Only 23% of Certified financial planners are women, and that percentage has not budged in more than a decade.
"The financial planning profession needs to reflect the population it serves," said Marilyn Mohrman-Gillis, executive director of the Center for Financial Planning, in a statement.
This is why the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards' Center for Financial Planning announced a new mentorship program, known as WIN-to-WIN.
The program, which is an extension of the CFP Board's Women's Initiative (WIN) that launched in 2013, aims to address the lack of women in the financial planning profession by pairing women seeking CFP certification with CFP professionals who will help them through the certification process.
There are currently 300 WIN members, or "advocates" as they call themselves, around the country, according to Eleanor Blayney, CFP Board's consumer advocate. Of those 300 members, nearly 100 have already signed up to be mentors in the new WIN-to-WIN mentorship program.
According to Blayney, they've already received 64 requests by younger female advisors who are seeking the help of CFP professionals. The goal is to get 500 mentees – and enough mentor support for them – signed up by the end of the year. Women that are either interested in or currently pursuing their CFP certification can be mentees.
"We know the basic problem, and we've talked about it for two years and it's basically that we do not have enough women CFPs among CFP professionals," Blayney said during a recent WIN-to-WIN webinar. "And given the time it takes for certification, this is a long-term process to build the pipeline of women."
