Apprenticeship Programs Can Help Advisors Identify Successors

Photo courtesy of Wells Fargo Advisors. From left to right: Anna Berger, Karen Shane, Susan Brown, and Kelly Reddick

A leading advisor at Wells Fargo Advisors found a successor as the result of a WFA apprenticeship program.  

WFA’s Associate Financial Advisor program is one of the firm’s next-generation talent initiatives that the company is using to combat the lack of diversity in its wealth management services and in the industry as a whole. The AFA program offers new advisors a salaried apprenticeship for three years that pairs them with a senior financial advisor. Once the program concludes, an AFA converts into a full-time member of an advisor team. For some advisors, such as Susan Brown, the apprenticeship program can help them find a successor.

Brown is a senior vice president and investment officer with WFA’s private client group in Charlotte, N.C. She has 32 years of experience in the financial services industry, including 28 years as a financial advisor with Wells Fargo Advisors.

It was when Brown went through Wells Fargo Advisors’ DELTA program, a one-on-one coaching program that walks seasoned advisors through various business methods, that she gained clarity on how she wanted her business to run.

“Giving other females an opportunity in the business was going to be my motivation,” said Brown. Even though, the industry has put forth many initiatives over the years to recruit and advance more women, the number of women advisors has yet to equal out to the number of male advisors.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated in 2017 that 32 percent of financial advisors were women and the Certified Financial Planner Board notes about for almost a decade, 23 percent of CFP licensees have been women. According to the director of WFA’s next-gen talent programs, Diane Gabriel, the number of women advisors and CFPs at WFA are close to those statistics.

As Brown finished the DELTA coaching program, she realized one of her client associates, Karen Shane, had more potential than she might have realized. Shane spent about seven months alongside Brown building out planning processes. Shane had worked in financial services for about a decade and she previously worked for a Wells Fargo bank branch in Florida.

“I think it was a spark for me realizing that [Shane] was hungry for the next level and wanted to grow,” said Brown. To Brown, Shane’s work as a client associate was impressive, but she believes the quality of her work may have pigeonholed Shane in a role that she could have moved on from some time ago. Brown then became Shane’s sponsor and began to advocate for her.