International Women’s Day: Celebrating Women in Financial Services

Leah Alter [00:00:00]:
It's always fun on March 8th to open up your phone and and go on to Facebook or LinkedIn or Instagram and and see people shouting out all the amazing women in their life. I really look forward to that and being inspired by others. And like you said, having the opportunity to shout out the women in my life who have inspired me.

Joanna Ehresman [00:00:31]:
Hello. Thanks for joining us. I'm Joanna Ehresman. And I'm Leah Alter. And this is WomenShare, a marketing guide for women in financial services.

Leah Alter [00:00:40]:
We're super excited for today's episode as we are discussing International Women's Day coming up on March 8th and talking about what it means to us here on WomenShare

Joanna Ehresman [00:00:53]:
collectively and also individually. As per our typical approach, we're also about making this real and practical. So rather than just talking about International Women's Day and and what it means, we also wanna share some resources and some, things that we found valuable that we think our listeners in the financial services industry will find valuable as well. So with that, Leah, will you just do some table setting and tell us a little bit about what is International Women's Day, and then we can kinda progress from there.

Leah Alter [00:01:26]:
Yeah. So International Wednesday is March 8th every year, and it's a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The day also marks a call to action for accelerating women's equality. International Women's Day has occurred for well over a century, which was news to me, with the 1st International Women's Day gathering happening in 1911, and it was supported by over a 1000000 people. Super cool. Today, International Women's Day belongs to all groups collectively everywhere. It's not a country, a group, or organization specific. But I'm curious, Joanna, what is International Women's Day mean to you?

Joanna Ehresman [00:02:14]:
Yeah. You it's funny that you mentioned it's been around since 1911 because that too I think I probably became a that was surprising me. I became aware of International Women's Day, I feel like, within the last 5 to 7 years. I remember specifically in my time on the corporate side, we would have content campaigns related to International Women's Day and, actually, all throughout the month of March. So I think that's really something interesting and potentially, like, applicable for our adviser firms that are listening or financial advisers who have their own practices. Right? It's like the month of March, can be a great time to highlight not just women and the services you provide, but also the women leaders in your organization and what you're doing to really support the cause. More personally, though, what does International Women's Day mean to me? I think in more recent years, again, since it's been a handful of years that I've been really reflecting on this, I just take the time to reach out to, quite frankly, the admirable women in my life of which there are many, to just thank them and, you know, represent them. So that's what I just think it's a great day to pause and reflect and think of how far we've come and, yes, how far there still is to go on many fronts for women, but that's what it means to me.

Joanna Ehresman [00:03:29]:
What about you?

Leah Alter [00:03:31]:
Yeah. I mean, I think too, like, social media has been a big part of International Women's Day being in the forefront, And it's always fun on March 8th to open up your phone and and go on to Facebook or LinkedIn or Instagram and and see people shouting out all the amazing women in their life. I really look forward to that and being inspired by others. And like you said, having the opportunity to shout out the women in my life who have inspired me and, you know, social media gets a lot of flack. But I would say that this is one area where it's definitely, been a positive, brought it to the forefront. But International Women's Day, to me, it's about the recognition of the contributions of women in both, like, the everyday, right, the people we interact with everyday, and then also the extraordinary and the women who are having a global effect that are really helping the collective. You know, when you look at that global impact, you see, women like Ursula von der Leyen, the first woman that's been to the European Commission president, the prime minister of Italy. I'm gonna mess up everyone's name.

Leah Alter [00:04:47]:
Georgia Maloney, to, you know, music phenoms like Taylor Swift and Beyonce who are just dominating the music industry. And these have all just been historically male dominated areas, and it's just really amazing to look at it on a global view and see the impact. And then, like, within our industry. Right? So there are really a lot of women that are sitting in these influential seats. Right? As CEOs and presidents at large financial institutions, women like Abby Johnson at Fidelity, Mary Callahan, Erdos at JPMorgan, Jacinda Brown Duckett over at TIAA. Just to name a few. It's you know, are the advisers that we've had on this show. Like, there are a lot of women that are having an increased influence.

Leah Alter [00:05:48]:
Right? So we learned in the Carson Group when we had, them on to talk about the study that maybe we aren't seeing the numbers move drastically in terms of how many women are in our industry, but maybe the influence is growing, and that's something we can celebrate.

Joanna Ehresman [00:06:07]:
Yeah. Well and it's funny that you say that with the influence. And I don't know if it's simply because we launched the podcast, and, you know, it's something that's been a personal passion of mine, and I know yours as well. But I do feel like there's more momentum and industry like, there's more events about this, which we'll get into a little bit later in the show. There's more conversations and just bringing this to the forefront. I think you you've said this in a couple of recent episodes. Like, the way we make progress is bringing these issues to light. And so it is true, the influence.

