Altfest News
Behind the Business Case for More Female Advisors
Article
As women amass more wealth, there’s a market for female financial advisors. Now it’s a matter of meeting the demand.
By Gregg Greenberg | InvestmentNews
From head count to AUM and board members, there are a multitude of ways to measure the progress of women in the wealth management business.
Karen Altfest, executive vice president of Altfest Personal Wealth Management, has her own proprietary method for calculating female advancement in the financial advisory industry.
She counts lunches.
“There are many more women at financial planning and investment conferences now than there were when I started in the business, when I would typically count one woman and nine men at almost every lunch table. Now women hold steady at about a third of conference attendees,” Altfest said.
Founded in 1983, Altfest Personal Wealth Management has a 45-member staff, 19 of whom are women, overseeing assets under management of $1.6 billion. Among those employees is financial planner Jessica Nelson, who believes that the need for more women in the wealth management industry will continue to increase as women amass greater wealth.
“I find that many female clients are looking to work with women advisors,” Nelson said.
The numbers back up her observation. With a McKinsey study projecting that women will control $30 trillion in assets by the end of the decade, up from approximately $11 trillion today, there’s an urgent case for recruiting more women into the wealth management business.
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Karen C. Altfest, CFP, Ph.D
Karen helps many of the firm’s clients on a variety of investment and financial planning issues, and specializes in helping women clients and widows. Karen’s Financially Savvy Woman® programs, including the Women’s Financial $pa®, are popular with clients. Her focus is to educate and empower women.
Karen is frequently a speaker on the subject of women and money, and conducts educational seminars for recent widows and people looking to retire. Karen is a graduate of McGill University in Montreal, holds BA and MA degrees from Hunter College, and holds the CFP® designation. Karen received her Ph.D. in history from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY).
She was the Co-Director of the Financial Planning and Investments Program at The New School in New York City and the Coordinator of the Financial Planning program, a professional program for financial planners, which she originated at Pace University in White Plains, N.Y.
Jessica Nelson, CPA, CFP
Prior to joining Altfest as a financial advisor, Jessica was a senior tax accountant within the financial services high net worth individual tax practice at Deloitte and Ernst and Young. Before that, Jessica was an independent auditor at Ernst and Young within the Banking and Capital Markets sector.
Jessica earned a MS in Financial Management and a BBA in Public Accounting from Pace University. Additionally, she is a CPA licensed in the State of New York and a CFP® professional.