Bringing More Women Into the Industry Will Require Everyone

It might be surprising, but many older white male advisors, who make up the majority of America’s financial advisor population, feel far from detached about hiring, mentoring and training female advisors.

That’s great because “we need [their] allyship to be a part of making change. A lot of men want to do the right thing; they just don’t know how,” argues Sheryl Hickerson, founder and CEO of Females and Finance, in an interview with ThinkAdvisor.

One of her organization’s programs, MAN — standing for Male Ally Network — encourages men to be seen and heard championing women to help turn the tide for women in finance.

Last October, Hickerson put out an industry call for action to hire, mentor, train and advance 100,000 women by the close of 2025. She calls it “The Fearless Pledge.”

Only eight months later, there are 4,213 firms and individuals that have pledged, including Aaron Klein, CEO and co-founder of Nitrogen (formerly Riskalyze); Carson Coaching; and David Wood, founder and chief visionary officer of Gateway Financial Partners.

Females and Finance sponsors such firms as Carson Coaching, Docupace, Snappy Kraken and Swan Global Investments.

In the interview, Hickerson, 31 years a member of the industry, chiefly in insurance risk management, discusses the worrisome attrition rate of financial services’ female professionals.

It’s not the job itself but typically the firm’s culture, especially unconscious bias, that propelled them out the door, she says.

Launched in 2019, St. Louis-based Females and Finance trains both financial firms and individuals.

It will hold its next Fearless Women’s Summit this September, in Miami, as the kickoff to Nitrogen’s Fearless Investing Summit.

The innovative Females and Finance hosts two interview podcasts: “The F Word,” returning in July by popular demand, and “Hall of Femme.”

ThinkAdvisor recently interviewed Hickerson, who was speaking by phone from St. Louis.

Nowadays, the biggest challenge for any advisor — male or female — is “evolving your practice with the times,” she says.

But don’t load too much onto your plate: partner with another expert for some products or services. Otherwise, you’ll “dilute the value you’re bringing to clients,” she says.

Here are highlights of our conversation:

THINKADVISOR: To what extent are older white male financial advisors, who constitute the majority of financial advisors nationwide, helping women enter or advance in the industry?

SHERYL HICKERSON: We have 300 members in one of our programs, MAN. Many of them are middle-age, or older, white men. Many don’t have the answer to the problem but want to be part of the solution.

They ask a lot of questions. They’re in the thick of the conversation and want to see what they can do to make things better.

There are a lot of men who want to do the right thing; they just don’t know how. By partnering with organizations like mine, and others, to effect change, they make our profession attractive to enter.

But women are still only 28% of all financial advisors in the U.S. Why isn’t an increase in their numbers moving faster?

If we’re going to make change happen, we can’t just remove older white males from the work and act like that’s going to be the solution.

We need their allyship. We need them to show up and be a part of making change going forward.

But why aren’t more women becoming advisors?

Maybe [firms] aren’t hiring well or don’t know how. We work with recruiters to help with that. People can post jobs where women are working, and women who are looking for jobs can post their names. So we’re doing a little matchmaking.

In order to build a better financial landscape, we’ve got to bring everybody to the table.

What’s the specific mission of Females and Finance, which you launched in 2019?

Our “Fearless Pledge” is to hire, mentor, train and advance 100,000 women in financial services by the end of 2025.

The pledge, for example, can be to mentor another woman, hire a woman for your firm, decide you’re going to work better at addressing unconscious bias and your hiring process to make sure that a certain percentage of applicants are women before you decide who to hire.

We work with organizations, such as Carson Coaching, on how to be better at mentoring and being a good mentee.