“Where are all the woman CFPs going?” asked an audience member at the 2017 Invest In Women conference on Wednesday.

Speaking at a panel discussion called “Does Your Firm Need a Women’s Initiative?” covering a wide range of gender-oriented topics, Michelle Lynch, vice president and director of the Raymond James Network for Women Advisors, pointed out that the demographics of college CFP programs have been evenly split 50-50 between men and women for many years, yet the proportion of women advisors in the industry still frustratingly hovers near 20 percent.

“If 50 percent of the graduating advisors are women, why aren’t we seeing an increase in women becoming financial advisors?” Lynch asked. “Part of the reason is that they were being trained as advisors from a very technical, ‘male’ perspective.”

As part of an effort to turn the tide, Lynch explained that Raymond James is working with college CFP programs to blend more emotional and behavioral aspects of financial planning into their curriculum, but the low levels of women in the industry remain a sticking point.

Until recently, part of the industry’s gender problem stemmed from its lack of networking and educational opportunities for women, said Lorraine Salvo, managing director at Massey Quick Wealth Management, and that extends to difficulty creating client outreach that appeals to women.

“Women tend to enjoy learning with other women and from other women,” said Salvo. “There’s a comfort level issue. When it comes to discussions around topics like money management, it’s personal, women feel uncomfortable, and they’re just not going to bring it up.”

Two years ago, Salvo began organizing internal networking round tables of women at Massey Quick. Recognizing that women were eager for the opportunity to tell their stories to one another and learn together, she moved to create a women’s initiative that would also extend to clients, prospects and women in the communities that Massey Quick serves.

Similarly, Plancorp LLC more recently created a client-focused women’s initiative to help women become more fluent in the language of finance and engage more in discussions about money. By hosting educational events and round tables of women without men present, participants were more comfortable speaking their minds, said Sara Gelsheimer, a wealth manager and founder of the women’s initiative at Plancorp.

“There’s something really special about women getting together, especially in educational events,” Gelsheimer said. “We wanted women to feel comfortable asking questions that they may not feel comfortable asking in front of their husbands or a male advisor in a client meeting.”

Gelsheimer and Salvo explained that their initiatives also involve “inspirational” events that may be tied to community service or simply deliver an uplifting message to participants.

Raymond James’s initiative is more focused on advisors, said Lynch. In addition to targeting college programs, the firm is also appealing to women in later stages of their lives.

“We’ve made a concerted effort on targeting women who are interested in making a career change and letting them know about the financial advisor role and how well suited women are for the profession,” said Lynch, also commenting that the company is trying to promote women internally from support roles to advisory roles and support its young woman advisors through mentoring and professional development.

To this point, women’s initiatives have had more success in facilitating client engagement than they have in expanding the pipeline of women into the industry.

Each of the women’s initiatives discussed on Wednesday were started by a woman advisor who wanted to create more visibility for her cohorts and female clients. The panelists agreed that a general lack of visible female role models and mentors in the industry drives a lot of client and advisor attrition.

Moderator Jocelyn Wright, the State Farm chair in women and financial services at the American College of Financial Services, pointed out that women cannot create a more equitable industry on their own. As more woman advisors seek to create similar initiatives within their firms, they will have to seek and encourage assistance from male allies.

“There’s such a small percentage of advisors who are women, so we need men who are leaders to stand up and say that this is really important,” said Wright.

In the panelists’ cases, male leaders at their firms were not only receptive to starting a women’s initiative, but were often supportive and enthusiastic.

Wright pointed out that this wasn’t necessarily indicative of a zeal for gender equality or social justice.

“There’s a new term called ‘womenomics’ that describes the economic power that women are attaining and how that’s disrupting the status quo,” said Wright. “Women control over 51 percent of the wealth in the U.S. By 2020, that is expected to grow to 67 percent, or $22 trillion. There’s a business case as to why we need a women’s initiative.”

Just two years, or less, into their programs, Massey Quick and Plancorp are already seeing an increase in engagement among their women clients, said Salvo and Gelsheimer.

Raymond James, on the other hand, has had an internal women’s initiative for 23 years, explained Lynch, but today only has around 1,000 female advisors, roughly 15 percent of its workforce.

On the other hand, said Lynch, Raymond James has improved retention of its woman advisor workforce, has connected better with female clients and has improved its firm culture via the initiative.

“I would also say increased awareness among the men in our firm has been a huge changing milestone over the past few years,” said Lynch. “I can’t tell you how many male advisors come tell me—how can you help me partner with women? They’re paying attention to the specifics and recognizing the trends—they don’t want to lose the woman clients when their husbands die.”