CFP Board Center for Financial Planning Addresses the Gender Gap in Financial Planning with New Mentorship Program

The Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards, Inc. (CFP Board) Center for Financial Planning today announced a new mentorship program, known as WIN-to-WIN, that aims to address the lack of women in the financial planning profession by pairing women seeking CFP® certification with CFP® professionals who will help them through the certification process.

“The fact remains that only 23 percent of CFP® professionals are women. The financial planning profession needs to reflect the population it serves,” said Marilyn Mohrman-Gillis, Executive Director of the Center for Financial Planning. “Through WIN-to-WIN, the CFP Board Center for Financial Planning is among those leading the way in breaking down a key barrier to women entering the profession: lack of mentorship. Women seeking CFP® certification will benefit from being paired with CFP® professionals – women or men – who have been through the certification process and can offer encouragement, advice and wisdom.”

Women interested in being mentored by a CFP® professional can visit cfp.net/WINMentor. The webpage includes a search tool where women can find and request a mentor based on geographic location, years as a CFP® professional, language and business model.  CFP® professionals interested in participating in the program as mentors can sign up on the same webpage. In addition, CFP Board recently held a webinar for CFP® professionals interested in learning more about how they can participate in WIN-to-WIN as mentors. The archived version can be viewed here.

The CFP® certification process, administered by CFP Board, includes four key requirements, known as the four “Es”: Education, Examination, Experience and Ethics. Recent research indicates that those pursuing CFP® certification are much more likely to continue through the process if they have friends or colleagues who had previously taken CFP® certification coursework, or if they had a CFP® professional mentor.

In 2014 CFP Board and its Women’s Initiative (WIN) published a white paper that presents findings of a comprehensive research study on the causes of the “feminine famine” in financial planning, as well as recommendations to increase the number of women CFP® professionals. Providing more mentoring programs for women was among the recommendations. 

“Women have so much to offer the financial planning profession, and our research shows that career satisfaction among women with CFP® certification is significantly higher than female financial planners overall – but we need to ensure we are helping more women get there,” said CFP Board Consumer Advocate Eleanor Blayney, CFP®, the white paper’s primary author. “We are grateful for the “The fact remains that only 23 percent of CFP® professionals are women. The financial planning profession needs to reflect the population it serves,” said Marilyn Mohrman-Gillis, Executive Director of the Center for Financial Planning. “Through WIN-to-WIN, the CFP Board Center for Financial Planning is among those leading the way in breaking down a key barrier to women entering the profession: lack of mentorship. Women seeking CFP® certification will benefit from being paired with CFP® professionals – women or men – who have been through the certification process and can offer encouragement, advice and wisdom.”

Women interested in being mentored by a CFP® professional can visit cfp.net/WINMentor. The webpage includes a search tool where women can find and request a mentor based on geographic location, years as a CFP® professional, language and business model.  CFP® professionals interested in participating in the program as mentors can sign up on the same webpage. In addition, CFP Board recently held a webinar for CFP® professionals interested in learning more about how they can participate in WIN-to-WIN as mentors. The archived version can be viewed here.

The CFP® certification process, administered by CFP Board, includes four key requirements, known as the four “Es”: Education, Examination, Experience and Ethics. Recent research indicates that those pursuing CFP® certification are much more likely to continue through the process if they have friends or colleagues who had previously taken CFP® certification coursework, or if they had a CFP® professional mentor.

In 2014 CFP Board and its Women’s Initiative (WIN) published a white paper that presents findings of a comprehensive research study on the causes of the “feminine famine” in financial planning, as well as recommendations to increase the number of women CFP® professionals. Providing more mentoring programs for women was among the recommendations. 

“Women have so much to offer the financial planning profession, and our research shows that career satisfaction among women with CFP® certification is significantly higher than female financial planners overall – but we need to ensure we are helping more women get there,” said CFP Board Consumer Advocate Eleanor Blayney, CFP®, the white paper’s primary author. “We are grateful for the WIN Advocates who have already committed to participating in WIN-to-WIN to help women meet that challenge."