Ruschelle Khanna, LCSW
The Origin of Echo to Athena
What began as LinkedIn interviews to expand my professional network turned into hundreds of Zoom calls with some of the most trusted, compassionate, and wise people I have ever encountered. I wasn't entirely sure what I was searching for at the time. Looking back, I think I was unconsciously searching for my people.
The myth of Echo and Narcissus was not new to me. I had researched it years earlier while writing my first book, Inherited Trauma and Family Wealth, drawn to it as a lens for understanding how families repeat what they never resolve. Echo, the nymph condemned to repeat only the words of others and never her own, was not just a clinical framework. She was uncomfortably familiar. I had studied her. I had written about her. I just had not yet recognized her in myself.
But somewhere in the middle of all those conversations, I realized something unexpected: I was Echo.
For years I had guided families through some of their most complex relationships, with each other and with their wealth. I was comfortable holding space for others in those conversations. But in my own financial life, I was still working from inherited scripts, repeating the stories handed to me about what women like me were supposed to do with money. I had not yet claimed my own voice as an investor. I had not yet sat at that table as a full participant. I had been helping others find their seats while quietly standing outside the door.
This book, and the community that built it, is what happened when I stopped repeating and started writing.
In doing this work, I found my voice. I improved my relationship with my finances. I became a more confident, intentional investor. And I became, finally, the author of my own story rather than a character in someone else's.
The women and men you will meet in these pages are the people I want to know for the rest of my life. They are the ones I would call in a crisis. They are the ones who spent countless hours refining each other's ideas, lifting each other up, and guiding me through the beautiful unknowns of building something that had never quite existed before.
Together, we learned what collective writing can do: it changes how you see yourself.
If you know you are extraordinary but feel you aren't yet living that out fully, in your relationships, your finances, your leadership, this book is for you.
Bonus points if you love Greek mythology.
Welcome to Echo to Athena. The pen is in your hand.
The journey
Reader Testimonials
From Echo to Athena offers a different vision. As wealth and leadership pass between generations, it invites families to prepare, participate, and steward that legacy together. This book asks a courageous question that could shape your family for generations.
READ IT! Then give it to your daughters. And your sons."
From Echo to Athena offers a different vision. This book does not aim to diminish men but rather invites the entire family to be included. As trillions of dollars change hands, this book helps families prepare to steward them together.
This book asks the courageous question that could shape your family for generations.
From Echo to Athena offers a different vision. As wealth and leadership pass between generations, it invites families to prepare, participate, and steward that legacy together."
READ IT! Then give it to your daughters. And your sons."
Frequently Asked Questions
Curious about the book, the voices behind it, and how you can be part of this journey? Here’s everything you need to know.
From Echo to Athena: The Evolution of Women in the Great Wealth Transfer is a multi-author book about how women are reshaping wealth, leadership, and legacy during the largest intergenerational transfer of financial assets in American history. It addresses the internal and relational dimensions of wealth that financial planning alone does not reach.
The title draws on Greek mythology. Echo could only repeat the voices of others. Athena acts from her own wisdom and authority. The book charts that transition for real women across family enterprise, executive leadership, philanthropy, and wealth management, through essays and perspectives from practitioners and founders who have lived it.
This book is for any woman navigating wealth, whether she is earning it, inheriting it, managing it through a family enterprise, or preparing to pass it on. It is also for the wealth advisors, corporate leaders, and organizational decision-makers who serve and advocate for women.
If financial conversations have ever felt like they were missing something essential, this book names what was missing. It works across life stages and professional contexts, from women entering leadership to those stepping into inherited wealth for the first time, to organizations that want their women's programming to go beyond career advice.
The Great Wealth Transfer refers to the estimated 124 trillion dollars expected to change hands in the United States through 2048 as Baby Boomers pass wealth to heirs. Women are positioned to receive the majority of this transfer, with projections showing women will control 34 trillion dollars in investable assets by 2030.
This is not only a financial event. It is a power shift. Women statistically outlive their husbands by an average of five to seven years and are increasingly named as primary beneficiaries across both spousal and generational transfers. Yet research from Citizens Bank shows that 84 percent of women report lacking confidence in their ability to manage an inheritance. From Echo to Athena was written for exactly this gap between the wealth arriving and the preparation required to hold it with intention.
The book features contributions from women across wealth management, family enterprise, philanthropy, and executive leadership. Contributors represent a range of experience, industries, and generational perspectives, united by a commitment to changing how women relate to wealth, legacy, and self-determination.
The multi-author format is intentional. No single voice can speak to the full range of what women experience as they step into financial authority. The book is designed so that different readers connect with different voices, and so that the whole is greater than any individual essay.
No. While the Great Wealth Transfer is the context, the book is fundamentally about identity, agency, and legacy. It addresses what financial planning cannot, including the stories women carry about what they deserve, the emotional weight of inherited wealth, and the internal work of building authority from the inside out.
Readers consistently report that the book names experiences they have lived but rarely seen articulated in a professional setting. It is as relevant in a family meeting as it is in a boardroom or a wealth advisor's office.
The book is available for individual purchase and in bulk for organizations, conferences, and workshops. Visit the purchase page on this site for current availability and pricing. Bulk order inquiries can be submitted through the Contact page.
Signed copies for special events and speaking engagements can be arranged. If you are purchasing for a corporate program, women's conference, or family office gathering, bulk pricing and customization options are available.
Yes. The authors speak at corporate events, women's leadership conferences, family office gatherings, and wealth management symposia. Sessions can be tailored to keynote, workshop, or panel format depending on your audience and objectives.
To inquire about a speaking engagement or workshop built around the book, submit a request through the Contact page including your event date, format, and intended audience.
Some bonus content
Hey there! Just sharing some thoughts, fun insights, and cool stories from my photography adventures. Come check out my creative process and what I've been working on lately!
