This International Women’s Day Special brings together four leaders shaping the future of women’s wealth: Rachael Smith (Evelyn Partners), Rebecca Williams (Rathbones), Alice Wright (Canaccord), and Katia Sand (SBR Consulting). Across this powerful conversation, the panel unpacks the seismic shift placing 60% of UK wealth in women’s hands, the confidence myths holding the industry back, the realities of client experience for women, and the responsibility wealth firms now carry to create journeys that feel personalised, empathetic, and genuinely equitable. They explore defining data points (including BNY Mellon’s $3.2T market opportunity), the behaviour shifts needed from advisers, the generational differences affecting women’s financial experiences, and the leadership gap still evident across wealth management. This is an honest, energizing and deeply human conversation, recorded especially for release on International Women’s Day.

Hello and welcome to the Growth Workshop Podcast.

In this podcast, we'll be sharing insights and hearing from other industry leaders

to get their thoughts and perspectives on what growth looks like in modern business.

Good afternoon everyone, and thank you so much for joining us

to the Women in Wealth discussion.

We've got a fantastic set of panelists.

Looking forward to hearing some of their insights on a really fantastic

topic around women in wealth, and why is that important to talk about today?

We think about that particular topic about women and the generational gap

that's currently within wealth management, we're gonna have some really unvarnished

insights from these great panelists from organizations such as Evelyn Partners

from Rathbones, from Canaccord, and from our very own Katia Sand, SBR Consulting.

And Katia obviously you're joining, the three ladies here so from your

perspective, I believe you've obviously done some lunch and learns with the

Rathbones team, you've got some coming up with the Canaccord team as well.

And importantly you've helped Rachael and her team on some of the key aspects.

So you are well positioned to share some insights from also outside category and

thinking all about women and wealth.

In a moment, I'm gonna introduce our panelists, but just before that,

we're gonna set the scene a little bit regarding the discussion that we're

gonna be having over the next 30 minutes.

Women in wealth is a really important topic for organizations

within the UK and across the world.

It's no longer a niche or a tick box exercise.

I think the important part to reference is this actually enables great true

growth opportunities for organizations within wealth management, but also we are

really at the front end of this to support women in advice and wealth as itself.

Now, just to give you a little bit of background about

myself, my name's Jonny Adams.

I've worked within Wealth Management for the last 10 years, supporting commercial

organizations within the UK and the US.

And I was looking back at the history that I've had within wealth management.

I think someone asked me a question, how many women have you

worked within wealth management?

And I thought about that and I'm thinking about the panelists that are sitting

here today are the individuals that I typically talk to the most across other

organizations where I've worked with organizations for the past seven years.

Some of the executives I work with are all women.

And then I look back to the client facing team and I also think about,

what are those individuals like?

Are they typically more male oriented versus women oriented.

So I think about the opportunity that I've had to work within wealth management,

and that's why I'm so excited to talk to the individuals on the panel today.

Now I'm gonna do very high level introductions and the

rationale while we've got these great guest speakers joining us.

We've got Rachael Smith, Head of Growth.

The interesting part about Rachael is she gives a great outside in

thinking, and what do I mean by that?

For the last 18 months, she supported Evelyn Partners as Head of Growth.

Now she has worked in other organizations such as EasyJet

supporting their growth agenda as well.

Now, the great thing about Rachael is she's perfectly positioned to talk

about, or how do organizations in wealth management capitalize on women in wealth?

Secondly, we've got Rebecca Williams, who's a divisional lead at Rathbones.

She's got extensive insights and a career within wealth management and

can give us a great insight from a leadership perspective on the topic

of Women of Wealth, and of course we've got Alice Wright from Canaccord.

Now, the really important part about that, she's got over a decade worth

of experience not only working at Canaccord, but also at Investec.

The important part and the insights that she'll be sharing today is all about

that client facing role and how she's winning women's wealth in her day-to-day.

Now what we're gonna do at this moment is we're gonna hear about one quick response

from each of the panelists all about, what does this topic mean to you personally,

and how does it connect to you and your sense of purpose in wealth management?