Joanna Ehresman [00:06:38]:
While the concrete numbers may not be where they are, we are seeing women in more influential roles, which is exciting. It will be great when we get to a day where, you know, you can't count the number of female CEOs on 1 or 2 2 hands or people who have been moved into that role. One other comment. Sorry. Back to the just areas of of progress even outside of the financial services industry. The city of Saint Paul, Minnesota. I don't know. This kinda blew up on social.

Joanna Ehresman [00:07:04]:
I think it was in January. It they have an all female city council for the first time in their history.

Leah Alter [00:07:10]:
Yeah. I love that.

Joanna Ehresman [00:07:11]:
Yeah. It's great, and it reflects, you know, even just, like, the ethnic diversity of the city of Saint Paul. It was it's really powerful to see some of the videos related to that. So I would encourage anyone who's listening to go check that out as well. So every year on March 8th, International Women's Day has a theme. And this year in 2024, the theme is inspire inclusion, which, you know, the goal is this will help to catalyze people to act in big or small ways to be more inclusive. So tell me a little bit about or what thoughts do you have, Leah, on, like, what inclusion and, like, what came to mind of ways you could be more inclusive or youth you think of organizations? I'm not saying you're not inclusive. Well, the you, the general you.

Joanna Ehresman [00:08:00]:
Yeah.

Leah Alter [00:08:01]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Joanna Ehresman [00:08:02]:
Yeah. Could take action based on that theme.

Leah Alter [00:08:04]:
Yeah. I mean, it was, it was fun to, like, poke around a little bit on the International Women's Day website. I highly recommend, those of you who are interested in learning more and about this Inspire Inclusion theme to go check that out. A few things stuck out to me, particularly for our industry from some of the the ways that they had suggested on the website, which were, forging women's economic empowerment. And we've heard that a ton on the show from our the women advisers who've been on the show who work with women clients, and that the big theme for them is empowering their clients with money, and what that brings for them in their lives. Recruiting, retaining, and developing women talent, I think that is such a big area. Also something that we talked about with Julie when we when we had her on from Carson Group about how important it is to develop talent, and create opportunities for women that are already in your organization. Supporting women and girls into leadership, decision making, business, and STEM.

Leah Alter [00:09:26]:
I love that. And then providing women and girls with access to quality education and training. So, you know, I mean, we've all heard the anecdotes about, you know, math and sciences and things like that and and just creating educational systems that give the same opportunities to everybody. So those are the ones that stuck out to me. I mean, there's just so much buzz right now in our industry about NextGen, right, when it comes to advisers and this big problem of older advisers wanting to retire and get out of the business, but there's just not enough younger advisers to come in and take their place. And that conversation, I just think, really has to include women. Yeah. And that is gonna be a big shift, right, that we're talking about moving in this direction for women are in our industry.

Leah Alter [00:10:29]:
We have a really cool feature episode coming as we have a guest who is very passionate about this, and she has a really cool strategy about the next gen, and how to inspire them to to come to this industry with us.

Joanna Ehresman [00:10:47]:
Well and even along those lines, what it's making me think of of bringing together both inspiring women to join the industry and that pipeline concern for financial advisers of who are who's the next generation of advisers, and are we going to have enough of them even though we are supplementing with technology. Right? And the way an adviser works will be markedly more efficient moving forward. But, it made me think of Lena Nebel of BFG Financial Advisors. She was our guest, I think, on episode 5. And her passion and kind of her her not strategy. She's not being, like, strategic of this is exactly how I'm solving a business problem, but it just happens to align with this pipeline concern is she's actually taking her story and her education into local school classrooms, which I think is a double win triple win, win for her giving back, and seeing that impact. But then, also, as she's sharing, whether she's, you know, giving a talk about her career or a financial planning topic in general, like, to help with financial literacy, she's inspiring so many to think about financial services as a career, which, again, we've talked about several times. Like, in the nineties, I was not thinking about financial services as my future.

Joanna Ehresman [00:12:02]:
But then also, as a woman going into the classrooms, that's naturally going to inspire younger girls, right, to think about, wow. That could be me. Right? When you when you see someone who looks like you doing the thing, that's where it's inspiring. So and I've actually, through my own, personal volunteering, done something similar of going into classrooms and being a classroom speaker about about financial literacy topics or career topics, and it's been just great to see kids make that connection. And, yes, you can do this via Zoom and that sort of thing, but being in person and really that visible experiential kind of volunteer opportunity is so gratifying, and it makes, makes such a difference.

