BlackRock has also been stepping up its support for its financial advisors and urging them to have proactive and active engagement with their female clients, according to Elizabeth Koehler, managing director of BlackRock U.S. Wealth Advisor Insights. That includes asking questions, actively listening, working with women to solve problems, and understanding their unique needs.
“More advisors are taking the opportunity to listen and engage,” she said. “Advisors are also eager to receive input and engage both men and women in a family.”
There are other factors impacting a woman’s investing strategy, which differentiates them from men, according Koehler. Women tend to live longer than men so they need to prepare for a longer period, they also earn about $0.82 per $1 that a man earns, which means they need to factor that in when determining the amount to invest. Finally, they also tend to be out of the workforce more as they care for children and elderly family members.
To accommodate that, over the summer, New York-based BlackRock rolled out the Model Portfolio for Women, a multi-asset investment model that takes into account the three specific points that differentiate men from women.
Koehler added that women can contribute a significant amount to the investing community and BlackRock realizes that, which is why it plans to continue to make efforts to bring more women into the investing world. The firm is considering more products and solutions geared for women, but Koehler was unable to provide further details.
“This is an area that we plan to pay attention to in the future,” she said.
At BNY Mellon, McConnon said the firm wants to lead by example first by partnering with Inspiring Girls International, a global charity dedicated to inspiring young girls around the world. With this partnership the firm is hoping to encourage more women to invest, which will then lead to more women working in the industry.
BNY is also enhancing its own communication with women to ensure it is more effective. Working with other companies, including intermediaries, the firm wants to guarantee its message is the right one. McConnon said that BNY is learning and will share its solutions with others.
Finally, the firm is also taking the initiative when it comes to hiring women. It boasts more than 20,000 female employees across the entire BNY Mellon group and McConnon said others in the industry are following suit. She added that it is important that the industry continue to encourage women to take more prominent roles in investing.
“We know that the industry has been improving … but there’s understandable more work to do,” she said. “We need more female fund manager, more women working on the investment floor [and] I think it’s extremely critical that we effectively target women in the future.”