So I'm gonna come to you to start off with Rachael, and I'm gonna hear a little

bit about, what does women and wealth mean to you and the purpose it has.

It's a great question because I think the question of purpose

is actually just really important to me.

I'm a very purpose driven person.

I'm quite intentional, about the things that I go into and that I'm passionate

about, and I spend my, time, investing in.

That's quite a nice pun, isn't it, for wealth management.

So I'm quite purpose driven anyway, but justice and fairness have always

been really central to my core values.

And as you said earlier, I have worked in lots of different industries

and wherever I see unfairness or a need to close a gap or there's

inequalities, I find it, I can't just sit and not do something about it.

So I think it's been a pretty constant thing for me in my career

rooting out something that's not fair and trying to make it fairer.

So when I think about women's wealth, am I passionate about women's wealth?

Probably not particularly as I've understood that there is

a female wealth advice gap.

It's closing that gap.

It's where there's an unfairness that women have less access to financial

advice, they don't know where to turn to.

Statistically, they're less likely to invest their money than men and

those outcomes and that injustice is, the thing that I guess I

personally connect with on this topic.

Brilliant, thank you Rachael and Rebecca over to you.

What's your purpose around this topic?

Yeah, so, a little bit different to Rachael.

I think mine's more organic.

It's grown as I've gone through my career and, as I've become a leader, I've started

to see it in a slightly different light.

So probably in the last kind of five-ish years probably.

I've always come at the industry from a real people perspective because

I believe that you can have all the technical skills that you like, but

if you can't connect with a client or build that trusted relationship, then

you can sit there and spell all kinds of stuff from a technical

book, but it, really won't help you.

And so I think that for me it's about having the team or building a team

as a leader that has that emotional intelligence to be able to connect with

clients, to, just to be able to listen to, to be able to adapt their style,

to think about the individual in front of them, whether that's a woman or

any client really, it, doesn't matter

but it's, about, not treating the client as a kind of homogenous group

and being able to adapt your style.

So I think that's, why this is really important to me and becoming more

so as I get through leadership, I've got that platform to really

now start to do something about it.

Amazing, thank you Rebecca, and, see some nods

from your fellow panelists.

That's helpful.

And, Alice, what's, your opinion and purpose around this particular topic?

I think from a personal perspective, the whole

issue is really pertinent.

Most women or female clients who have come to me or who I've dealt

with in the past all have at some point both the opportunity and the

weight of a financial transition.

Now, those transitions can be things such as, reentering the workplace

after a career break, dealing with longer lifespans, inheriting money.

And more often than not, they'll come to the conversations or they'll come to

us feeling either unprepared or unheard.

And I think that feeling unheard is almost worse.

So almost the purpose that I take from it is that trying to change that experience.

So how do we change the experience of advice?

So making it feel like a partnership.

How do we get that purpose of making complexity to clarity and really

giving women if they can, that confidence to feel heard in financial

conversations, people just wanna be heard.

And it's about making sure that we can really, as advisers, sit down,

listen to people I love being listened to so it's making sure we can do the

same thing for our female clients and future clients, hopefully.

Brilliant.

Thank you.

and, Katia, what's your opinion on, this particular purpose?

I'm really curious.

Actually, I would say a blend of what we've had so far

like I feel like one of the biggest things that we've heard from a lot of

organizations over the past year really has been around refocusing how they're

on, how they're gonna bring more women into the discussion and to the table.

And I do feel like what Rebecca, you said there about it being treat them

being treated as a homogenous group is just not really doing any, anyone, any

favors, no one's ending up being heard.

And at the end of the day, the assets that women are getting through those

transitions, Alice, that you talked about, there are still not being

invested at the same rate as men's are.

A huge number of women are walking away from the advisers they've inherited

through some of those transitions.

So I feel like that says something about how the industry is not really stepping

up to, to meet women where they are.

Actually, Rebecca, one of the great things that you, shared with me

recently was Femonomics, Corinne Low.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, great discussion, honestly, where she talks about

the confidence gap, right?

