Journal of Financial Planning: November 2025
Molly Weiss, wealth management platform group president at Envestnet (www.envestnet.com), is a wealthtech veteran with more than 20 years of experience. Today, Molly drives the continuous innovation of Envestnet’s end-to-end technology and solutions, ranging from portfolio management, financial planning, performance reporting, and digital account management tools. Molly works to deliver the technology platform capabilities that financial professionals need to serve their clients. She holds an M.B.A. from Santa Clara University.
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Industry research and trends continue to demonstrate that women are shaping the future of wealth management. As of 2023, women control an estimated $60 trillion, accounting for approximately one-third (34 percent) of global assets under management, according to McKinsey & Company (Catania et al. 2025). And by 2030, women are expected to inherit much of the assets passed down from baby boomers to their children and grandchildren as part of the Great Wealth Transfer, with Bank of America Global Research predicting that $30 trillion in U.S. wealth will be transferred to young women over the next decade (Bank of America n.d.).
Women also face a significant gap in retirement income compared to their male counterparts in the workforce due to pay inequality and life transitions such as marriage, divorce, childbirth, and caregiving for elderly parents. These life transitions can cause career interruptions that contribute to financial instability.
Financial planners have an opportunity to help women investors overcome these gaps while optimizing the wealth they will inherit by addressing their specific goals and needs. By leveraging technology solutions, financial professionals and their clients can keep track of goals and progress as well as determine new opportunities to build and retain wealth for the long term.
The Wealth Realities Women Face
Lower lifetime earnings for women lead to smaller retirement accounts as well as less Social Security income, which is calculated based on lifetime earnings. A woman entering the workforce today would likely lose approximately $406,280 over a 40-year career due to the gender pay gap, according to the National Women’s Law Center (Tucker 2021). Meanwhile, the Brookings Institute has reported that, on average, women receive Social Security benefits that are 80 percent of what their male counterparts are given (Enda and Gale 2020).
Women also tend to live longer than men. This variable makes it more challenging to make their earnings last longer without proper planning. Similarly, women tend to invest more conservatively than men, which can cause them to miss out on long-term growth opportunities. According to our own survey at Envestnet (2023), 61 percent of women are skeptical of investing due to recent market fluctuations, compared to 48 percent of men, while 63 percent of women have heard of crypto but haven’t considered investing in it, versus 40 percent of men.
All of these realities that women face, along with higher healthcare costs, add to the importance of early, personalized, and adaptable financial planning for helping them achieve their goals and fill the gaps in their savings.
Life Transitions as Critical Planning Moments
When meeting with women clients and prospects, financial planners can take the lead in empowering women to prepare for, and respond to, key turning points in their lives.
- Marriage/partnership. Planners can help women with aligning goals, blending assets, and setting shared priorities when they become engaged to be married, or if they are in long-term relationships with unmarried partners.
- Divorce. Planners can guide women on how to protect themselves in the event of divorce, such as how to properly divide assets and adjust their living arrangements, spending budgets, and financial goals based on changes to their household income. Financial advisers and planners can also demonstrate how a woman’s retirement savings can help her live comfortably post-divorce in retirement, and go through steps and strategies to potentially increase those savings.
- Childbirth/parenthood. Planners can walk women through options for saving and budgeting after the birth of a child. For example, we can discuss which type of life insurance policy would be most beneficial to their family, and how their spending budgets should change in parenthood. In addition, we can help them begin the college planning process.
- Career changes. Financial planners can show women how, when they switch jobs or careers, their shifts in income, benefits, and investment capacity can be harnessed to achieve their goals.
- Loss of a partner. Besides offering emotional support following the loss of a partner or spouse, planners can demonstrate significant value by helping women with estate transitions and meeting liquidity needs.
A proactive approach can help women clients plan for the above life changes before they happen, rather than just react to them.
How Technology Is Changing the Game for Women’s Wealth Planning
Financial planners can take advantage of this opportunity to provide women with the differentiated wealth planning they need by deploying holistic, cutting-edge technology solutions that identify gaps, communicate insights, and help clients visualize what is happening. Today’s wealth technology solutions can equip planners with the following tools for delivering personalized, adaptive guidance at scale.
- Behavioral nudges. Wealth planning apps and platforms can send clients timely reminders to keep on track with their investment strategies and plans.
- Client engagement portals. Interactive portals where clients can log in from any location and at any time to monitor ongoing portfolio and strategy adjustments can keep women engaged and informed between meetings.
