Mater Filia Financial & Insurance Services
Karen Irene Schmidt
Estate & Business Planning Specialist|ChFC®, CLU®, CASL®, CLTC®
Forbes Best-in-State Top Financial Security Professional, 2023
Get to know our Mater Filia team
Our Mater Filia team includes two full-time individuals. The first being, Karen's daughter and succession business partner, Nicole Scher. The other is Stacy Nguyen, the office manager and Client Services Manager, assisting clients in onboarding their risk management products as well as billing and basic correspondence. She has two part-time individuals assisting in the vast array of client account management and compliance related information.
We have a fast-paced, client-friendly and hard-working office environment. Contagiously energetic, our team's philosophy is to take a holistic approach, working on insurance and investment needs drawing down on retirement income distribution, and/or replacing corporate paychecks to what we like to think of as “play” checks in retirement.
Nicole Scher
Financial Advisor
Nicole is a Financial Advisor on Karen Dry’s team at Northwestern Mutual. Her primary role is to conduct annual client review meetings to ensure our clients stay on track for financial security through risk management, wealth accumulation and retirement planning.
Nicole has been a financial advisor for the last 6 of her 12-year career. She also has experience within human resources and talent acquisition within the financial services industry. She graduated in 2011 with her Bachelor of Science in Communications at the University of Arizona. She is registered with FINRA and holds her 6 & 63 registrations as well as her Life & Health insurance licenses within nearly all 50 states.
Nicole was born and raised in the greater Los Angeles area where she still currently resides with her Saint Bernard and Poodle Mix, Ginger. In her free time, she loves to be with family and friends, golf, hike and travel the world.
Stacy M Nguyen
Client Relations Manager
Stacy is an Associate Financial Representative and is our client services manager. She helps with scheduling, risk management applications and processing service requests. She is fluent in Spanish and can provide guidance in English and Spanish.
Stacy has been with Northwestern Mutual for 6 years, has her life & health license and will be studying for her Chartered Life Underwriter designation in 2024.
Stacy was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her friends and family and fur baby, Ollie.