Like it's not actually about women not feeling confident, it's just

that they need more information in order to feel confident.

And yeah, just listening to them, and giving women the opportunity to have,

the same access as men without making assumptions before they even come to the

table it's just a really big one for me.

Yeah.

Katia just an opportunity to share a couple of high level insights

around, Winning Women's Wealth, which is an article and thought leadership

piece that you've recently created.

And after that, we're gonna jump into some great questions for the panelists.

So over to you,

Katia.

Absolutely.

I think it's, almost taken as a given now that women's share of global wealth

is growing, but their participation or our participation in financial markets

and how we engage with financial services is still trailing men's.

So even though we're controlling more and more assets, it seems like we're often

holding that capital in environments that don't give us the same long-term

yields, men's approach to the markets is.

So as we are building careers, as we're going through those transitions, we're

getting our hands on more of the money, but then we're not doing with it the

same things as men are doing, just interested to dive into why that is.

and get your perspective, on that.

That I think is one of the goals of today.

Because the opportunity is significant, right?

Like I think research from BNY Mellon has said that if women invested at the

same rate as men, approximately $3.2 trillion would enter the market, that

currently is just sitting uninvested.

So I do think that's a really big commercial opportunity for organizations,

and financial services firms to address.

But it's not just about building confidence, it's really about being able

to have those one-on-one conversations.

So it's about reframing that confidence gap and I think, Rachael, you've

referenced research that you've, highlighted, in the past as well that

really brings that to light, that it's not just about a confidence gap, it's

about the industry that needs to pivot how they're positioning, things to women.

And one of the things that we feel within SBR across a lot of different

areas is that it doesn't help to make segments too big and I think if we

thought about, having a marketing, a market position that said we're gonna

address the segment of men, everyone would be raising a lot of eyebrows.

So what does that even mean?

And yet it exists for women.

So I think reframing that conversation to be not so high level, but starting to

dig into a little bit like which women are we specifically targeting and how

are we going to bring them to the table?

And in the article that Jonny mentioned there, I've put some kind

of high level suggestions for what those microsegments might look like.

But I'd be interested to, to hear from you guys as well, which of those

segments particularly appeal to you as, organizations and as individuals, like who

you're actually trying to help and how you are considering bringing those individuals

to the table rather than addressing them as this homogenous kind of group there.

Let's jump into that, right?

Because I think this is a perfect opportunity to bring, head of

growth, Evelyn Partners, Rachael Smith in for this particular topic.

Happy for you to extend some of the comments that Katia has just shared

there, Rachael, to continue that.

But also potentially, if we're thinking about your continuation of Growing Evelyn

Partners, how are your, how is your focus around women and wealth and the

micro segments that sits around that?

How are you gonna focus on that to continue the growth

within Evelyn Partners?

Yeah, so I wonder if we,

I wonder if we go, in order to go deeper, let's go, blow out a bit.

So in the UK in particular, the stat that's thrown around, was thrown around

in previous years, which is now being actualized in 2026, is that 60% of

wealth in the UK is now in women's hands.

And that's really being driven by two macro factors.

There's wealth transfer so where, and Alice mentioned, a kind example where

women might be inheriting wealth, where women typically are living longer

than men and daughters are now inherit just as likely to inherit, wealth as

their male siblings would've been.

Now that sounds like a really obvious kind of modern day thing to us.

But actually for, if we look at the history of wealth, that phenomena is

actually relatively new, that women are inheriting wealth at the same

rate as men and actually with women, having, living longer than men,

there's actually more wealth passing, inter-generationally, into their hands.

So existing wealth is in female hands.

But I think the second kind of macro shift, and this is where it really

intersects with where are the areas who were the client segments, that become

interesting from a kind of business perspective, to us in particular,

is that more women before ever than in history are creating their own.

and the macro concentrations of that wealth are being driven by

exactly the same areas of male wealth creation through having,

they're becoming, women are becoming higher, high earning professionals.

They're lawyers, they're CEOs, they're running businesses.

Female entrepreneurs are growing and scaling businesses.

