Women are not a niche.

Hundreds of advisors embraced an opportunity to immerse themselves in diverse voices at the 3rd Annual Invest In Women conference.

Held in Dallas May 9-10, the conference was sponsored by Financial Advisor and Private Wealth magazines.

“I think women can tell you that one-size-fits-all just doesn’t work,” said Sybil Praski, a client development expert at the Williams Group. “We don’t want to be looked at as a homogenous group, and changing the font to pink doesn’t make what the industry is offering a different service.”

One of the most important questions addressed by participants was the massive transfer of wealth to women—oft-cited statistics state that more than 80% of women will eventually be divorced or widowed, and 70% of widows change advisors within the first year of their spouse’s death.

Women will not only need better financial advice as they become primary earners responsible for more of the nation’s wealth, they’re also challenged by questions of health, longevity and legacy planning.

Keynote speaker Jean Chatzky, an author and personal finance commentator for NBC’s Today Show, noted that women are finally flexing their financial muscles in ways that could reshape the planning profession.

“Women are now starting businesses at two times the rate of men, but when it comes to our finances, women are still lagging behind,” said Chatzky. “Personal finance is more personal than finance; it is your job to help.”

The industry must do more to serve women as clients by focusing on wellness, said Chatzky, who linked financial wellness to health throughout her speech.

Keynote speaker Elizabeth Smart, who survived being kidnapped and subjected to abuse over the course of nine months when she was 14 years old, explained that she found inner strength and a will to survive through her personal faith and her family’s love.
Smart reminded attendees that even the best plans are subject to contingencies completely out of the control of the planners.

“We all have a lot of troubles in life … but we’re the ones who decide who we are,” said Smart. “We write our own stories. We can choose whether to allow our struggles to define who we are—they’re certainly going to shape who we are, but they don’t have to define who we are.”

During a panel discussion, Gretchen Halpin, chief strategy officer for Hewins Financial, said the best way to achieve better financial services for women is to attract more women to the planning profession.

Much of the conversation in Dallas focused on how to attract and retain female clients and advisors. One of the largest barriers to doing so, the male-centric culture of the financial industry, may finally crumble as more women become visible in leadership roles.

“I don’t think most of us are experiencing any overt sexism that the women of the past may have experienced, but there still is unconscious bias with the way women are treated in the workforce,” said Halpin, during a panel called “Attracting Women to the Advisory Business.” “There are also gender role expectations that continue to happen, but I think we’re overcoming that.

“The era of the male of the household being in charge of the financial support of the family, and the female of the household being in charge of personal, emotional care of the family, is changing and shifting.”