A rapidly expanding network of women financial advisors launched a new program to support young people and career changers seeking to find their footing in the industry.
The new "Future Advisor Circle" and its soon-to-begin "Big Sis Career Navigator" are adding more mentorships and focused discussions for incoming aspiring professionals to the 1-on-1 career advice that the Women's Alliance of Financial Advisors has facilitated across its membership for the past decade.
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"We really seek to move the future advisors from point A to point B in getting them closer to where they want to be in their career path," Gularte said.
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"The energy is so wonderful and so high," she said. "That has been reinforced to me through all of our work … how much community matters to women. So we're creating that ecosystem for people curious about our profession and trying to enter our profession."
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Benefits for mentors and mentees
In a panel at the event, Webb had answered a question about mentorship in the industry by sharing her belief in the "the power of your peeps and your posse," through cultivating a small group of close friends in the field while also participating in a larger network that professionals could call upon for advice or resources.
Other women participating in the panel agreed those connections help both the newer professionals in establishing themselves and advancing in their careers while contributing to a veteran advisor's accomplishments in the field. To Kate Shannon, a vice president and wealth management advisor in Merrill's Wayzata, Minnesota-based branch, those relationships show similarities with planners' deep ties to their clients.
"I don't really think about, 'how does it benefit me?' It's, 'how can I champion somebody else's life, somebody else's legacy?'" Shannon said, noting that she has aided dozens of advisors making their way into the field in her prior time as a recruiting executive with the firm and mentoring other early-career professionals. "It's the watching other people grow, thrive, connect, succeed, and that leaves something good in the world."
Another speaker on the panel, Nicole James Gilchrist, who is a vice president and managing counsel with wealth and investment management firm Thrivent, credited Shannon for introducing her to people in her network who are "ready to meet with me to help me learn more about an area that I'm really thinking about delving deeper into." The professionals on either side of a mentorship must ensure that they have the time to invest in that relationship fully, James Gilchrist said.
"Time is precious, and we don't have a lot of it. It's not endless, but it's real," she said. "So when you decide to be a mentor, or if you want to be a mentee, make sure that people are committed to the time investment that it takes, because you want it to be meaningful, you want to have an impact. And, to have the greatest lasting impact, it's going to require time."
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A safe space with 'Big Sis'
Members of the Women's Alliance who have found success with assistance from an edge they gained through the organization's mentorships came up with the idea for the Future Advisor Circle after noticing that they didn't have a specific program focused on women at the start of their careers, according to Gularte and Webb. The new mentorships they're calling "Big Sis" will match early entrants with other women who are eager to give back to aspiring professionals.
Since "women are not a monolith," the organization is trying to create "a space of trust where they can go to and deal with questions, challenges, what's really going on in their minds that might be barriers that they don't have the opp to discuss openly and to discuss with someone who's been there," Gularte said. "If you are underrepresented, having those kinds of relationships and those kinds of communities are immeasurably valuable."
Webb recalled the story of one former advisor she knew who struggled as the only woman in the branch office of a large firm and ultimately decided to leave the industry entirely. The mentors and other members in the network can fill a void by explaining the answers to "where there are options, what to look for and what to ask for" if the current setup isn't working for women early in their careers, she said.
"She despised the culture and she's like, 'I'm out. I can do something else,'" Webb said. Instead, the new program for future advisors will give more women the space "to have those conversations in a safe place, so they can navigate and live up to their fullest potential, as opposed to second-guessing themselves."
