Women gain momentum in new CFP numbers but overall percentage is stuck

Kate Healy, managing director of the CFP Board's Center for Financial Planning, focuses on the increase in the number of new female CFPs.

Kate Healy prefers to look at the growing percentage of new certified financial planners who are women rather than the overall portion of CFPs who are women, because the former is growing while the latter has remained stagnant.

Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards Inc. statistics show that women comprised nearly 30% — 1,519 of 5,214 — of newly minted CFPs in 2022. Overall, the number of female CFPs rose 4.4% last year to 22,446, but that number continued to represent 23.6% of the 95,137 CFPs at the end of last year.

That 23% has been the ceiling for years for the proportion of female CFPs, which is frustrating for Healy, managing director of the CFP Board’s Center for Financial Planning. That’s why she focuses on the momentum shown in the number of new CFPs who are women.

“We are seeing progress,” Healy said Wednesday at the InvestmentNews Women Advisor Summit in Chicago. But she added: “The denominator is large.”

What she meant about the denominator is that the overall population of CFPs remains predominantly male. There are more CFPs over the age of 70 than under the age of 30. Until there is a retirement trend in the profession, the overall portion of women is likely to remain in that 23% range.

“That’s why I’m focusing on the 30% number,” Healy said on the sidelines of the IN conference. “That shows where the progress is.”

Over the last five years, the CFP Board has awarded $884,000 in scholarships to women to help finance the cost of obtaining CFP certification. The board established the Women’s Initiative Council a decade ago, and the council recently launched an endowed scholarship program.

The CFP Board is working to raise awareness about financial planning among high school and college students to attract more people to the profession.

“We have to get critical mass,” Healy said.

Making the CFP universe more diverse requires outreach to underrepresented groups.

“Mentoring is important,” Yonhee Choi Gordon, principal and chief operating officer at JMG Financial Group, said at the IN conference.

Valerie Rivera, founder of FirstGen Wealth, is a role model for financial planning among people who are not often clients of financial planners. Her firm specializes in working with clients who are the first in their families to go to college, make more money than their parents and build wealth. That description fits her.

“People feel inspired when they see someone different,” Rivera said.

Her clientele is about 90% people of color — Latino, Asian, Black and Indian. She is the first financial planner they’ve hired.

“They are pioneers in their own world,” Rivera said.

She emphasizes that a young person doesn’t need to be proficient in math to become a financial planner. The subject is not her strong suit.

“I suck at math,” Rivera said on the sidelines of the conference. “That’s why there are calculators. The most important skills are high self-awareness and emotional intelligence.”