Heather Randall, The Daily Record Newswire
As the certified financial planner occupation grows, industry leaders are looking for ways to attract more women to the field.
"We are going to have a shortage of competent advisors if this disparity is not addressed," said Eleanor Blayney, a certified financial planner or CFP and a member of the Women's Initiative, a program of the national CFP Board. The Women's Initiative was launched in early 2013 to uncover the reasons why women remain such a small part of the industry.
Blayney said financial institutions should start by being aware of their own level of diversity. Offering young women more information about the financial planning field would help draw them to the field in the early stages of their careers, she said.
CFP jobs are expected to grow in coming years; the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the field will expand 27 percent by 2022.
CFP Debbra Dillon got started in the financial industry as a financial advisor at a large brokerage firm in 2000. She quit after a year because she said didn't like the environment, where managers pressured her to sell products that weren't in the best interest of her clients.
"When I took the job, I thought I was going to have relationships," Dillon said about her work at the firm. Instead, she said, she felt she had inadvertently entered a career in sales. After leaving the firm, she turned to fee-only financial planning, where she charged by the hour or as a percentage of the assets under management. Dillon said this style of billing removed the conflicts of interests she had experienced at the brokerage firm.
The brokerage firm environment could be deterring other women, Dillon said.
It was fee-only financial planning that drew financial planner Kathy Stearns to the field as well. Stearns was working as the CFO for a nonprofit in Philadelphia before she decided to get her CFP.
"A bad experience with a 'financial planner' who was just trying to sell me annuities also influenced my decision," she said. "I realized there was a real need for fee-only advisers who put the client's interests first and just tried to offer good advice to regular people."
Blayney said demand for certified financial planners exceeds supply. She would like to see the proportion of female planners move to 30 percent.
"That is the tipping point for an under-represented population," she said.
Prof. Keith Harvey, the associate dean for academic programs at Boise State, said more women would enter financial services if issues of equal opportunity were addressed. These are areas where the nation could improve, Harvey said.
Like Blayney, Dillon said it would be helpful for educators to show more young women the advantages of working as certified financial planners. The career isn't only about math, she noted; it's about relationships.
Blayney, the CFP Board's consumer advocate, likes to advise women clients.
"We need to be telling women that they wield tremendous power, that they don't have to conform to the old models of wealth management or wealth creation," she said on the CFP Board website. Blayney, who co-founded a financial advising firm, works as an advisor at an online company called Directions for Women. "With Directions, I want to open the door wider for women."
Published: Fri, Oct 02, 2015
