Journal of Financial Planning: December 2016
Kevin R. Keller, CAE, is CEO of CFP Board.
When i came to the FPA Annual Conference—BE Baltimore, in September, I brought along with me the future of financial planning.
Her name is Gigi Guerra, CFP®, and she is representative of not just CFP Board’s 75,000th CFP® professional, but of a direction the profession needs to move toward in order to be viable in a multicultural global economy.
Gigi, 27, is a first-generation American whose father immigrated to the United States from Nicaragua more than 30 years ago. He came here looking for a better life and to achieve the American dream. To do this he began a career as a financial adviser and has been very successful. So much so that Gigi and her younger sister are in the family business, working with their father as part of a three-person team at Morgan Stanley’s The Guerra Group in the Miami area.
To help her career as an adviser—and as she noted, to differentiate herself among her peers— Gigi pursued her CFP® certification. She passed the CFP® exam in July and became certified in August. It is an achievement she’s proud of.
In addition to being a young Latina, Gigi also is a career-changer. Originally, the University of Miami graduate was pursuing a career in public relations, but watching her father flourish and enjoy his work turned Gigi on to a new career as a financial adviser.
All of us at CFP Board are thrilled that Gigi is now a CFP® professional and a new FPA member. We believe she represents a beacon of light for the future of a profession that is seeing its workforce shrink, with growing numbers of advisers preparing for and entering retirement, just as 65 million baby boomers are starting to retire and need more than ever the advice of CFP® professionals.
A Marathon, Not a Sprint
The number of female CFP® professionals remains stubbornly low at 23 percent. That number hasn’t budged in more than a decade. And the number of people of color who hold the certification is even lower, with percentages in the single digits, according to self-reported data.
I am pleased to share that we are starting to see the number of young people taking the CFP® exam increase. And 30 percent of those who took the July CFP® exam were women. Yet, we need to remind ourselves that achieving a more diverse profession is a marathon, not a sprint. It will take the collective efforts of many working together before we can create a truly sustainable supply of financial planners to meet the needs of the American public.
Our profession still has too many barriers to entry for women and people of color. Supplementing important initiatives that FPA has undertaken to take down these barriers (see sidebar), CFP Board is working to address them through its Center for Financial Planning. For instance, we are acting upon recommendations from the research of our Women’s Initiative white paper, “Making More Room for Women in the Financial Planning Profession.” That research took a comprehensive look at the range of issues related to women in the profession, identifying actions the profession must take to resolve them. We are also now exploring opportunities to better understand why few people of color consider financial planning a viable or interesting career option, and to identify ways we can collectively generate their interest.
One thing we know is that mentorship and professional connections can make a huge difference. Just as Gigi could look to her father as a mentor in the financial advisory field, so must we find ways to connect current CFP® professionals with those aspiring to become certified.
We are already seeing great progress with our WIN-to-WIN mentorship program that is connecting young women with established and successful female CFP® professionals. And our online CFP Board Candidate Forum has been a success in its first months with more than 2,500 candidates logging in to engage with discussions focused on helping one another on the path to CFP® certification.
In 2017, CFP Board’s Center will also launch a new “Faces & Voices of Diverse CFP® Professionals” campaign, using a variety of communication channels to profile successful CFP® professionals who are young, women, and/or people of color. Many have heard the line, “You can’t be what you can’t see.” Our hope is that we will be able to reach younger people where they are—online, mobile, social media, in their schools, and other spaces—so that they can see what success looks like in this profession.
Get Involved
I encourage everyone in the profession to work with the CFP Board Center for Financial Planning and FPA, and to get involved in our work to help create a sustainable supply of new and more diverse financial planners to replace the retiring workforce by:
- Mentoring a young person who is looking to become a CFP® professional or just exploring career options;
- Volunteering at a career day at a high school or college, showcasing the financial planning profession as a rewarding career option;
- Speaking at civic clubs and other places about the important work financial planners do, encouraging people to consider the profession;
- Working with your local FPA chapter on various diversity and inclusion programs;
- Finding ways to get involved in the CFP Board Center for Financial Planning as a volunteer.
A simple and impactful thing we can all do is improve the way we talk about our profession. People need to hear how financial planning careers are much more than investments, compound interest, and numbers. This is a profession where someone can have a demonstrable and positive impact on how individuals and families live their lives through careful stewardship of their financial resources. Financial planning is a career that, as Gigi and other young people I’ve met have noted, fits squarely within the kinds of jobs younger people seek. It’s fulfilling, provides great opportunities and work-life balance, and can bring great financial reward.
We can and need to do much more to raise awareness of the profession and its cornerstone, the CFP® certification. I remain hopeful that Gigi’s story is one that can be repeated exponentially through the work of collective efforts generated by the Center and the initiatives FPA has undertaken to increase the profession’s diversity.
Ultimately it will take all of us—CFP® professionals and FPA members alike—to make a path for the next generation of financial planners.
Sidebar:
FPA Embraces Diversity
FPA’s Diversity Statement:
FPA believes that everyone, no matter what their situation or economic status, can benefit greatly from the experience and advice of a competent, ethical financial planner. FPA seeks to raise awareness and promote an environment that embraces diverse communities of consumers and professionals. In so doing, FPA strives to increase opportunities and access for the widest spectrum of people so that all may join, collaborate, and thrive within an inclusive financial planning community.
FPA appreciates and embraces a diversity of people, ideas, skills, and life experiences including but not limited to; age, race, ethnicity, gender, physical ability, and sexual orientation.
FPA embraces professionals from all business/compensation models, educational backgrounds, and geographic regions to meet the unique needs of the clients they serve.
FPA strives to create opportunities for all people to have access to competent and ethical financial planning advice.
FPA values and respects the uniqueness of individuals and the varied perspectives and talents they provide.
FPA believes that diversity of its membership is critical to serving a diverse public, and is committed to helping create a world where everyone thrives and prospers.
Diversity Scholarship Program:
Developed by the FPA Diversity Committee, the Diversity Scholarship is a merit-based scholarship program that awards recipients who are invited to attend a FPA national conference, collaborate with the FPA community, and promote inclusivity and creativity within the financial planning profession.
Learn more about the Diversity Scholarship Program and FPA’s Diversity and Inclusion Initiative at www.OneFPA.org/Community/Diversity.