Further complicating the issue is that there are other minorities underrepresented in financial advice.
"Why target women as opposed to any other minority not represented within the industry's numbers?" asks female advisor Alex Armstrong of Armstrong, Fleming & Moore Inc. in Washington D.C.
Getting The Word Out
There are only 310,000 financial advisors in the U.S., according to a recent report from Cerulli Associates, so this is still a small industry, one that needs to get the word out. The CFP Board recently announced efforts to increase consumer awareness about the value of the CFP certification, and the industry must also increase awareness about the attractive career possibilities it offers. The bottom line is that the industry must capture competent people from all groups. The FPA has a program to help high school students learn about the profession, and it recently introduced a new Web site titled "Women and Finance."
But it is likely that proactive women won't wait for someone to create a program to support them. They will, undoubtedly, create what they need for themselves. It's what they've always done.
Joni Youngwirth is the managing principal of practice management at Commonwealth Financial Network, a registered investment advisor, in Waltham, Mass. She can be reached at [email protected].