Women Financial Advisors Leading the $30 Trillion Wealth Revolution
Women are soon projected to control $30 trillion in U.S. assets. That’s trillion with a T and yet some in the financial services industry still think “diversity” is a show for a conference panel once a year.
Ahead of a 2024 conference, Gretchen Halpin, co-founder of Beyond AUM, and Diane Bourdo, Private Wealth Advisor at Treehouse Wealth, reached out to more than 100 women working in the financial advisory space with a seemingly simple question: Is the experience different for female advisors? This past June, Gretchen revisited the collected responses for a session of the FPA Women & Finance Knowledge Circle, this time adding insights from the Carson Group, Portfolia, and McKinsey. Throughout this research, the answer that has emerged isn’t a simple “yes” or “no.” Instead, it’s more like: Yes… and here’s exactly how, and why it matters.
First, the good news: women are leading. They’re running portfolios, building firms, and scaling on their own terms. They’re rejecting labels like “female advisor” and focusing on being recognized for results, leadership, and how they serve their clients. They’re also redefining success: less about AUM for AUM’s sake, and more about trust, client satisfaction, and aligning work with personal values. In many cases, they’re creating the firms they wished existed when they started.
The Sponsorship Gap: Why Female Financial Advisors Lack Career Support
Now, the not-so-good news. While many of the women surveyed shared positive experiences with mentorship, only a few reported having benefited from true sponsorship—the kind of behind-the-scenes advocacy that creates real opportunities. Many women have had to build their own ecosystems of support because, in a field where senior roles remain predominantly male, the lack of visible, accessible sponsors continues to be a deep-rooted obstacle. Along similar lines, 78% of women in Carson’s 2025 State of Women in Wealth Management Report experienced imposter syndrome early in their careers. As Diane has put it, “It’s normal to feel like you don’t fit in when you actually don’t fit in.” This is a symptom of the greater culture, not a so-called “confidence gap.”
How Gender Bias Affects Both Women Advisors and Female Clients
The client side tells a similar story. McKinsey’s research into the rise of the female investor found that 53% of women’s assets are unmanaged, often because women feel overlooked, patronized, or excluded from key conversations. Advisors in our survey echoed these frustrations, with stories of being mistaken for assistants or bypassed entirely in meetings. The gap in how firms treat women clients and how they support women advisors? Spoiler alert…it’s the same gap.
Building Effective DEI Programs in Financial Services
And then there’s DEI – a now almost-taboo topic of conversation. Many firms have a statement. Far fewer have results. Less than half of our survey respondents found their firm’s DEI initiatives effective. The fix isn’t another panel discussion. To move forward in a meaningful and productive way, organizations need to assign ownership of goals, adequately fund initiatives, measure progress consistently, and connect these efforts directly to business outcomes and employee experience.
The Future of Women in Wealth Management: Leading Change
Despite all this, the movement is here. Women advisors are mentoring, collaborating, and investing with both return and impact in mind. They’re not asking for permission; they’re setting the standard. Leading this charge is Dimensional Fund Advisors who recently celebrated their 10th anniversary of their Women and Wealth initiative, led by Kahne Krause and Ashley Ilardo. What started as a small group of professionals “just trying to figure it out”, has grown to a global community making change happen through education, connection, and advocacy for financial advisors and their female clients.
So, is it different for female financial advisors? Yes. Not because women are less capable, but because they’ve had to navigate a system that wasn’t built for them. The data is clear: women are reclaiming wealth, power, and leadership. The industry just needs to keep up.
If you want to dig deeper into how clients, especially women, actually choose advisors, research from Ensemble Practice offers a refreshing perspective. It challenges many assumptions about gender preferences in advisory relationships and highlights the importance of trust, experience, and connection over simple demographics. More at Financial Advisor.
Source: https://www.fa-mag.com/news/what-future-clients-really-want-75511.html?section=40
FPA Members can watch the March 2024 and June 2025 FPA Women & Finance Knowledge Circle discussions that Gretchen facilitated for additional insights.