A former bank branch advisor with Charles Schwab is suing the company, claiming it ignored sex and age discrimination allegations she raised about her manager.
Lynette Ancona is based in Winter Park, Fla., and was with Schwab from 2009 to 2023 before joining Raymond James as a senior vice president of wealth management (at the time, she managed about $750 million in client assets).
In a lawsuit filed in Florida federal court this week, Ancona said she quit her role of Vice President, Senior Financial Consultant at Schwab in the face of intolerable working conditions, including alleged age and sex discrimination from bank branch manager Olivier Guerin (who has been with Schwab since 1997, according to FINRA records).
Additionally, she accused Guerin of retaliation “as a result of her multiple complaints to Human Resources of his discriminatory conduct.”
According to the suit, Ancona was a top performer at the branch, but Guerin consistently treated younger male employees “more favorably than older female employees. Ancona said Guerin “routinely belittled and insulted” her and asserted that none of Ancona’s co-workers liked working with her.
“Guerin further assisted younger employees, particularly younger males, with advancing their careers, but he undermined Ancona’s advancement and success,” the complaint read. “Guerin would assert that the younger males were ‘young and hungry.’”
Ancona claimed that one female client relationship manager over 50 transferred out of the branch because of how Guerin treated her, and two male co-workers over 50 affirmed that Guerin favored younger male employees.
According to Ancona, she went to Human Resources about Guerin’s conduct, but her complaints weren’t addressed. Guerin allegedly learned about this and scrutinized Ancona even more, including issuing a “baseless and inaccurate” coaching memorandum that Ancona said had a “chilling” effect on her standing at Schwab. Ancona alleged Guerin also reversed a $60,000 commission she’d fairly received.
“Ancona made a complaint to senior leadership regarding this reversal and noted that it was due to her age and sex,” the complaint read. “Following her further complaint, Guerin increased his criticism of Ancona’s performance and increased his isolation of her from her colleagues.”
Jan Schwartz, the attorney representing Ancona, did not respond to a request for comment prior to publication.
According a Schwab spokesperson, the firm disputed the allegations and plans to respond in court.
“We want our employees to thrive at Schwab and we have a zero-tolerance policy toward any form of discrimination,” the spokesperson said.
Ancona quit on Dec. 22, 2023, arguing her mental and physical health had suffered from Guerin’s alleged retaliation and discrimination. She later heard that Guerin allegedly told her clients she could not handle “all of her clients adequately” and didn’t “offer quality advice.”
In March 2024, she joined Raymond James’ employee advisor channel along with client service associate Stephanie Gisler.