Page 38 - Investment Advisor - Jan/Feb 2021

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women, the barrier to starting your own business just isn’t NASH: My daughter’s in construction. She’s a project man-
there anymore. ager for a construction company that does office remodeling
I always encourage people to do that also because I did it. in Baltimore. She’s doing so well. The company she works
And all I needed to do was download a website tool kit and for has got a #WomenInConstruction hashtag, and she just
make my own website. You’ve got a storefront. fell into that.
We just hired a female intern, which is exciting. She’s a It’s so much fun to watch her in this job — she’s got a hard
junior in college. She thought she wouldn’t go into financial hat. And it’s a fun job. She gets to go into blank office buildings
services, which her father works in. It seemed sort of boring and say where the kitchen should be, etc. She has to work with
and such. all the construction folks to get it done. And she’s 26 years old
She thought maybe she would do fashion, but she’s having and rocking. It’s so cool to watch.
a great time in financial services marketing where … you can
do all these interesting things. It’s not as competitive as some What’s the future for women in this industry? Is
other industries. now “the” moment for them? What’s going to
There are more opportunities for women than, say, in fash- elevate women more?
ion. Women will have a more difficult time in some industries NASH: What’s going to push women forward is support. As we
that are typically female heavy. But your ability to rise and just talked about, there are now diversity and inclusion initia-
to rise more quickly in a more male-dominated industry is tives at every big organization. Even at the small ones, there
really there. are now goals set up to make sure that in the interview pipeline
To Cheryl’s point, more and more firms are looking at diver- they’ve got diversity. There are goals around how many execu-
sity and inclusion initiatives and have goals for them. Part of tives in the C-suite and other areas are diverse.
their mission is to bring more women in and for a lot more This is all new. This really wasn’t there before. Our industry
women to move up. It’s just all right there now — after waiting is putting standards out for firms like ours to follow, which is
so long. really important. That’s first and foremost.
It’s interesting. Look at Cheryl’s daughter, ask her about Second, women are increasingly becoming the bread-
what field she works in versus her son. winners of the family. There are more women who are

Tackling Wealth Management’s Lack of Diversity
More than a year ago, Ken Fisher sent the wealth manage- in a few short years. We’re challenging ourselves to face the
ment industry into a tizzy when he made inappropriate com- cold hard facts and hold ourselves accountable.
ments about women at an industry event. Advisor Group is a great example of a company that is
The floodgates opened and an industrywide movement living the mindset: their board and senior leadership have
ignited about how women are treated in business, and the a healthy mix of men and women. Their award-winning
general lack of equality and diversity. The message was clear: “Women Forward” initiative is successful not just because
Enough is enough. they have it, but because they’re living it.
However, when we take a look at tangible change between In broader financial services industry news, JPMorgan
now and then, we have to face facts: not much has changed. announced a $30 billion commitment to address wealth
There remains a genuine interest to diversify wealth management inequality in underserved communities with loans, philan-
with not only female talent, but talent of all shades and sizes. thropy, and accountability on the executive level.
But in reality, it’s a lot of talk without much walk. And that’s This is significant and will hopefully translate into meaning-
not getting us anywhere fast. Change is hard, but even worse ful change tomorrow.
is that it’s slow. McKinsey reports that female representation
on U.S. and U.K.-based executive teams only rose from 15% Reality Check
in 2014 to 20% in 2019. But today, it’s rhetoric. If change is going to happen, we have
More than a third of the companies in their global study to be comfortable with the fact that asking mature businesses
still have no women at all on their executive teams. From and industries to adjust is hard and painful — and it’s not
their global data set, gender diversity improved just a measly going to be fast.
one percentage point — from 14% in 2017 to 15% in 2019. Brian Ross, CEO at Flyer, believes that bigger firms and
Although the lack of tangible results is frustrating, it’s their leaders will inspire long-term change. He points to
worth acknowledging what the wealth management industry Sallie Krawcheck and Ellevest as examples of leadership
is doing: unraveling decades of a systemically sexist and rac- and progress.
ist mindset and business practices that are hard to reverse But grassroots movements will catalyze short-term prog-

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