believes her professional career blossomed from a commitment to her community and an appreciation for the people who call it home.
Phifer grew up with entrepreneurial spirit on both sides of her family. Her maternal grandparents and now parents own a jewelry store in Beaufort. On her dad’s side, Phifer is the 4th generation family member in financial services. She knew she would follow a path of finance thanks to a family background in small business and wealth management. Her Lowcountry roots are certainly the foundation that helps connect her to her family, her community and her clients.
Phifer graduated magna cum laude from the University of South Carolina Darla Moore School of Business with a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance in 2006. She began her career at Merrill Lynch, and it was there she joined a wealth management group in 2007. In 2010, she moved with the group to Wells Fargo Advisors and became the Bezilla Kinney Wealth Management Group of Wells Fargo Advisors. As an Associate Vice President –Investment Officer who holds the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ certification, Phifer truly loves helping people. She strives to be involved in their lives as a resource and a trusted advisor.
“It is a sincere privilege to have meaningful relationships with my clients. I want to know what drives them and also their goals and dreams. It is a balance,” explains Phifer.
Isn’t that how we all want to be treated? It’s a genuine quality in Phifer.
Phifer received recognition as a Premier Advisor in 2019 and 2020 at Wells Fargo Advisors. The Premier Advisor distinction is held by a select group of Financial Advisors within Wells Fargo Advisors as measured by completion of educational components, business production and professionalism. Additional criteria, including length of service, may also be used to determine recipients.
“I am very excited about the distinction, but my greatest reward professionally is when my clients achieve their goals that we have been planning and investing for,” says Phifer.
Phifer and her husband, Matt, also a small business owner, are the proud parents of two young children. When asked what the number one responsibility she has with regards to nurturing them, she said, “teaching them confidence and being respectful of others.”
Developing relationships, all relationships in life, no matter the degree of diversity, only happens when we pay attention and listen. Phifer believes that is her biggest asset, as a mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, business woman and community leader.
Phifer emphatically believes in philanthropy and being exposed to an assortment of non-profits in Beaufort to understand the diverse needs of the community. She has recently served on the capital campaign committee of Sea Island Presbyterian Church, where she was baptized as a child and still a member. She is a former Board member and past President of the Junior Service League of Beaufort, Thumbs Up, the United Way of the Lowcountry and is a current Board member of the Beaufort County Open Land Trust.
For the last eight years, Phifer has been the Chairperson for the Women United committee for the United Way of the Lowcountry, formerly known as the Women’s Leadership Council. Women United’s mission is to mobilize the caring power of women together to advance the common good by focusing on education in the forgotten pockets of Beaufort and Jasper Counties. Its members work together to engage, educate and empower others to become leaders and actively participate in the betterment of our community.
Phifer is committed to helping others in this community we all love…Beaufort. Thank you, Katherine Cuppia Phifer, for being a champion to us all.
Whitney McDaniel and Katherine Cuppia Phifer believe in building relationships based on trust. They’ve seen the demographics in Beaufort change over time and embrace the challenge of an ever evolving Lowcountry. As active members of the community, financial advisors and CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professionals with Wells Fargo Advisors, they are committed to empowering women and making real differences in people’s lives.
Investment and insurance products: NOT FDIC-Insured/NO Bank Guarantee/MAY Lose Value
Wells Fargo Advisors is a trade name used by Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC, Member SIPC, a registered broker-dealer and non-bank affiliate of Wells Fargo & Company.
