How women can find success in a male-dominated industry

Women can find success as financial advisors or wealth management professionals, but they need to connect with a network and, first and foremost, believe in themselves.

That was one of the main takeaways from two panels of advisors and other wealth management professionals speaking at this week's Association of African American Financial Advisors' Women's Impact Initiative Network conference in Chicago. As much as building networks and the relevant skills represent important aspects of finding paths toward rewarding careers, the lack of representation in the industry makes a passion for the profession and strong self-reliance especially essential in a field in which fewer than a quarter of certified financial planners are women and less than 2% are Black or African American, according to the CFP Board.

The right mindset may evolve differently for one aspiring advisor or professional than for others. Panelists agreed that the profession often poses some difficult barriers to entry, whether in the form of securing the best possible licenses or winning over clients in a male-dominated field. But the sheer tens of trillions of dollars in wealth flowing to women in coming decades and the experiences and perspectives that clients and employers value in the wealth management industry add up to an opportunity.

For example, Shanda McFadden, an assistant vice president and senior financial advisor with the Chicago-based Oberlander Timmerwilke Group of Merrill said she "never saw it as a challenge" to be a woman in a male-dominated field.

"When I walk into a room and everyone else is a white man, I'm already differentiated, so I don't need to do anything additional," she continued. "I've never seen it as a challenge in my career. It's been a thing that I step into. I feel more challenged to stand out amongst all of you beautiful women than anything else. How do I differentiate myself in this room? That's a challenge. How do I differentiate myself with other people that physically don't look like me? I don't have to."

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Shifting the narrative

Still, everyone has "had these moments of doubt, questioning, insecurity, am I good enough?" said Nia Mapp, human resources business partner with retirement and insurance firm Corebridge Financial. Identifying mentors who have overcome those challenges already and shifting the internal narrative can help women shift their course in the industry, Mapp said.  

"I won't say it's about fake it till you make it, but you do have to emulate what you're trying to be," she said. "That's what I did. And I started speaking up and navigating in those spaces and in every room, forgetting that I was a Black woman, and just coming in with the knowledge that I belong here. 

"I'm here because you need me. You need my expertise. You need my perspective. And now it's really no longer a thought. I'm used to it," Mapp added. "But I would say, just build the relationships with women who have done it and who have done it in a way that you respect and admire, and then test the waters. Be bold."

That often proves difficult in a field where some advisors fail to engage women as clients and many female professionals feel the need to "over-prove my voice or that it deserves to be heard and that it carries the same weight as my male counterparts," said Jillian Berry, the senior director of StrongHer Money, a women-focused business growth program from Vestavia Hills, Alabama-based registered investment advisory firm RFG Advisory. Those subordinating messages to women in the profession take many forms, Berry noted.

"Some of the things that this can look like is, having to over-articulate all the steps in the process that I took to make a decision," she said. "It could look like me being agreeable because I don't want to rock the boat. It could also look like someone asking for a second opinion from somebody who is not as knowledgeable in the subject matter. And so the first thing that I did to overcome this was, I had a great mentor. And he told me time and time again, he's like, 'You have your own experiences, you have your own education, you have your own skillsets, and that makes you unique to the conversation. So your perspective — no matter who's in the room — it matters."

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Wealth management is a relationship business

That type of collaboration brings pillars of support for women who embark on a career in the industry, only to find a sense of isolation and an eventual exit, said Kristin Beal, a first vice president of Wintrust Investments based at the firm's Chicago headquarters.

"Many women will start out wanting to be in this career, but they do not have the longevity to do that, maybe because they don't have the passion," Beal said. "But a lot of times, it's also just because they don't have what I'm going to call the tribe around them. It's not an easy career path to start into, but once you get there, if you have the passion, you will launch into so many different areas. So I just encourage everybody to make sure — whether that's your spouse or your friends or your family — you can have it all, but you need support. And lots of times as women, we don't want to ask for support, because we're always the ones giving it."

Tobias Salinger

Sometimes, misunderstandings about the right timing to pursue a license or a certification like the CFP or simply the nature of the job itself can hold women back as well, according to Maydene Moore, a director and advisor development program leader in the Chicago metro market for Merrill Wealth Management. 

In the other panel at the conference, she recommended that college students who can get credit in a CFP-registered college planning program for their training courses toward the profession's most prominent and respected mark take their training classes while still in school. Students who wait until after graduation could fall behind by doing so, Moore said. And then there is the traditional reservation about the career voiced by young people about wealth management.  

"It's not just about money. It's about relationships," Moore said. "It's building strategic relationships with individuals, with families, with business owners."

Potential career changers who may be a bit older when they try to break into the field often come with skills that will aid their careers, said Tia Boone, a director of strategic partnerships with the Financial Services Institute, a trade and advocacy group for independent wealth management companies. She was a nurse for 27 years before coming into the industry.

"I knew how to listen to people," Boone. "As a nurse, I could hear what you were not saying. I knew how to leverage my relationships. And so I'm not a finance major. If you would have asked me four years ago, I would have said, 'I'm bad with numbers. I need a calculator for everything.' So to be in this industry was intimidating for me, but where I was really strong was in my people skills. I knew people and people liked me. That's a skill."