Women advisors aren’t just breaking the glass ceiling, they’re rebalancing it quarterly.

Some 24% of all financial advisors are now women, marking a significant uptick in representation over the past decade in an industry that has long been dominated by navy suits and Patagonia vests. While representation remains heavily uneven, a new report from AdvizrPro suggests there has been significant progress, particularly within team-based firms, larger institutions and firms with formal recruiting or mentorship programs. “It’s critical to support career paths for women, as many female clients prefer to have a female financial advisor,” said Alexandra Rooney, a CFP and advisor at Main Street Research.

Seat at the Table

Not only is increasing gender diversity a win for workplace equity, but it’s also good business. Women live longer than men, and studies have shown that the vast majority will fire their financial advisor after their spouse’s death. By welcoming more female financial advisors, firms can retain assets that would otherwise be lost, Rooney said.

“We need to continue to explain how female advisors can impact the industry and, at their core, help women and families achieve their financial goals,” she said. The research also found:

• Wirehouses led the way, with just over 30% of advisors identifying as female, likely boosted by recruiting programs, formalized onboarding and diversity initiatives.
• IBDs followed closely behind at 28%, possibly benefiting from flexible work models that appeal to advisors at different career and life stages.
• RIAs lagged behind at just 18%, as smaller shops may still be using historical firm ownership patterns and are slower to adopt new recruiting practices.

Still, women are taking on greater leadership roles in the indie channel. The proportion of firms with female ownership is much higher, suggesting that independent firms offer more accessible paths to leadership. Just over 23% of RIA firms have at least one female owner or executive, according to the study.

Progress, Shmogress. Not all advisors agree that making incremental upticks in workplace diversity is enough. “This is not progress,” said Lisa Kirchenbauer at Omega Wealth Management, adding that the industry has maintained numbers close to these for years. “Someone needs to figure out why we are not making more progress.” It’s a major problem, especially since some clients prefer to work with an advisor who has had similar life experiences. “With 51% of the population being women, we need to figure this out,” she said.

A picture is worth 1,000 words. But how much is that in dollars?

While some clients lean toward investment alternatives like private equity, gold or crypto, others are drawn to fine art, a niche market dominated by high-end collectors. Much like sports memorabilia or Pokémon cards, though, it’s a risky asset class that most should approach with caution. Advisors need to support the truly passionate while guiding others toward more suitable options.

“Art is objectively an asset and has value, but we’re not recommending buying a work because we expect it to go up in value,” said Matt Newton, art advisor specialist at UBS.

Art Class

Over the past two decades, innovations like algorithmic appraisals and art-backed loans have added a security-like feel to the asset class. Still, Newton noted, UBS doesn’t view art as an investment per se. “If clients approach buying art as an investment, they’re competing with people who are truly passionate about it,” he said.

That passion comes with plenty of unpredictability. The art market is driven by shifting tastes and popularity. “If you buy 100 artworks today of a range of contemporary artists, in 25 years, probably five to 10 of them will carry the vast majority of the value,” Newton said. Any money put into art should be considered spent, he added.

Blue Period. Despite its risks, high-end art saw a boom in 2022, with sales of pieces worth more than $10 million totalling nearly $4 billion that year, according to ArtTactic data cited by The Wall Street Journal. “A price couldn’t be too high for certain folks, and we saw a lot of new people enter the market,” Newton said. “It was a feeding frenzy.”

But the frenzy didn’t last:

• In 2023, sales of high-end art dropped to $2.2 billion. They fell even further in 2024 to $1.24 billion, the WSJ reported.
• And so far this year, sales have reached just $310 million.

While those figures may have some screaming like an Edvard Munch painting, Newton said it’s not the end of the world. “It’s not necessarily that the value of work has dropped so much, but it’s just that there’s not as much transactions going on, period,” he said. “The buyer appetite is still there.”

Transitions are always hard, and financial advisors don’t get a pass on the pain.

They can lose nearly a quarter of their managed assets when switching firms, a recent Cerulli report showed. Awareness of that risk is evident in the period after they announce their departure, a time one advisor described as a “fire drill” that’s typically crammed with meetings and phone calls as they work to retain as much of their books as possible. “Four years ago, my team worked 12 hours a day, 21 days straight, myself included,” said Monish Verma, who broke away from UBS to start his own firm in 2021. Moves can also be complicated by the logistics of porting client accounts and changing tech stacks.

The numbers in the Cerulli report highlight the importance of careful preparation and communication plans, especially as such transitions increase. “None of these clients are aware that the advisor is going to move until they actually move,” said Thomas New, president of Verdence Capital Advisors. “It’s a bit jarring to a client to pick up the phone and be like, ‘Wait a second, you’re moving?’ You have to be sure that … clients deem you an irreplaceable part of their financial well-being.”

Lost in Transition

Advisor moves encompassing everything from breakaways to succession plans are expected to continue at a breakneck pace, with more than a third of advisors set to retire over the next decade, according to the Cerulli report. Advisors moving between broker-dealers lose roughly 22% of client assets, and a similar study from 2021 showed losses of about a fifth across the industry as a whole. Clients have a variety of reasons for not following advisors, including the desire to avoid having to learn new systems and pressure from the current firm to remain where they are. “Too often, it seems chaotic and disorganized,” New said. “Right out of the gate, if the client feels, ‘Hey, this is a little too much for me to handle,’ they’re likely to stay put.” That effect is particularly pronounced with wirehouses, where institutional norms and trusted brands can help firms retain clients.

The Cerulli report also found that:

• Advisors moving from a broker-dealer to an independent firm lost, on average, about 18% of their assets.
• Advisors moving between independent firms lost only about 11% of their assets.

While many of Verma’s clients were “comfortable” with his move from UBS, some 10% to 15% were more cautious. One didn’t follow Verma because he was upset over not being told in advance, even though compliance rules prevented Verma from doing so.

To Plan or Not to Plan. Two things that can make transitions difficult are a lack of proper planning and a tech stack that is controlled by, or the intellectual property of, the firm, said Neil Albritton, whose family business recently joined the hybrid RIA Integrated Partners. “Obviously transitions can come with a lot of paperwork and a lot of hoops to jump through,” Albritton said. “Whatever the advisor can do to take on more of that role internally … it just makes the transition work so much better.”