Leah Alter [00:12:45]:
I love that you both do that. And, you know, speaking of women who have moved into president roles, a big shout out to Lena for her recent promotion, over at BFG. It's awesome and well deserved. I love to see it. Yeah. So let's drill down a little further as we, have gathered some specific ways that our listeners can inspire inclusion in 2024. Well, I think one of the kinda simplest ways is, you know, leading up to March 8th, International Women's Day. And on that day, go

Joanna Ehresman [00:13:20]:
to the website, like Leah said, international women's day .com. Very intuitive web domain. Right? And they have a ton of free content and resources, and you can actually it's really cool how they're they have a very inclusive site because they allow people to share their resources that they've created. Right? So it's kinda like crowdsourcing a lot of content. But it's a great way that you can, you know, find visual assets for social media. If you wanna post some, like, quote cards or they have these pledge cards, it's one that that I I found particularly interesting where it's basically making a public commitment by posting, like, I pledge to be more inclusive in x y z way, that sort of thing. So but, additionally, say you're having meetings in March leading up to International Women's Day and you wanna raise awareness, they've got virtual web backgrounds. Email signature banners.

Joanna Ehresman [00:14:09]:
So just a ton of great resources. I would really encourage every listener to go check them out and think about what is right for you, in kinda generating awareness for for this cause.

Leah Alter [00:14:21]:
Yeah. And if your organization isn't doing as much as you'd love them to do, bring you know, rather than being upset about it or complaining about it, bring those resources to the appropriate person and

Joanna Ehresman [00:14:37]:
Yeah.

Leah Alter [00:14:37]:
Take a leadership role. I think that that will inspire those around you as well. Mhmm. And you're gonna see a lot on our LinkedIn, the women share LinkedIn feed. We're gonna try to share as much of these resources that we can. You'll see it in the show notes here, and there'll be links to everything that we share. And I would just recommend another action is to think about mentoring and what we've learned right now the difference between mentoring and sponsoring, and if you have an opportunity to sponsor a woman in the industry. Mhmm.

Leah Alter [00:15:16]:
If there is a way to if you've got an outstanding woman on your team or within your organization, think about taking them under your wing. Think about how you can help them achieve their goals. And if you're just starting out in your career, be proactive about going and trying to find a mentor and find a sponsor. Figure out what you need to do, to get those people, you know, in your in your sphere so that you can achieve your goals. It's definitely a two way street. If you've not heard the episode with Julie Raggett from Carson Group, go back and listen to that episode. There's a lot of really actionable steps, both as a mentor and a mentee. Mhmm.

Joanna Ehresman [00:16:08]:
And and specific language of how to have those conversations. Right? Where to talk about if you're approaching, say, a senior leader in your organization looking for that sponsorship, how to make it really easy for them to give you feedback about why it would work or would not work for them to give you to sponsor you. Right? And and that feedback is a gift. So I think that's a really important one, and that obviously would extend beyond International Women's Day itself. It's not like that's just March 8th, but but this could even be the spring bright springboard. Right? Having these conversations about women and inclusion and that sort of thing is a great time to open up those conversations. Now along the lines of the theme of, you know, inspiring inclusion too, we've had a chance to reflect on our our podcast from the get go has always meant to be an inclusive space. I know those are values both you and I hold personally.

Joanna Ehresman [00:17:02]:
Right? And bring that to the show. So let's talk about so how do you think how's women share doing in terms of inspiring inclusion in your opinion, Leah?

Leah Alter [00:17:12]:
It was funny. When Joanna and I were prepping for the show, I said, I think I I think I wanna call us out a little bit, which is something I that that's part of this process and we all need to do along the way. And, you know, when you look across our industry in financial services and you'd look at the women in our industry, they are majority dominated by white women, us both being white women as well. And even though we're a new show, so far, all of our guests have also been white women. Pretty

Joanna Ehresman [00:17:56]:
healthy. Yeah. Yeah.

Leah Alter [00:17:58]:
That is a way that we can inspire inclusion, and that is something that we are really focused on in 2024 and beyond. We wanna get more guests on the show that have a broader perspective of women of color and backgrounds, that have not been represented. So I think we're you know, the show itself is based on us wanting to have these conversations, but we can do better, and we should do better. And if you are a woman of color and you're listening to the show and you're in our industry, we'd love to have you on. And that, I think, is something we hope that you all hold us accountable for.

