Breaking the boys' club

Finance is a boys' club. And for Danika Waddell, that reality was obvious from day one.

"The biggest issue for me, certainly at the beginning of my career, has been a lack of mentorship and lack of sponsorship,” she said. “My experience at my very first job in financial services [had a] mentality of sink or swim. I don't want to necessarily speak for all women, but for me, that was not [supportive]. [Instead], I wanted to be in an environment where I was mentored and encouraged.”

Happily, Waddell broke free. And when she looked for her next job, she knew exactly what she wanted.

"When I left that role and looked for my next position, I wanted to be in a role where I was being actively mentored - where the company that I was working for was invested in my growth and they cared about my progression.”

Instead of hopping ship to another firm and trying her luck, ultimately Waddell decided to build that mecca of encouragement herself and launched her own firm. At Xena Financial Planning, Waddell works with women in tech, a demographic facing the same obstacles she did in finance.

"Women in tech, much like women in finance, they’re working in a very male-dominated space. I often find some of the parallels of what I’ve experienced are very similar to what my clients are dealing with – such as they’re in a room where there are only one or two women. There’s that lack of mentorship.”

The women she works with are successful, highly paid, and still hesitant to take control of their finances.

“It’s super interesting to me that many of my clients are incredibly successful at what they do. They’re very well compensated, they’re very accomplished – but they’re also very intimidated by the financial world. And so their compensation is often very complex. They feel like very confident at work, but then in their financial realm they’ve compartmentalized that – they’ve put it in a box and have absolutely no confidence around that aspect of their lives."

The industry has let them down. The narrative that women aren’t good with money is still going strong.

"I think there’s a trend that younger women are deferring finances even more to their partners than, say, baby boomer generations – which is shocking to me. But I can see that in my clients too. They’re primary breadwinners in many cases but finances are really low on their list of priorities."

The broader financial industry still has a retention problem. Firms love to highlight how many women they’re hiring, but the number of women actually staying in finance hasn’t budged.

“The industry is evolving, and I see a lot of events that’re targeted at women. My concern around some of those things is that they’re kind of like window dressing. I think more women potentially are entering the industry but I’m not convinced that those women are staying in the industry. I think we have a retention problem more so than a recruiting problem.”

And the solution can’t be women supporting women alone.

“Mentorship and sponsorship are really critical. As much as the women in the industry are sort of speaking out and forming communities and things like that, we need more support from the men in the industry."

She saw a glimpse of that at a recent event.

“There was two people on stage presenting, a man and a woman, and the woman - but the woman kept downplaying her expertise. The man on stage just kept repeating to her, ‘We’re not doing that here.’ He would not allow her. He said, ‘No, you are.’ He actually deferred to the audience. He said, ‘Can we get a moment of appreciation for this woman?’ And the audience was calling out and applauding. For a man on stage in the moment to say, ‘I’m not going to allow you to downplay your achievements’ is huge."

That’s what needs to happen—more men stepping up, more men actively advocating for their female colleagues. "If 75% of the industry is men, we need the men to be also mentoring and supporting and also lifting up their women co-workers - advocating for them to get promotions."

Women need to take control, too. The narrative about women not being good with money isn’t going away until women start talking about it—openly, often, and without hesitation.

"I think in the broader population outside of the industry, there’s still a predominant narrative about women not being good at money. I also think it’s still very much a taboo topic that people aren’t really talking about how much they make or how much credit card debt they have - those are just not conversations that people have."

And that has to change.

"One suggestion that I have for any woman is to start to normalize those conversations. Talk about it. Talk to your friends. Ask questions. Push back. Take control.”