It\u2019s a woman\u2019s world. Or at least it will be once trillions of dollars change hands over the next two decades amid what\u2019s been dubbed the \u201cgreat wealth transfer.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve likely heard about this historic passing of $124 trillion through 2048, with roughly $106 trillion bequeathed from mainly baby boomers to Gen X, millennials and Gen Z (and the rest headed to charities). But the new normal Wall Street needs to prepare for is one in which women control more money than they ever have before: $47 trillion of the $124 trillion is projected to be inherited by young women, according to Cerulli Associates<\/a>. Meanwhile, more than 95% of the $54 trillion headed to the pockets of surviving spouses is expected to go to women.\u00a0<\/p>\n Experts say that the shift requires the financial advisory industry to examine its ability \u2014\u00a0or lack thereof \u2014 to accommodate the goals, lifestyles and preferences of women holding the purse strings.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a reason that women are investing less. There\u2019s a reason that we\u2019re not engaging with our advisors in the same way. There\u2019s a reason that the majority of women who make over $250,000 a year don\u2019t feel secure with their money,\u201d says Emily Green, head of wealth management at Ellevest, a financial advisory firm tailored to women. \u201cThe only answer to that is that the financial industry is not serving them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But that\u2019s changing.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018Influx of Opportunities\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite women controlling roughly a third of retail financial assets in the US and Europe, a number expected to grow to 40-45% by 2030, affluent women are much less likely to work with a professional advisor than their male counterparts, according to McKinsey<\/a>. That\u2019s because while firms will often talk the talk (launch campaigns or events targeting female clients), they haven\u2019t been willing to walk the walk (actually change their offerings or how they work with clients). Now, they\u2019re learning that they have to.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s no secret that Wall Street is male-dominated and always has been, and the same goes for the people behind the scenes helping investors manage their money. Of the roughly 106,000 certified financial planners<\/a> (CFPs) working today, 76.2% are male.\u00a0<\/p>\n Attracting more women clients requires advisory firms to reconsider whether their workforce reflects the demographic that they\u2019re looking to serve, says Alex Roca, host of Fidelity Investments\u2019 Women Talk Money community and a former financial consultant at Fidelity.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNot only are we going to see an influx of opportunities because women are inheriting money,\u201d she adds, \u201cbut also because there are going to be more opportunities in the workforce to reflect that transfer of wealth.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Ditch the Pink\u00a0<\/p>\n Advisors attempting to attract more women is by no means a new phenomenon, which just goes to show how ineffective some approaches have been.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a mismatch between what half the population is asking for and what tens of thousands of companies are delivering on the other side,\u201d Green says. \u201cAt first, people were thinking if we talk about work-life balance or make things pink, it\u2019ll work. It\u2019s a lot more than that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Sallie Krawcheck co-founded Ellevest 11 years ago to bridge the gender gap, which required formulating investment strategies that prioritize what women actually care about, such as a values-aligned approach. (S&P found<\/a> that women generally prioritize a company\u2019s stance on environmental and social issues more highly than men when making investment decisions.)\u00a0<\/p>\n And Green says that while financial planning has often been framed as squeezing the last dollar out of every decision so that you die with the most money possible, many women are simply trying to live the most fruitful life possible. That\u2019s why Ellevest emphasizes what Green calls \u201cvalues mapping\u201d \u2014 aligning investing decisions with goals, such as early retirement or even moving to a higher-tax state if it will make them happy. Advisors also need to account for the fact that women tend to live longer than men, which could mean paying more for long-term care or health care later in life.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ellevest regularly collects data on what women are currently concerned about, and over the past two years, Green says interest in managing the finances of widowhood, inheritance and divorce has risen as the wealth transfer gets underway.\u00a0<\/p>\n Listen and Learn\u00a0<\/p>\n When financial planner Carla Adams opened her firm, Ametrine Wealth, in 2023, she received a note from a former client asking if she could return to working with Adams. The client\u2019s new male advisor, whom she began working with after a move, \u201cdidn\u2019t listen to her.\u201d Adams, who\u2019s based in Lake Orion, Michigan, and designed her firm to better serve women, said it\u2019s not uncommon for women to feel unheard when seeking financial advice.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThey don\u2019t want to be talked down to, rushed through decisions or have assumptions made about what they do or don\u2019t know,\u201d Adams says.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n