- Data-driven gap analysis. AI and financial planning platforms can surface hidden shortfalls in retirement, as well as insurance coverage or investment diversification.
- Holistic aggregation. Streamlining and connecting all accounts, budgets, investments, debts, and goals within a single dashboard can help women clients make better financial planning decisions alongside their advisers because they can obtain a 360-degree, holistic view of their finances and investments.
- Scenario planning tools. When women clients can visualize “what if” scenarios related to career breaks, early retirement, or longer lifespans, they can make stronger, more informed decisions before major life transitions and act accordingly.
Women tend to be more wary of AI than men. For example, Pew Research Center has found that only 12 percent of women believe AI will have a positive impact on the United States, compared to 22 percent of men—and while 81 percent of men think AI will be personally beneficial to them, 64 percent of women feel the same way (McClain et al. 2025). This can be an obstacle for financial planners, but showing women clients the benefits of AI-driven technology during one-on-one digital or in-person tutorials can enable them to become more comfortable.
Best Practices for Planners to Serve Women Clients More Effectively
When approaching women clients about how to plan ahead and optimize their investments to meet their goals, planners should engage holistically and emphasize stability and collaboration.
- Listen first, advise second. Planners can build trust with women clients by taking the time to understand their life stories, and how their experiences define their values and concerns.
- Educate and empower. By using accessible language and visual tools to make financial concepts more comprehensive, planners can make women clients less apprehensive or skeptical about investment growth opportunities.
- Plan for longevity. With concerns about the costs of healthcare and long-term care continuing to rise among women investors, advisers can help by actively incorporating healthcare and long-term care into financial plans, as well as protections against inflation during longer lifespans.
- Address life stage needs. Like men, women will have specific needs that must be addressed in every stage of their lives, and after every transformative life event. Planners can help women clients by building flexibility into financial plans to account for potential career breaks/disruptions, caregiving for elderly parents, or evolving goals.
- Encourage investing confidence. Planners can utilize data and data-driven insights to dispel myths and reinforce the benefits of disciplined investing. We can help women clients understand how investment options will affect their portfolios and financial goals. These insights can be provided in comprehensive, visually appealing reports available in digital client portals.
- Collaborate with other professionals. Planners should encourage women clients to invite their other financial professionals and experts such as estate attorneys, tax advisers and accountants, or family members to weigh in on financial plans and investment strategies, to ensure they are all aligned on what is best for the clients and strengthen the holistic financial advice they can provide.
The financial planning industry has reached a pivotal moment. The Great Wealth Transfer and the growing economic power that women are attaining have created significant opportunities for planners to demonstrate their value.
The right mixture of technology, education, and empathy can enable financial professionals to help women clients mitigate the impact of the gender pay gap on their retirement readiness and also empower them to build lasting, multigenerational relationships with wealthy women and their families.
By harnessing AI-driven technology and data analytics available in the marketplace, financial professionals can work with women clients to identify gaps in income and retirement savings, anticipate the financial shifts required for life changes, and give women the confidence to achieve holistic, lifelong financial security.
References
Bank of America. n.d. “Women’s Spotlight.” www.privatebank.bankofamerica.com/articles/women-and-wealth.html.
Catania, Cristina, Arianna Luccini, Jill Zucker, et al. 2025, May 8. “The New Face of Wealth: The Rise of the Female Investor.” McKinsey & Company. www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/the-new-face-of-wealth-the-rise-of-the-female-investor.
Enda, Grace, and William G. Gale. 2020. “How Does Gender Equality Affect Women in Retirement?” Brookings. www.brookings.edu/articles/how-does-gender-equality-affect-women-in-retirement/.
Envestnet. 2023. Unlock the Mindset of Today’s Affluent Investor. https://resources.envestnet.com/i/1527494-unlock-the-mindset-of-todays-affluent-investor/0?.
McClain, Colleen, Brian Kennedy, Jeffrey Gottfried, Monica Anderson, and Giancarlo Pasquini. 2025, April 3. “How the U.S. Public and AI Experts View Artificial Intelligence.” Pew Research Center. www.pewresearch.org/internet/2025/04/03/how-the-us-public-and-ai-experts-view-artificial-intelligence/.
Tucker, Jasmine. 2021, March. “The Wage Gap Has Robbed Women of Their Ability to Weather COVID-19.” National Women’s Law Center. https://nwlc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/EPD-2021-v1.pdf.