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

News provided by

Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc.

Dec 17, 2014, 11:20 ET

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- 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

Members of the WIN Council are appointed by CFP Board's CEO and will serve an initial term of two years. To ensure diversity of thought, knowledge, and viewpoints, 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.

"CFP Board is deeply committed to changing the financial planning profession for the better by growing the number of women CFP® professionals," said CFP Board's Chief Executive Officer Kevin R. Keller, CAE. "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."

ABOUT CFP BOARD
The mission of Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. is to benefit the public by granting the CFP^® certification and upholding it as the recognized standard of excellence for competent and ethical personal financial planning. The Board of Directors, in furthering CFP Board's mission, acts on behalf of the public, CFP^® professionals and other stakeholders. CFP Board owns the certification marks CFP^®, Certified Financial Planner™, CFP^® (with plaque design) and CFP^® (with flame design) in the U.S., which it awards to individuals who successfully complete CFP Board's initial and ongoing certification requirements. CFP Board currently authorizes nearly 71,000 individuals to use these marks in the U.S.

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SOURCE Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc.