Financial planner Rianka Dorsainvil and founder of the firm Your Greatest Contribution started her diversity podcast series 2050 Trailblazers in response to a challenge from the late Dick Wagner, a well-known and outspoken advisor.

Dorsainvil met Wagner at an FPA NexGen gathering. As usual, she said, she was the only person of color in the room and felt numb to the lack of diversity. It wasn’t until Wagner, who Dorsainvil described as a straight shooter, approached her and asked, “How does it feel to be the only person of color in the room?” that Dorsainvil felt seen, she said.

“My mouth dropped. I said, ‘You saw me, you actually saw me,’ and he said, ‘I saw you and there needs to be more of you,’” continued Dorsainvil. She said she agreed with Wagner, which prompted him to then utter, “Well, what are you going to do about it?”

Dorsainvil said she mulled over the question repeatedly to the point that Wagner’s words became a catalyst to “step up” and to inspire others to act.

She started volunteering. Dorsainvil served as president and chair of the FPA’s NexGen network. She is a member of the Association of African American Financial Advisors and the NexGen National Capital Area study group. She also volunteers with the IRS Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program.

Dorsainvil also became a member of the Diversity Advisor Group created by the CFP Board’s Center for Financial Planning. The committee provides expertise and guidance to the CFP Board as it strategizes best-practices in continuing to diversify the planning profession.

She’s also a spokeswoman for the CFP Board’s “I am a CFP Pro” campaign that encourages young women and people of color to join the industry. Dorsainvil believes that people can’t be what they can’t see, so she finds representation a key factor in recruiting more women and people of color.

She also conceived her podcast series. Each recording of 2050 Trailblazers starts off with the assertion that by the year 2050, the U.S. will not have an ethnic or racial minority. Pew Research Center backs the claim, but it puts the year at 2055 and says that the projection is mostly driven by the increased rate of immigration.

The introductory podcast for 2050 Trailblazers aired in March. Dorsainvil prefaced the series by recalling Wagner, a financial advisor who was a regular contributor to Financial Advisor magazine. The CFP Board and Financial Planning Association recently announced a diversity scholarship in his honor.

Her 2050 Trailblazers podcasts take some focus away from recruitment and center on getting financial professionals to listen to and learn about each other. Every speaker is a financial advisor or planner.

Client-facing advisors and planners put time and energy into understanding their clients, but they often fail to do that with their peers, she said. In episode three of 2050 Trailblazers, financial planner Dr. Nandita Das, an associate professor of finance at Delaware State University and director of its CFP program, shared with Dorsainvil the importance of education to Indian culture. Das said Indian clients will not work with an advisor who doesn’t comprehend its cultural significance, recalled Dorsainvil.

And from one of her listeners, Dorsainvil discovered how to determine the status of a Chinese business meal through the spice level of a dish. Sometimes she learns about a different culture through her clients. One client, who is African, exposed Dorsainvil to the responsibilities the eldest son takes on in a traditional African family.

“By us sharing our stories we’re sharing our culture, and by us sharing our culture it makes the financial planner more culturally aware and sensitive so that we can be better professionals to our client,” said Dorsainvil.

Dorsainvil’s own story has lead to advisors sharing with Dorsainvil their own backgrounds.  Her mother is African American and her father is Chilean. She grew up in the predominantly black area of Norfolk, Va., identifying as black. It was only recently that she started exploring her Chilean roots.

As Dorsainvil ends the preface of her podcasts, she turns Wagner’s question towards her listeners: “As you listen to this podcast and you listen to the stories, you listen to some solutions, you listen to some best practices and you listen to some of the challenges. My question to you is, well, what are you going to do about it?”

Since she aired her podcasts, Dorsainvil said, a few firms have asked her to help them make their teams more inclusive. She receives comments on her social media about how shocking the stories of her professional guests are. A fellow planner and instructor messaged her that he wanted to make 2050 Trailblazers mandatory listening for his students.

The first season will end in June, but Dorsainvil wants to build off her podcast series. She plans to recruit a team of professionals to help her design an inclusion audit or checklist for firms.