Women In Financial Advice Awards

It’s been a long time coming but there is a definite sense that the tide is finally turning for women in financial services. You just need to look at trailblazers such as Rebecca Robertson, who have overcome prejudice due to her gender and inspired others like her to become advisers.

There is still a long way to go as some fairly bleak statistics make clear. Did you know, for instance, that women make up only 23% of leadership roles in the sector? Or that, according to one study by FT Adviser, 47% of IFAs employ no female advisers at all.

It is clear what needs to be done: more women need a seat at the table. To do this, we must encourage more women into the industry. A key part of doing this is representation, by which we mean shining the spotlight on positive and relatable role models.

That is why Focus is so excited about the inaugural Women in Financial Advice Awards taking place this year, organised by Professional Adviser.

We sat down with Julian Marr, the editor of Professional Adviser, to talk about what feels like a ground-breaking moment for the far too-often overlooked women in our industry.

This is the first Women in Financial Advice Awards ceremony. Why now, in 2018?

2018 really does feel as if it could come to be seen as a landmark year for gender equality across the whole financial services space. The year has seen some significant developments — from the requirement that larger firms publish their gender pay gap data to the Treasury Committee actively chasing financial services businesses on why they have yet to sign up to the government’s Women in Finance Charter. Professional Adviser wanted to make a small contribution of our own.

The Women in Financial Advice Awards are part of a co-ordinated initiative by our publisher Incisive Media. We stand alongside the Women in Investment Awards and the Women in Pensions Awards that are respectively being run by our sister titles Investment Week and Professional Pensions.

Why have you chosen to create an event that celebrates women separate to their male colleagues?

I think in an ideal world, we would not have to do so but when fewer than a fifth of the UK’s financial advisers are women, this is clearly not an ideal world.

I am not keen on the ‘male, pale and stale’ line that the ladies on the Professional Adviser team have been merrily wielding in recent months but, when you look at the audiences at some of our events or, on occasion, at the mugshots that accompany our news stories, it is a tough charge to deny.

Ultimately, this is an existential issue for the financial advice profession — and on two fronts. First, surely it makes sense to reflect the diversity of your potential client base. Second, and just as surely, a profession in such dire need of attracting new blood as financial advice needs to convey the message that it is an attractive career prospect for both men and women.

Here on Professional Adviser, we already know there are plenty of women in and around the world of financial advice who can be great role models to the next generation of advisers — our hope is that our awards shine some extra light in their direction.

Are there any particular qualities that make women fantastic financial advisers?

That is a dangerous question to ask — and answer — and sweeping generalisations would run counter to the spirit of the Women in Financial Advice Awards.

A fantastic financial adviser is someone with the appropriate blend of technical expertise and people skills to enable them to work constructively with their clients — first to understand their financial goals and aspirations and then to achieve them as fully as is possible.

The ability to listen, empathise, build trust, solve problems — some skills may traditionally be associated with one gender or another but neither has a monopoly on any of them.

“Making the best use of technology and artificial intelligence is vital to the future of financial advice and the wider financial services sector and we ought to acknowledge this in the Women in Financial Advice Awards.”

How do we encourage more women to pursue a career in financial advice?

A big step forward would be a greater willingness on the part of the financial advice sector to look both outwards and inwards. Outwards by visiting schools and universities to promote advice as a career or offering more apprenticeships. Inwards by looking at the culture at their firms and maybe, just maybe, wondering why financial advice is the only profession where members are rude about each other. You never see that with, say, solicitors or accountants.

Role models are vital — an area where the Women in Financial Advice Awards obviously aims to contribute — but it will be important to recognise this will all take time and not to lose patience or faith.

I started my working life as a solicitor in the early 1990s and while half the people starting alongside me on my first day — and indeed half the people doing my law degree — were women, that was clearly not the ratio in the more senior echelons of the firm. Almost three decades later — on the very day we announced the Awards — I happened to notice my old firm was among The Times Top 50 Employers for Women 2018.

What does progress look like?

It looks like equality of opportunity. Starting with a less male-oriented working culture — one Professional Adviser reporter recently mentioned a female adviser had told her she was sick of being invited on golfing days — and women making up significantly more than a fifth of UK financial advisers.

These things won’t happen overnight and we should perhaps begin by seeking to attract a more diverse mix among the next generation of advisers and mentoring younger female advisers to ensure they stay in the profession, and progress to the top-level roles.

Where do you see examples of progress and inspiration for female advisers?

A good example of progress is that few people these days would disagree with the idea that more diverse teams lead to better decision-making — on company boards and in investment management, for example. That helps underpin initiatives such as the Women in Finance Charter, which hopefully in turn can create a virtuous circle.

As for inspiration, clearly there have been some trailblazers across the financial services arena in recent years. That said, I would not want to prejudge the results of Women in Financial Advice Awards! We have attracted more than 800 nominations and I am hopeful they will help highlight a whole new generation of role models for women in this sector.

We were particularly interested to note a ‘Women in FinTech’ category in the awards. In your experience, is there a trend in female professionals being open to technology?

I would love to give you a more insightful answer but the thinking behind this category was that making the best use of technology and artificial intelligence is vital to the future of financial advice and the wider financial services sector and we ought to acknowledge this in the Women in Financial Advice Awards.

Some might argue that embracing technology is more a question of generation than gender but the simple truth is that advisers who are not embracing technology probably are not planning to be doing the job for very many more years.

It is clear that financial advice is undergoing a huge shift in culture. Whether it is the new legislation and regulations that are encouraging dinosaur-age firms to go digital, or the push for more diverse representation in every boardroom.

Focus Solutions is here for firms looking to digitalise, scale and move with the times. Products like Now:Share — the co-browsing software that allows you to work from anywhere — could even be a digital solution that enables parents to have a flexible working life that allows them to spend time with their children.

Professional Adviser’s inaugural Women in Financial Advice Awards will be taking place on Wednesday 10th October 2018. For more details see here, and follow Professional Adviser to keep up with the nominations as they come in.