They are generating and creating their own wealth.

so they're creating their own wealth and inheriting it.

And it's, really those two things that are creating this, yeah, seismic shift in, in

wealth ownership being, occupied by women.

and the reason why I think thinking about the origin of wealth is important

is because it then takes you into.

I totally agree with, Katia, this idea that women are like one homogenous kind

of group of, women and, a group of people.

And God forbid that we started designing pink wealth management

businesses and, pink product streams.

because fundamentally all of our decision making as a business.

And, a real theme that I've taken throughout my whole career is root our

decision making and client insights.

So for any business that's starting to, yeah, wants to tap into this inherent

commercial opportunity, I would start by understanding that female audience better.

Start with insight.

start with their origins of wealth, start with their needs

states, start by understanding how they've created that wealth.

as Alice said, how are they, what's triggered that need?

Is it a life event?

Is it something else?

and I think really that should start to intersect.

I think for most brands it should start to intersect with their, probably

their existing client segments.

Thank you, Rachael.

Rebecca from RAF Bones and, Alice, from what, is the business doing

to focus on women in wealth?

And maybe not from your own position, but what is the, what's,

it like in the organization?

What are the, what's the focus like within the business at the moment?

Rebecca, I'll come to you to start off with.

yeah.

so we have, A real focus on female entrepreneurs in our organization.

So we have sponsored, the Every Women awards for the last seven years.

and they are, it's all about female founders.

and we have a internally, one of my female colleagues runs our Entrepreneurs Network.

So we're constantly hosting events for, entrepreneurs.

Or entrepreneurs, not just female ones, but and, having, business

leaders in or, people from, PAP houses or whatever it might be to try and

help entrepreneurs on that journey because it's quite challenging.

We also do things like work with the women's chapter.

So I've done a couple of round tables recently with.

senior female, industry leaders, just, not in finance in all kinds of, industries.

The last one we, we did, we were talking about, all manner of challenges, but

imposter syndrome came up because, even though these women are at senior levels

in their business, it's the same kinds of things that still, get in their way, that

they still need to talk about, that they still feel like, having those other, that.

Those other women in their network is, so supportive.

And so you come out of those, those round tables just thinking, gosh, how.

Do any of you here?

Like doubt yourselves, but then I think, I doubt myself as well and I

think that's, so it's just something we have to, we have to deal with.

But yes, we do a lot of work with female founders.

Alice then, do you wanna jump in here?

Yeah, of course.

I think sort of everything that, that.

Rachael said is, and, Rebecca both said, is, absolutely correct.

And I think of all the places that I've worked over the last sort of 14

years of my career, it's always been the thing that people have said, how

do we get, how do we get more women?

how do we bring more women in?

How do we engage the rising generation of, financially autonomous women?

I look at my peer group and.

I think that's often a huge focus that we rightly do focus on, and I think

sometimes businesses have been guilty of.

And what we need to try to change is to be able to recognize,

exactly as Kathy you were saying, how do we not lose those clients?

we are seeing a lot that we get.

Women typically will, be in conversations with their husband if

we're looking at older generations.

And if we get to a point where, as is generally the case, if their husband

predeceases them, how do we not lose them?

And what we're trying to do definitely as a business is try to upscale our advisers,

try to train our, the people that work here to, how do we give a better outcome

for those women whilst we have them here.

So making sure that.

We, you lose them in those transition points, but the trust

is built way, in advance of that.

So it's making sure that we do engage with them fully.

we, really simple things is that we make sure we take both email addresses,

not just having one email address for a husband and saying, oh, it's okay, Mr

and Mrs will deal with the same email.

Absolutely not.

We treat them or want to treat them as, two individuals.

And when, they do come into the office, make sure that we engage

with them, speak with them directly.

And that sounds so simple.

But I think we'd really amazed at how often that hasn't been

happening, and I'm really, really pleased to see that it is changing.

I think those two things together, getting, new women to come in, but

keeping the ones that are still here is, hopefully our focus going forward.

I'm curious and I was gonna say let's draw a line in the sand there.

