I was really impressed to hear about Dawn Patrick and her quest “to assist 500 women into IFA roles over the next five years by providing them with support, knowledge and experience to give them the confidence to step forward and claim their place”. I first noticed Dawn’s plans in this FT Adviser article and recently spoke to her to get more detail.
This is exactly the kind of initiative required for the profession to encourage more women to choose financial advice as to their careers. As Dawn says in her article, there are plenty of female clients out there who, given the choice, would feel more comfortable discussing their financial situation with a woman.
Many reasons to choose this career
But this isn’t the only reason to choose a career as an adviser, as I found out when I hosted a seminar with 30 female advisers earlier this year: it’s a great career for so many reasons.
The key findings of the seminar were captured in a feature I wrote for Professional Adviser, which you can read here.
The feature looks at some of the reasons why the profession has historically struggled to attract and retain a better balance of gender over the years.
Looking to the future, I asked some of the contributors to the seminar to provide tips for women who are considering making financial advice their career. The top five were:
- “Say no to Imposter syndrome” – believe in yourself and trust your judgement
- Be flexible and embrace change
- Listen, soak up information
- Always be open to learning
- Be clear on who you want to work with: choose your ideal clients carefully
Raising awareness
Hopefully, awareness of financial advice as a great career for women is growing and Dawn’s initiative is a great step in the right direction.
The PFS is also doing its bit, running a raft of schemes to get the message out to younger people. This will certainly help but it would be great to see other advisers take the lead like Dawn and bang the drum for financial advice as a rewarding career for women of all ages.
