The Openwork Partnership’s Inspiring Women in Financial Services conference heard that more women are being recruited as financial advisors.
However, it also heard that more needs to be done to recruit women into the industry.
The Openwork Partnership is one of the UK’s largest and longest-established financial advice and investment networks.
According to its research, about 69 percent of financial advice firms expect to grow their businesses over the next 12 months, which the partnership says provides an ideal opportunity to recruit more women.
Openwork Partnership Network Director Claire Limon said: “Female financial advice is thriving in the UK with real evidence that the female financial advice gap is starting to narrow but, in a male-dominated advice industry we must redouble our efforts to attract more women into the industry.
"Our ambition at The Openwork Partnership is to take an industry-leading position to focus on recruitment strategies to better engage with women on opportunities in the financial services sector.
“Our recruitment and training is laser-focused on closing the female financial adviser gap. For example, The Openwork Academy, which provides structured learning and qualification support to achieve a successful career in financial advice, had 32 percent female candidates across its last two intakes.
“The progress made at policy level such as the Treasury’s Women in Finance Charter is very welcome but change needs to accelerate.”
Another speaker was Sarah Hogan, Chartered Financial Planner at KBA Financial, said: “It was a pleasure to meet so many inspiring women at this year’s conference. The future of a vibrant and gender-balanced financial services industry lies in the hands of the growing ranks of female financial advisers and their ambition to achieve the very best outcomes for their clients.
"I was privileged to share some of my experiences in growing a successful business focused on pipeline management skills and building trusted adviser-client relationships across families and generations.”
The conference at The Grand Hotel in Birmingham was the third organised by The Openwork Partnership to focus on women in financial services. It included inspirational speakers such as entrepreneur, money coach and qualified financial planner Catherine Morgan; Paralympian, 7/7 survivor and author Martine Wright MBE and comedian Cally Beaton.
The conference also heard from Sam Tesch, Head of The Openwork Foundation, who focused on the charity’s achievements in donating £21m to benefit 500,000 people since its inauguration in 1981.
The conference featured a series of roundtables focusing on the widest range of opportunities for female advisers including adopting more impactful social media strategies, addressing diversity and inclusion and training and career progression.
The Openwork Partnership has more than 4,300 financial advisers across the UK and operates as a directly authorised, multi-panel distribution network.
Its new website - https://www.theopenworkpartnership.com/ - includes an interactive map enabling more clients to access support from the network.
Your Comments
Be the first to comment on this article
Login or Register to post a comment on this article