So, this is your current state, but imagine the current state.

We're just drawing a line in the sand.

You know what, and, maybe just take a step out of the organizations that you're in.

What, are firms in wealth management?

Need to change to continue moving forward.

what do you need to, do to, move this forward?

I, was gonna come to you, Rachael, just to continue the cycle, but

have you got an opinion on that or?

Yeah, I think, look again, client centricity.

Putting the women or the women that you're designing, a client journey

around or a meeting around, or, a lot of the businesses that we represent

here, we deliver personalized services and financial advice.

Therefore, taking a personalized approach to how do you then redesign

a client journey or a meeting or an interaction with a woman

is probably the right approach.

So I think, I said earlier, being insight driven, really understand your client

need, tailor the journey around them.

Alice has given some really great examples.

This genuinely isn't rocket science.

And I think, Rebecca's talked about the need in this, category for, really

strong advisers lead with empathy.

They don't lead the technical

benefits of what they do, they lead with the softer benefits

of, engaging with this category.

So I think the answer really for me is you need to, we need to redesign,

we need to redesign the kind of client journey and the end-to-end ecosystem.

End to end, not just for women, because as Katia is eloquently put, they're

not a homogenous group of people.

There are diverse needs that need to be represented and designed for, and I really

think the change has to be end to end from how you show up on the website as

Alice's example, capturing, both emails, treating the client, looking at them in

looking them in the eye, and speaking to them with equality right the way through

to have we got the right products?

Have we got the right services?

How are we meeting those clients' needs on an ongoing relationship basis too?

And, Katia, you got any opinion, any thoughts

on this particular discussion?

Yes, absolutely.

And Rachael, what you just said there absolutely hits the nail on the head.

I think it's not just about saying, we're going to pink wash this campaign or put a

few more women in the office or, whatever.

Although that helps.

But about really, I think that this is an opportunity for wealth management

firms in general to take another look at the way that they're designing their

client journeys and think about what assumptions they're bringing to the table

before the conversation has even started.

Because I feel like that's where a lot of women get lost actually in that

conversation, is because of the, let's say, the assumptions or the baggage that

the adviser is bringing to the table before the conversations even started.

So I think that if we're able to, take another look at how firms are

redesigning that initial engagement point, all of those kind of tick box

exercises that you have to do because of regulations are those actually

just meeting the requirements or are they actually helping you on the

next stage of that client journey?

Because a lot of them can be reframed to help you on the next stage of that

journey and just recognizing that, I think yes, women might have, more

need for confidence boosting along the way from a certain perspective.

But actually, Rebecca, to come back to what you said earlier about imposter

syndrome, there was actually a study at MIT, last year that came out that

showed that having more imposter syndrome thoughts actually showed a

boost in performance, and work ethic.

So I feel like it's about reframing the whole conversation around, it's

okay to question yourself sometimes and the these things that have we've

been taught are female characteristics, are actually really normal and great

things that more people could do with.

And when we're designing those client journeys, thinking about

are we actually taking the time to empathize with the clients where they

are, wouldn't be such a bad thing to bring to other conversations as well.

I was just gonna say, if you flip the other

side of that coin and think.

Not just think about the client journey, but think about the

adviser journey as well, and the people that are in the office.

The visibility has got to be a massive part of this discussion

for the whole industry.

So we all know that we've vastly unrepresented,

underrepresented in our industry.

So only 18% of women are our financial advisers.

And I don't wanna trot out the old kind of, we've got to go into schools and

do the education and all this stuff.

What I really want to focus on is the women that work with me in my

organization, in my team, where I can have the most influence.

So I can see in my team that I've got a really amazing group of women

financial planners, but do I have any who are financial planning directors?

Not at the moment.

How do I get them there?

That's that, is my challenge to myself.

Because I think, if you can see this stuff, you can be it.

So we have to cut ourselves out there a bit more, do stuff like this, which might

scare the pants off us, but do it anyway.

Do all the LinkedIn stuff.

Do the stuff that makes you cringe because that is really showing

other women that you work with that yeah, you can do this stuff.

