TD Ameritrade, Ameripise Join CFP Board's Women’s Initiative

The CFP Board now has two big industry players backing its effort to increase the number of female financial advisors.

The CFP Board announced Thursday that TD Ameritrade Institutional and Ameriprise Financial will be sponsoring new research in support of its Women’s Initiative. Kicked off last year, the board’s initiative is aimed at increasing the number of women who enter the financial planning profession and obtain the CFP certification.

CFP Board officials hope that Ameriprise and TD Ameritrade's support will help boost the percentage of female CFP professionals, which now stands at just 23% and hasn't budged for more than a decade. The financial sponsorship will go toward producing a whitepaper and other communication initiatives planned in 2014.

“This is an exciting collaboration among three organizations that care deeply about the future of the CFP certification, women in the financial planning profession and increasing the number of advisors to help Americans achieve their financial goals,” says Nancy Kistner, chair of the CFP Board’s Women’s Initiative and former chair of the Board of Directors.

The CFP Board is in the midst of conducting research addressing the root causes of why more women aren’t choosing financial planning as a career and earning the CFP certification. Results of the research are slated to be released this year and used to provide industry recommendations for growing the number of women earning the CFP certification.

Elda Macias, vice president of retirement and segment marketing with Ameriprise, will now join the CFP Board's Women’s Initiative panel. TD Ameritrade’s Kate Healy, managing director for institutional marketing, currently serves on the panel.

“We are dedicated to increasing the number of women who want to enter the financial services industry and choose financial planning as a career,” says Macias. “We expect the results of this study will bolster the strong initiatives we have in place and help us increase the ranks of the nearly 2,000 women advisors who are already at Ameriprise.”

“As a longtime advocate for women advisors, TD Ameritrade Institutional is focused on creating more opportunities for women to enter the growing field of financial planning,” says Healy. “We look forward to joining the CFP Board in the effort to cultivate current and future generations of women leaders.”

Read more:

• CFP Board Aims to Increase Female Planners
• New Program to ID Advisors Focused on Women
• Women Winning in Business, Finance