CFP Board Launches Women’s Initiative Council

Experts in financial planning, women’s issues, and diversity tapped to advise CFP Board in efforts to increase number of women CFP® professionals

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

“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, CFP®, chair of the WIN Council and chair emerita of CFP Board’s Board of Directors. “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.”

WIN’s mission is three-fold: 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; and to undertake efforts and campaigns to address the gender gap in financial planning.

Earlier this year, CFP Board released a white paper with its groundbreaking qualitative and quantitative research, which examined the attitudes and perceptions of key groups with a stake in the gender composition of the financial planning profession to get to the root of the “feminine famine” in the profession. The white paper also 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 for making the financial planning profession and CFP® certification more appealing to women. 

The formation of the WIN Council was among CFP Board’s commitments to begin implementation of those recommendations. CFP Board will rely on WIN Council members – several of whom were members of the earlier WIN Advisory Panel – to serve as advisors, sharing their insights and providing guidance on the development of initiatives designed to increase the number of 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, LLC
• 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, LLC
• 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 LLC
• Anne Weisberg, Senior Vice President, Families and Work Institute