It's fine you can stick your head above the parapet.

You can and that attracts female clients as well.

because then they can see there are women in the industry that they can

relate to women of different ages.

The generational thing is really important here.

there's really, there's big differences between what a millennial.

Looking for financial advice might need, and someone who's a Gen X, like me,

or someone who's, even older because the experience, I think Rachael was

saying, the experience that we've had growing up is massively different.

Like my mum didn't have a bank account of her own until I

don't know, the late nineties.

that's not that long ago.

There's so many different nuances that we have to take into account and that's

why I think it's really important to come back to the adviser, whoever you're

dealing with, you gotta come back to the adviser and make sure that they've got

the skills to engage with clients properly because that will make all the difference.

Because this is a great connection between,

what is the organization doing?

And, Alice gonna come to you in a second just to, play something back.

Rachael, you've given me so much confidence.

Thank you it's achievable, which I think is really important because

sometimes I look outside and think, Are the organizations truly gonna do this?

And you've given me great strength, around that.

And, Rebecca, your point around role modeling in a moment, Alice, it'd be great

to hear about what, does that mean to you within your role and client facing?

I, was fortunate enough.

On Friday to be part of a partnership great partnership workday, held,

hosted by Evelyn Partners and there was a fantastic speaker called Claire

Nelson, who is the managing director of the super netball super league.

And it was the most inspiring conversation I've ever been part of.

I cried three times during the 25 minutes but it inspired me wholeheartedly

and, I reflected over the weekend and thought, if there's a leader in

the future that I would want to be, working with, my god, it was that woman.

So it, it's out there.

But Alice, from your point of view, how does it work in Canaccord?

How do you see the role modeling aspect work from leadership

down, et cetera, et cetera?

Yeah, I think Rebecca hit the nail on the head.

it's about visibility.

You're right.

I look, around in my colleagues and I'm one of a senior investment

director on the firm here, and they are fewer and far between.

And I think with that also comes a sense of responsibility.

Sits on my shoulders now.

I'm incredibly grateful that over the past 15 years of my career, I've had some

amazing, not only female role models, but people who really champion sort of

me, made it look possible, made it look achievable, and I think that really helps.

And also when you see those people and they bring you into client

meetings, that I've been fortunate enough to work with both male

colleagues and both female colleagues.

And I think that there are merits to both.

I don't think that necessarily you have to put a female adviser or female investment

manager in front of the a woman.

And I think sometimes that oversimplifies things and businesses

do often try that approach.

It, doesn't always work.

But I think it's been really interesting when you do go to meetings and,

having sat in as a junior with some of those senior investment advisers

and senior financial planners such as, Rebecca, that you actually see that

sort of empathy is the new superpower, like treating empathy as alpha.

That's actually how we do really engage with those female clients.

And I think if, and having previously been younger than I am now, in those

meetings you can see that sometimes those skills that you have and when

you're feeling not that confident when you're going into a very sort

of male focused environment saying, am I a bit too empathetic for this?

Am I a bit too soft and gentle to, to make my inroads here?

You can actually see that.

That's the skill.

if you're gonna be going in and talking to someone who has been through quite often

can be a really traumatic life event.

If you've been divorced or you've been widowed, they're really

difficult things to try to navigate.

And at that time, you don't wanna be sold to, you don't want someone sitting

there, shilling a product to you.

You want someone to be empathetic and, to listen.

And I do think, I'm gonna promise I'll stop wittering on, but I

do think that's the duality of the role of a female, leader.

And hoping, I think, to inspire people that their skills can be,

really worthwhile in our industry.

I think as we like unpack all of this, I think what

springs out is how complex it.

Like that, this ecosystem is because actually 70% of women say they would

prefer to be advised by a woman.

And yet, as Rebecca said, women occupy less than 18% of financial advisery roles.

So there is, some systemic, changes that need to be made, to the industry.

But I think Jonny, why it's so important that you are here is because.

Whilst Alice are totally here, you are like, I feel the responsibility as a

woman to, and Rebecca said to be seen.