Joanna Ehresman [00:18:48]:
That's well said, and we've had the commitment to be vulnerable and share those sorts of, you know, the, like, the good, the bad, and the hard, throughout the show about our own consulting careers, being honest about about where we're at, and I agree that is an area that, I think we can we can make strides and really are are committed to doing so without also, by the way, being we're checking the box. Look at you know, we like, it's because there's actual like, there are perspectives that we are missing around some of the complexities of, you know, the intersection of racial and gender diversity or whatever, you know, ability, physical ability. There's a a number of ways, obviously, that diversity can be represented. So I I'm looking forward to bringing more of those stories to to the show.

Leah Alter [00:19:40]:
Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And, yeah, to your point, we are committed to the advancement of all women, and that really means all women. Mhmm. And, we're gonna continue to to to work on that and not just talk about it, but, you know, walk the walk. Mhmm. That's important to to both of us.

Leah Alter [00:20:05]:
Mhmm.

Joanna Ehresman [00:20:07]:
As we look at, you know, the industry in general, let's talk about some of the favorite resources or specifically, I guess, in the in the wealth management space, the financial services space. What resources do we see? Like, what do you what do you find the most interesting or feel like, hey. Let's bring awareness to these things for our listeners.

Leah Alter [00:20:27]:
Yeah. Well, it's been cool. Like, I think in the last few years, there's been a lot more focus on creating spaces and conferences and meetings and study groups and things like that for women in the industry, to create some of this these spaces where you can, speak a little more freely and have those kind of discussions and support each other. So I know FA financial advisor does a women's conference that's coming up, this month, actually, or March 12 through 14th. We heard all about Carson Groups, Excel Represent Conference. I think those dates are still to be determined, but, definitely check out Carson's website about that. Mhmm. We'll have more information coming on the podcast about that, for sure.

Leah Alter [00:21:23]:
And then Forbes does the SHOOK Top Women Advisor Summit in May. That looks really interesting for, a a broad spectrum of women, advisers to get together and share best things like that. And then in my research, I came across, a really cool conference series series called the KAYO. I think I'm saying that right. It's k a y o conference series. Their website, koconferenceeries.com, it's just chock full of awesome information and a whole variety of different conferences that get pretty specific. So if you're in the m and a space, they have specific, conferences and meetings around that, advisers, etcetera. So you can kind of, like, even hone in further more than, like, financial services and really connect with other women that are working in your space, and I thought that was really cool.

Leah Alter [00:22:23]:
What about you? What's some of your favorite resources?

Joanna Ehresman [00:22:26]:
Yeah. Well, I think aside from, you know, the organizations that are hosting those sorts of events and there probably are events associated with a couple of other organizations, but I know

Leah Alter [00:22:36]:
Oh, for sure.

Joanna Ehresman [00:22:36]:
The the CFP board, really, this is like, diversity is one of their primary initiatives, and so their content is just always really interesting. And, again, they provide resources back to, you know, attracting more, not youth, into the industry, making making them aware of the industry and specifically girls, they actually have some really great resources. Like, if you were an adviser who says, okay. That's it. I want to go speak in classrooms, check out the CFP board's website under their diversity initiative, and they actually have outreach templates, how to talk to schools, what, you know, articles that you could probably translate into presentations, that sort of thing. So just chock full of, like, real, actionable resources you could use to to help be part of this this, initiative. And then also the American College of Financial Services, they I've I follow them on social and, you know, get their newsletter and that sort of thing. It's a lot of just really interesting content led by interesting women too.

Joanna Ehresman [00:23:38]:
They have a center for women in financial services, so it's another one to to pay attention to, I think, because it's just again, there's more more people more people doing great work, and we are happy to have our little share in that here on women share. So I'm doing great.

Leah Alter [00:23:57]:
And if there's any organizations that you all, as listeners, are aware of that are doing some great things out there that you think, we should know about and our audience and listeners should know about, please share those with us. Share them on social. Contest us through the website. We are happy to pass those along, share them. We have an email newsletter that goes out every week. We can include them there. So, don't be shy. If we didn't name something and you know something great is happening, share it with us.

Leah Alter [00:24:30]:
That's what we're all about, women sharing.

Joanna Ehresman [00:24:32]:
Share it, woman.

Leah Alter [00:24:35]:
Well, that's really our show for today. Happy International Women's Day to all of you and to you, Joanna. Thank you for showing up and being part of this community that we love so so much. We appreciate you all. And if ours is a mission that you wanna share in, join that email list right from the homepage of our website. With that, I'm Leah Alter.

Joanna Ehresman [00:24:58]:
And I'm Joanna Ehresman. And we'll catch you on the next episode of WomenShare.