In a profession where just one in 20 financial advisors are under the age of 30, Ashley Lenzer stands out—she knew she wanted to be a financial advisor before setting foot in a college classroom, a feeling confirmed by an internship with a professional advisor.

Lenzer, 23, graduated this year from Baldwin Wallace University in Berea, Ohio, with a degree in finance and accounting, but in her case you could say that advising runs in the family.

“I knew I wanted to do this about five years ago,” Lenzer says. “My dad was working for Edward Jones and he went to an advisor meeting. They asked him if he wanted to bring anyone, and he chose to bring me. I got to learn a little about what it was like to be an advisor, and it really intrigued me.”

Lenzer hasn’t had to look far for her first post-graduation job; she’s taken a financial services assistant position at Glass Financial Advisors, a Voya Financial Services-affiliated firm in nearby Cleveland. The firm’s principal, Michelle Glass, interned Lenzer last summer through the college intern program run by the Women Advisors Network, a group of Voya-affiliated financial professionals.

“My business is booming; I saw an internship as a growth strategy for my practice,” Glass says. “Voya supports their advisors and wants their advisors to grow their practices. The internship was a win-win situation.”

In the internship program’s inaugural year in 2014, Lenzer and three other female students were paired with professionals in the Women Advisors Network. Of the four students, two have taken jobs at Voya working with advisors; one continued as an intern through this year before landing a full-time marketing position; and the fourth is returning to the internship program this summer, as Voya expands it to include five students.

Tom Halloran, president of Voya Financial Advisors, says the internship program is part of the company’s effort to bring more women into the profession. “This program is part and parcel to something that’s been bigger for us—the Voya Women Advisors Network,” Halloran says. “We’ve spent a lot of time at meetings trying to figure out how to attract female advisors to the company.”

Voya’s efforts to increase gender diversity may be working—17.8% of its advisors are female while the industry average is about 14%, Halloran says. What’s more, Voya’s top representative for the past two years has been Joyce Thomas, from California.

 

“We’ve done a lot of conferences, and a lot of people say that they want women advisors at the firm,” Halloran says. “The college program is a piece of the puzzle. If we introduce and invest in young people and bring them into the Voya culture, we give them a safety net for success.”

It’s an issue relevant to all advisors: According to a 2015 Prudential Financial survey, one in four households is headed solely by a woman, and more than 95% of women say they are involved in their household’s financial decisions. But just 20% of women thought they were receiving enough information to make sound financial decisions.

As more women make the planning decisions for their households, the male-dominated financial services fields may not be prepared to serve them. Women also face planning for a longer life span in retirement with what still typically amounts to less income. In married couples, women on average outlive their partners, so they also have to plan to inherit their spouses’ assets and unwind any retirement or legacy plans while dealing with funerary expenses.

Angela Kahrmann, Voya’s chief operating officer and the head of the Women Advisors Network, says female advisors also bring perspective that benefits clients of both sexes.

“Woman advisors are more collaborative and tend to look at advising in terms of finding solutions instead of selling the product,” Kahrmann says. “Women tend to take a different approach to financial planning and services.”

But in the past, female clients have also expressed frustration with the inaccessibility of financial services. In part, that’s a cultural problem, Glass says.
Those cultural obstacles could prevent young women like Lenzer from pursuing careers in financial services, despite their interest.

Lenzer says the typical financial advisors are older males. “For me to come in to the field at a young age, it’s definitely a roadblock, but it’s definitely one that can be overcome. Sitting in with Michelle and her clients, I find that the wife is usually the one who pays the bills and the husband is the one who does the investing. That’s one roadblock that I think definitely is still there for women.”

For independent advisors with growing businesses, internships can offer an infusion of young talent and energy in the office, and they also provide a foundation for succession planning.

“It’s amazing to me, every time you open an industry publication there’s an article on succession planning,” Glass says. “As an advisor, building my book of business and grooming the next generation to succeed me is very important, and Voya recognizes that.”

Halloran took the succession argument one step further, saying interns were important for the industry’s future. “When you bring an intern in, you have a chance to meet them face to face and work with them from the beginning,” he says. “You’ll know if this is someone you want to have on board.”