The financial services industry has been very male for a very long time and it is going to take time to reverse an unconscious bias toward men, says Adrienne Penta of Brown Brothers Harriman.
Advisors need to be aware of their own biases in order to serve clients better, says Penta, a senior vice president at BBH, a private bank with offices worldwide. Penta is a co-founder and executive director of the BBH Center for Women and Wealth, a think tank and networking resource to encourage the next generation of women leaders.
“Thirty years ago, the clients and the advisors came from the same background and most were male,” says Penta. “Now, advisors, the majority of whom are still white males, have to figure out how to deal with people who look differently and think differently. Wealth managers have not become diverse at the same rate that their clients have.”
The differences cross gender, age, ethnic and racial lines. “Women now control 51 percent of personal wealth,” Penta says. “That is a radical change. Wealth managers have had to change who their clients are. Gender is the biggest bias, but there are others, too. “Our industry has lagged behind in learning how to serve all clients well. We still have a lot of work to do.”
Subtle things can tip off a client to an unconscious bias. “Women complain that their advisors do not make eye contact, or that they direct questions to a husband rather than a wife,” says Penta. “But advisors also assume people make financial decisions like the advisor does, but that is not always true.
“It becomes a problem when there is an unconscious bias that is negative,” she adds. Some of the potential problems can be solved by doing something as simple as asking how the client wants to be contacted and how often. Do not assume a busy client does not want phone calls, because she might appreciate the personal attention.
BBH is training its advisors to be more responsive to the clients through such things as sending out agendas prior to meetings and asking the client if there are other issues he or she would like to address.
Advisory firms can incorporate changes into their procedures to combat unconscious bias, but it is important to be aware that the biases exist and to have a process in place to combat them, Penta says.