You've gotta be seen to be it.

I actually think this isn't, a women's issue.

This is a societal issue and we need our allies.

We need men.

We need.

Everyone to come alongside us.

I think there's a huge amount of responsibility.

Statistically women have higher mental load than men just operating day to day.

The last thing I need is to have the, driving equality throughout this

industry on my shoulders, and I think that's where the benefit of there

is enough female wealth for every single business represented here to

go after it, unlock it and actually change investment outcomes for women.

I think what I get so excited about is that if we can really meaningfully start

to bring women in that, to, and look what we're talking about here is to invest

fundamentally, Their outcomes are going to be significantly better with risk.

Your investments can go up and down.

I think that's the bit that gets really, that gets me really excited

is like there's some systemic stuff that needs to be changed,

but there is enough for everyone.

And the outcome of that is that women are wealthier, more financially independent

and get to unlock so much more.

I was just gonna agree with Rachael though, which I

think has some, a bit of an epiphany that I've had just recently is

that I can't be responsible for all of this stuff, but what I can be

responsible for is the people that I work with and can influence the most.

Because, this is an awful confession, but in the last kind of five minutes

I've been thinking about, what I've gotta cook for tea and have I done

the shopping and, what's going on at the weekend and what time have I got?

You can just drift off at any moment.

And perimenopause makes that even worse.

So I've just recently I've thought, I'm gonna focus on me and making

sure that I'm trying to do what I can to develop myself as a leader.

So I'm still doing stuff that's gonna improve my skills and my learning

because that's really important.

But then thinking about, what can I influence?

So I don't have the time or the mental capacity.

I'm sure you ladies will agree to go out and start changing the industry

and protesting on the street corners about how many female FPs there are.

But what I can do think about what we can do internally in terms of,

we've got, like the lunch you came to Katia, so things like that.

So things like little training sessions for some of the women that I work with

around things like imposter syndrome or managing upwards or, we've got a,

channel called the 18% Club and we, I have, I try and get people to come

in and talk about women's issues.

Can I mentor, we've got a mentorship scheme, so I'm a mentor.

Those are the kind of things that I can do that can make real impact for

the women that I work with, which will then improve the way that they work

with clients, including female clients because they will have so much more

capability and skills, and hopefully the confidence as well to go alongside that.

I think you're right Rachael.

I think we need to be careful that we're not trying to take on the

world here, because if we all start doing those things, those small

changes are gonna really mushroom.

So just jump in there.

I think Rebecca is, you're so right.

It's you're sitting there listing off all the other things that we need to

do all the time, and that's what our clients are doing, most, women are

acting as CFOs of their own lives, and I think we're not treating them, or the

industry aren't treating them as such.

They're, sometimes saying, they're not confident, they're really risk averse.

No, they're not.

They, they're, managing so many different things at once and we need

to give them that almost ability to say, you, you've got this.

How can we help you?

How can we help you achieve what you want?

So it's not even about giving them, they don't need a different portfolio.

Ultimately, they don't need different things to what we're

offering the men or the boys.

they just need a different experience.

And I think if we can hit that nail on the head, we'll get there.

and I think it's not just the responsibility of us here in the

room far from it, I think it, the industry of as a whole needs to change.

And it is the fact that we're sitting here on these conversations and

the articles that Katia writes and refers to means that it is changing.

And I'm really hopeful that we get there sooner.

But we will.

I think that Rachael has already put the responsibility

for getting this out into the world firmly on Jonny's shoulders.

So I think we're safe there, but yeah, absolutely.

I think it's just about dealing with the next thing that's in front of

you, and I think both of you have said that really eloquently about

what, and Rachael, you, as well in terms of that higher level as well.

What are the immediate things that we can do as individuals and within the industry?

And, Rebecca, to come to your point earlier, I think that leadership role is

gonna be absolutely critical because there are a lot of women, if I'm not mistaken,

who, who enter the wealth management industry, but then don't climb the ranks.

Don't stick with it long term.

And it's that thing about, don't leave until you leave.

