Investment News - The Leading News Source for Financial Advisors

MetLife makes effort on multiculturalism

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

By Gary S. Mogel

July 23, 2007 10:46 am ET

NEW YORK — People of various races and nationalities may have similar investment and retirement concerns, but they often don’t have similar access to financial advice, according to MetLife Inc.

The New York-based insurer is seeking to remedy that inequity — especially for baby boomer minorities — by training financial advisers and assisting them in establishing offices in communities where there is a dearth of financial planning services.

As part of its “multicultural” marketing, the insurer last month said that over the next three years, it will recruit 780 advisers — a 10% increase in its advisory force — mainly from universities and internship, fellowship and mentoring programs it sponsors, said Michael Vietri, executive vice president of MetLife. “The new advisers will have offices in neighborhoods with heavy concentrations of African-American, Hispanic, Asian and other minority residents,” he added.

Currently, a quarter of MetLife’s advisers are “multicultural/people of color,” according to company spokeswoman Holly Sheffer. So far this year, the number of black advisers has increased by 7% and Hispanic advisers by 5%, she noted.

The new advisers aren’t being recruited based on their race or nationality but rather on their willingness to serve a certain neighborhood. While the advisers will be based in “underserved” markets — mainly metropolitan areas such as Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and New York — they don’t have to be, or seek clients of, any particular race or nationality, Mr. Vietri noted.

Some minority advisers of other companies have complained about being “pigeonholed” into serving exclusively people of their own race or nationality (InvestmentNews, May 28). MetLife won’t engage in the forced pairing of advisers and clients, Mr. Vietri said.

• Email
• Print
• Share
• RSS
• Reprint