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There are not enough women in financial advice despite the excellent career opportunities it offers, according to Deborah Kent, President of the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA)
It’s a fact that’s plagued the industry for decades, and a problem that may prevent women from seeking financial advice, should they be specifically looking for a female adviser.
It’s also a good reason why the AFA and TAL introduced the AFA Female Excellence in Advice Award to help promote and recognise women in the industry who are making a significant contribution to their profession, their community and their clients.
“We realised we needed more women not only stepping into advice roles, but also stepping up and taking awards,” says Kent. “And it’s working. It’s showcased all these wonderful women and the award itself just helps in promoting so much confidence.”
Kent herself says she fell into the industry she loves by chance – she happened to be working with St George when it opened its financial planning division back in 1986. Having returned to the workforce after having children, she could see the opportunity in the emerging field and enrolled in a Diploma of Financial Planning at Deakin University.
Just a few years later she started Integra Financial Services, a boutique advice firm based in Parramatta in Sydney’s West. She’s received a swag of honours and awards since then, and was named President of the AFA in 2014, having previously served as the organisation’s Treasurer and a founding member of Inspire, a network for women in advice.
Kent says she’s regularly approached by women in the industry asking questions about things such as balancing family and business, or dealing with male-dominated environments. She helped launch Inspire as a network to assist, and says it’s since helped increase the AFA’s membership by about 7% to now being around 30% women
“I have always been somebody who likes to get involved,” she says. “I don’t sit back and complain about the system, I get in and try and fix it.”
Kent believes the key to getting more women into financial advice is to offer plenty of opportunities and address the confidence gap. “There are a lot of women in our industry involved in administration roles,” she says. “So we need to ask if we’re giving them enough opportunities to progress to being advisers, and if we have an environment that’s encouraging them.
“We need women to feel confident enough to say, ‘I want to be an adviser’. That’s what I did back in the eighties while working at the bank. I was told they had never promoted someone from admin to an adviser role so I said, ‘well make me the first!”
From there, she wants to see more women stepping up and nominating themselves for the Female Excellence in Advice Award. Kent also wants to see other people (colleagues, friends, bosses, clients) nominating great women advisers for the prize – a $15,000 education grant provided by TAL. The Award application process alone makes it worthwhile. “It really makes you have a hard look at yourself and your business,” she says. “Then our finalists go through a robust process that sees them further examining their personal and professional motivations, career achievements and aspirations. ”
But most importantly, Kent wants more women to start actually getting financial advice, particularly given the gender gap in retirement savings. Women retire with 42% less super than men in super.
“We have to start to look at how we can improve the financial literacy for women so they will seek advice,” she says, noting women don’t always have the same levels of confidence as men when seeking advice She’s seen women in situations ranging from divorce to domestic violence, and is concerned when women feel the need to apologise for their financial situation.
“Women can tend to look after the children or family first,” she says. “We often put everyone else in front of us. We need to make sure we accumulate wealth not only for our families, but also for ourselves. “
Nominations for this year’s TAL & AFA Female Excellence in Advice Award are open now. Recognise an inspirational female adviser who’s giving her all to her profession, her clients and community, and help us celebrate the leading ladies of financial advice.
Interested in a career as a financial adviser? The Association of Financial Advisers can help. Call 1800 656 009 or email [email protected]