According to a 2013 research report by Jersey City, New Jersey–based securities services provider Pershing, a subsidiary of BNY Mellon, only 30 percent of registered investment advisers (rias.) in the U.S. are women, who have an even smaller representation among senior management at the large firms. The situation is hardly unique to finance of course, with female CEOs accounting for fewer than 5 percent of corporate chiefs in the Fortune 1000 and fewer than 17 percent of directors.
Pershing also cites statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor showing that female advisers tend to work at smaller firms, in smaller teams and, compared with their male peers, earn an average of 58 cents for every dollar earned. Pershing goes on to note surveys indicating that the customer base of professional women and female-headed households tends to be more inquisitive and critical in selecting and retaining advisers.
统计调查确认，女性比男性更有可能寻求财务顾问的服务，更有可能更喜欢女性顾问。女性顾问有很大的机会，统计数据所证明2013妇女拥有的企业状态报告由美国运通开放委托，估计，妇女拥有的企业产生超过1.3万亿美元的销售。
为什么大公司未能吸引更多的女性顾问？
When discussing causes for this dearth of female advisers, industry analysts offer reasons from lack of sufficient family leave and flextime to ineffective recruiting practices that amount to little more than lip service within male-centric cultures.
“我认为这不是他们只是向它付出嘴唇服务;“市政债券特许经营总裁兼首席执行官亚历山德拉·勒宾汉说，我认为这真的不知道该怎么做呢？Lebenthal & Co., about recruiting women to wealth management. “I think that comes from not having enough women at the top ranks in the major wealth management firms. [Former president of global wealth and investment management at Bank of America] Sallie [Krawcheck] was sort of the only one, and obviously now she is gone.”
In 2007 Lebenthal relaunched the firm her grandparents founded in 1925 after buying the name back from Merrill Lynch. Initially focusing on building up the firm’s capital markets franchise with a strong presence in bond and equity underwriting, she has expanded the focus into wealth management and services for family offices. Lebenthal believes women are more likely to join an industry if there are female role models and if a woman reaches out to them. “Many firms are simply throwing their hands up and saying, ‘Yes, we want to hire more women professionals, but we don’t know how to get them.’”
For companies like Lebenthal, the larger firms’ failure to adapt provides a recruitment opportunity. “We are initially focused on female advisers who are already in the business, who are at firms that leave them feeling that they are second-class citizens and where they are one of only a handful of women professionals in a gigantic branch office.”
Lebenthal并不孤单，专注于招募更多妇女加入他们的咨询做法。Private Ocean, a San Rafael, California–based wealth management firm that oversees nearly $900 million in client assets, has recently stepped up its recruitment of women. According to firm COO and partner Susan Dickson, this also helps with marketing to the growing number of households that have a woman as the primary income earner. “Women of prior generations still preferred male advisers,” she says. “Younger professional women today are much more likely to respond positively to working with a female adviser.”
Unlike leaders of other firms, Dickson and her colleagues have focused not only on advisers with existing practices but also on those interested in transitioning from careers in corporate or other professional roles. Dickson has firsthand knowledge of such a career trajectory. She entered the registered investment advisory field in 2005 after decades spent as an executive in the aeronautics and consumer discretionary industries. “We are still very light on strong women advisers in the industry.” Finding top female talent in other sectors “is a great way to find talented recruits,” she says.
该行业普遍同意，未来几十年的女性顾问将作为美国财富转移的人口统计数据具有竞争优势。特别是佩斯希望已经活跃在雌性rias的数量。该公司发表了几篇白色论文和托管研讨会，旨在鼓励RIA客户改进招聘策略。
“Today more women than men are graduating from college. That is going to profoundly change the industry,“ says Mark Tibergien, CEO of Pershing Advisor Solutions, a Pershing affiliate. Tibergien sees it as an opportunity both for firms and new financial advisers. “This is an opportunity for [new hires] to be intellectually stimulated, have a high degree of independence, profoundly impact the lives of their clients and put a whole new face on the way the business is managed.” On a personal note, Tibergien says he will encourage his nieces to consider careers as RIAs when they graduate from college.