How Can Advisors Empower Female Clients?

However, “as professionals in this industry, [we] can reassure” those accomplished women who are clients that “it’s OK not to know something.” Belmont Jennings always tells her clients  — men and women — that “you can only have one day job,” she noted, adding: “I’m not sure where we got the message that we are supposed to be a master of everything.”

What would help: “mandatory education in high school and core college classes that explain compounding interest, that show women why we should care — especially when the statistics show that eight out of 10 of us are going to be alone at some point because we’ll outlive our spouses, or you could be divorced,” Belmont Jennings said.

Noting that she dedicates a lot of her time teaching financial literacy in high schools, particularly all-girl schools, Meghan Railey, co-founder and CFO of Optas Capital, said: “It’s important for the young women to see women in power, women in leadership, women in roles that aren’t traditionally for women, and women who look different than they do, than their mothers do, than their fathers do …. It is so important that we show young women that they can do anything.”

The Advisory Conversation

Women should be “inserting themselves into the process early on” when it comes to meeting with an advisor, according to Gail E. Cohen, chair and general trust counsel at Fiduciary Trust International. “It’s incumbent upon women to be interested, to ask, to be involved in meetings with the advisors, to understand what the assets are, to ask questions.”

At the same time, however, “it’s also really incumbent upon the advisors to insist, if their clients are the men, that they bring their spouses in” as well, Cohen said. “Both partners should be equally involved and educated about what is going on,” she explained.

“And it’s more than just the assets themselves, but also the structures, what the options are, and how they can steward assets for their future beneficiaries, often their children or charities or whatever their goals are.”

What Should Advisors Do?

Cohen urged female advisors to listen to their clients. “Maybe because we tend to be a little more passive growing up, we tend to be very good listeners,” she said. “I think when you are a financial advisor, that is the number one trait that you need to have: You need to be able to listen to what your client’s financial goals are.”

Offering another suggestion for advisors, Julia Carlson, founder and CEO of Financial Freedom Wealth Management Group, said they should not be afraid to take time and slow down when helping clients.

“Some of my clients just delegate and say, ‘OK, hey, yes, you take care of it all,’ but some really want to be empowered with the information and want to be a partner, and I love those relationships because they make me a better advisor — where we can actually partner together and they’re invested in their financial future and I am too,” Carlson said.

On the importance of diversity in the industry, Carlson said: “I think that the business case for diversity and inclusion is that diversity attracts diversity. When you have a strong, inclusive culture and a diverse team … that is the ultimate competitive advantage.”