Voices

CFP Board launches Women's Initiative Council

Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. (CFB Board) announced in a press release on Wednesday the formation of the Women's Initiative (WIN) Council - a group of experts supporting and advising CFP Board in its efforts to increase the overall number of women entering the financial planning profession, including women CFP® professionals.

WIN's stated mission is:

  • To identify why relatively few women choose to become part of the financial planning profession
  • To make recommendations for encouraging and supporting women to pursue careers in financial planning.
  • To undertake efforts and campaigns to address the gender gap in financial planning.

"The need to attract more women to financial planning and to make this career path more attractive to women presents a huge opportunity – for women and for business," said Nancy Kistner, chair of the WIN Council and chair emerita of CFP Board's Board of Directors, in a statement. "The creation of this WIN Council is CFP Board's next step in its mission to make more room for women in financial planning, including within the CFP® professional community."
Earlier in 2014, CFP Board released a white paper examining the perceptions of key groups with a stake in the gender composition in the financial planning profession in order to understand the "feminine famine" in the profession. Additionally, the white paper included recommendations from the WIN Advisory Panel – a group of leaders in the area of women in financial services – for attracting more women to the financial planning profession and making CFP® certification more appealing.

"CFP Board is deeply committed to changing the financial planning profession for the better by growing the number of women CFP® professionals," stated CFP Board's CEO Kevin R. Keller. "Through the insights and good counsel of our WIN Council members, we hope to serve as a leader and catalyst to engage firms, educators, and organizations to empower, encourage, and support women pursuing careers in financial planning."

CFP Board will rely on WIN Council members – with several members previously serving on the earlier WIN Advisory Panel – to serve as advisors, sharing insights and guidance on initiatives designed to draw in more women CFP® professionals.

Members of the inaugural WIN Council include:

  • Nancy Kistner, CFP®, wealth planning solutions market director, U.S. Trust, Bank of America,  Private Wealth Management
  • Lazetta Rainey Braxton, CFP®, founder & CEO, Financial Fountains
  • Mindy Diamond, founder & president, Diamond Consultants
  • Mary Beth Franklin, contributing editor, Investment News
  • Bob Glovsky, CFP®, vice chair & senior financial counselor, The Colony Group
  • Kate Healy, managing director, Institutional Marketing, TD Ameritrade Institutional
  • Kate Holmes, CFP®, founder and CEO, Belmore Financial
  • Dr. Ruth Lytton, director, financial planning program, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)
  • Elda Macias, vice president, Retirement & Segment Marketing, Ameriprise Financial
  • Kathleen McQuiggan, senior vice president, Pax World Management
  • Elissa Ellis Sangster, executive director, Forté Foundation
  • Karen Schaeffer, CFP®, managing member, Schaeffer Financial
  • Anne Weisberg, senior vice president, Families and Work Institute

Members of the WIN Council are selected by CFP Board's CEO and will serve an initial term of two years. To ensure diversity of ideas, CFP Board developed a number of selection criteria including expertise and/or leadership in the areas of women's issues, diversity, and recruitment; expertise in the area of financial planning; and involvement in a firm's diversity or women's initiatives.  Members also come from leading financial planning and financial advisory firms and CFP Board-registered education programs. 
For more information on CFP Board and the WIN Council, head to their site here.

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Audit Financial reporting
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