Acknowledging how far wealth management has to go before it reflects America’s demographics, a trade group for independent brokerages launched a collaboration with a nonprofit professional development organization for underrepresented young people.
The Financial Services Institute, which counts 90 firms and 30,000 independent financial advisors among its membership, and Inroads, a 51-year-old organization, are teaming up to start paid internships in corporate offices and to to increase the number of women and minority entering the field, the organizations said Feb. 1 at FSI’s annual OneVoice conference. The strategic partnership is separate from Inroads’ existing Financial Services Institute
Inroads’ work with the independent brokerage advocacy group comes after FSI CEO Dale Brown pledged last summer that
Inroads CEO Forest Harper said the internship organization has “a talent pool” of more than 5,000 students of diverse backgrounds who are ready to start this summer “either in the home offices or out in the field with entrepreneurs.” The organization will help introduce the prospective interns and FSI with one another as part of their training and follow up with the aspiring professionals the following summer to build their skills further, Harper said.
“We will entertain any partner that provides an opportunity,” he said. “The last part of the roadmap is hoping [the interns will] get an opportunity to be hired or start their own independent firms.”
More than 30,000 Inroads interns have graduated into full-time positions at American companies over its history, with 76% of alumni becoming homeowners and 40% attaining a net worth of between $500,000 to $5 million,
The program joins others launched recently with an eye toward supporting more aspiring women and minority advisors. More than three dozen interns
With the U.S. population becoming more multiracial, a trend that will continue in coming decades, experts say that — besides being the right thing to do — wealth managers must engage historically excluded bases of clients and potential professionals to expand access and advance equity in order to compete in the future. Steps such as raising the visibility of Black and Latino professionals make a difference in the long run, according to Dana Wilson, CEO of Changing How Individuals Prosper (
“It's about everyone who feels like they haven't necessarily had a voice or been seen in finance. We can't do it by ourselves,” Wilson said in an interview last week. “The industry itself is poised for change as far as being able to break down a lot of those barriers.”
In addition, the industry faces a major transfer of practices in coming years, simply based on the age of advisors. Almost two-thirds of advisors and employees in the FSI and Broadridge survey — 62% — are at least 55 years old, while only 19% are 45 years old or younger, according to Broadridge President Chris Perry. Despite the stark figures about representation, the industry is committed to changing, Perry said.
“Diversity is truly a megatrend of movement, not a moment,” Perry said. “It's not something we're just going to talk about. We really are moving forward and have to, or this industry will be underserved. Democratization of investing is very much about the availability and the next generation of investors being brought into the market in new ways. And we have to be really aware of that.”
In a board meeting prior to a discussion with reporters and in a general session speech after the media panel at the conference, FSI’s CEO asked members to be early adopters of the Inroads program, Brown said. The organization also plans to disclose more demographic data like that found in the Broadridge study, he said.
“Our commitment is to continue to track the baseline data that we now have from the Broadridge survey,” Brown said. “We see no reason to keep that secret from anyone. We've got a lot of work to do and we need to measure.”
