Eleanor Blayney, the consumer advocate for the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. for the last eight years, has been appointed special advisor on gender diversity for the CFP Board Center for Financial Planning, the center announced Thursday.
In the new position, Blayney will build on the center’s Women’s Initiative and provide guidance on its other initiatives to increase racial, ethnic and generational diversity within the financial planning profession, the center said.
“Eleanor helped put CFP Board on the map as a go-to resource for personal financial planning advice,” said Marilyn Mohrman-Gillis, CFP Board Center for Financial Planning executive director. “She has also been doing important work to put financial planning careers on the map for women and girls who may not have otherwise considered joining our profession.”
Blayney was the author of "Making More Room for Women in the Financial Planning Profession," a 2014 white paper on why there are not more women CFP professionals, and offered suggestions on how to attract more women to the profession.
“As a woman, becoming a CFP professional was one of the best decisions I have ever made," Blayney said. "Women have so much to offer to the practice of financial planning, but unfortunately there are many women, people of color and millennials who are not aware of the opportunities or who do not feel welcome in the profession. There is a lot of work to be done to address the lack of diversity within the profession to create a community of financial planners who are truly representative of the populations we serve.”