The financial services industry is beyond the talking stage and into the action stage for promoting diversity in its ranks, said Cheryl Nash, president, investment services, at Fiserv.
“We’ve talked about increasing diversity in the ranks for years, but now it is beginning to be measured” and that is when you begin to see real results, said Nash, a diversity proponent at Fiserv, a financial services technology company.
“We are now starting to get some traction,” added Nash, who said it takes years to see results of efforts of this nature. Executives are being compensated based on the number of minority members and women they have in the employee candidate pool, in those being hired and in the number in high-level positions and on boards.
Nash continued the conversation about diversity following the CFP Board’s Center for Financial Planning Diversity Summit held recently in New York City. The summit was designed to give the financial professionals who attended actionable items to take back to their firms to attack the lack of diversity in a field still dominated by white men.
“There has never been a better time to be a woman or minority in financial services,” Nash said. “Executives are being compensated for bringing in more minorities and there are a lot of programs that provide support” once a person is on board.
The other avenue for increasing diversity in the ranks is to work with colleges and universities to increase awareness of the profession. Many women and minorities who become financial planners did not start out with that as a career goal, Nash said.
She has authored a white paper, “A Road Map for College Women Pursuing a Career in Wealth Management,” and works with the Envestnet Institute on Campus Women in Wealth Management initiative, a program that encourages college-age students to learn about careers in wealth management and to obtain the skills necessary. The program now has 22 participating colleges.