If you're climbing transitions in your future, don't take your foot off

the gas, use the Americanism there until that actually happens because,

I think that there's a lot space for, people who've experienced the

same transitions as the clients that you're talking to, are going through.

It's such a great career for women, financial services

is an amazing career for women, whether you're on the frontline or, not.

It's just, it, plays to all of our strengths.

This is a real people business, a people industry.

And I think some women may be, are scared off by the fact that it's,

oh, you have to be good at math or good at numbers, but no, you don't.

Wait, okay, i'll rephrase that, shall I?

No, I'm not great at math.

I'm not a mathematician.

If you've got the people skills and the empathy, you can talk to people, you

can listen, you can understand, you can have that relationship with someone.

It's, it's a great career.

It offers flexibility, you can be really well paid.

We should be trying to get more women into the industry.

It's a great place to be.

And where the last closing remarks before we head

off like how do we solve for that?

A short sentence from each of you on how do we get more into the industry?

Because you, give me so much energy, and I've really enjoyed

this short conversation.

I want longer with you guys, but what is the things that we could all be doing?

So who wants to go first?

I'll go first.

Yeah, I think the, this has been mentioned maybe, a few different times,

but, research, with the Edinburgh Futures Institute Compassion and

Financial Services Hub, has proven that the gap, the wealth of vice

gap, it is not about confidence.

Women do not lack confidence, and I love that Alice has called that out.

Women are the CFOs of their own lives and of many of their lives

are the people around them.

And there is not a confidence gap.

Women do not need to change.

And I think the narratives that women need empowering, that women need to

improve their confidence, that women need to be more risk averse, the

narratives around that have to change.

And I think that's where I've been, blown away as well because

I think the narrative is changing.

But what fundamentally, what it invites the industry to do and

individuals within the industry to do, is to challenge themselves and

challenge their own narratives as well.

And I think it's not about confidence, it's not about empowerment.

It's actually about us making the changes.

The industry does need to make some changes.

and there's lots of ways that individuals can get involved around, campaigning

for fair pensions for policy change.

Yeah, I think there's lots of ways that individually we can get involved, but

asking women to change is not one of them.

Brilliant.

Thank you Rachael, for your closing remarks.

Rebecca, what was your opinion?

what's the thing that we could be doing to...

So I was talking to someone, a client,

actually, about this the other day, and they said, this is a man.

He said the, best thing that you could do is, have the right policies in place

that allow women to have flexibility in the workplace around having children

around coming back to work, about managing that kind of transition in their lives.

So that they don't leave the industry and never come back.

Alice, what's your closing on?

How do we create this next wave of female investment directors like you

to coming into this amazing industry?

I think it's that we just need to show that it's

attractive and it's appealing.

And, Rebecca, you've, hit the nail on the head.

It's about making it, it flexible.

and that works both ways.

I think making sure that you don't have meetings at a time when children

are meant to be picked up from school.

And that's not just for us as advisers.

That's also for clients, don't expect a client to come for a meeting at three

o'clock when they're, probably nine times out of 10 may have to pick up children.

So it's about showing up differently, meeting people where they are, showing

everyone that it's a really great, it's a great industry to work from.

And I, yeah, I, think it's a great, place to be and I'm really happy

that it's the career that I've chose.

Amazing.

I'd just like to say, closing remarks.

Thank you so much for everyone that's joined us to listen to this amazing panel.

I'm just gonna say thank you so much to Rachael Smith from Evelyn

Partners who shared some fantastic insights regarding women in wealth.

We've also had Rebecca Williams, from Rathbones, just some great snippets

and some real honesty and vulnerability shared from yourself there, Rebecca.

So thank you.

I was wondering what you were doing for those five minutes.

Actually,

Was it that obvious?

And, Alice, thank you.

It's the first time we've met and properly spoken and I really want to

welcome you to the podcast because you've got some amazing insights and

some great points of view to be sharing because you are at the coalface of this

revolution and, moving this forward.

Thank you to all that, have joined today listening to this great episode and

thank you so much to the panellists.

Take care.

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