DENVER, July 18, 2018 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Mercer Advisors Inc. ("Mercer Advisors"), a national Registered Investment Adviser (RIA) firm, today announced the launch of a new diversity program, InvestHERS, a comprehensive initiative designed to better attract women into the financial services industry, as well as to better serve the unique financial planning needs of women investors.
The program will consist of a number of initiatives to encourage and educate women about career opportunities in the financial services industry, as well as further building out the many educational and financial planning offerings that are focused on helping women achieve financial success.
"We created the InvestHERS program because we've seen that women are underrepresented in wealth management," said Kara Duckworth, CFP®, client advisor for Mercer Advisors and Chair of the InvestHERS committee. "As an industry leader when it comes to female diversity, Mercer Advisors has a strong culture of supporting women in their careers as both advisors and as executive leaders and this program is a natural extension of our commitment to these goals."
Mercer Advisors has been on the forefront in supporting women's careers in financial services, as currently over 40% of Mercer's client facing staff and advisors are female, which compares very favorably to the industry average of only 23% CFPs being women*.
One of the first initiatives of the InvestHERS program is to offer scholarships to aspiring female students to create awareness of careers in financial services. "Our first scholarship will be at the University of California, Irvine in conjunction with the Center for Investment and Wealth Management at the UC Irvine Paul Merage School of Business," noted Duckworth. "We will also be hosting career fairs, internship opportunities and serving as mentors at college campuses across the country for female students considering careers in the wealth advice industry."
On the client side, InvestHERS has also created four "personas" of women investors to better tailor financial planning and investment management services to target women's specific needs during their life cycles. "Because women have very unique needs, we are spearheading an approach through these personas to customize our advice offerings," said Karen Lee, Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer for Mercer Advisors. "These personas include women's roles as being the family breadwinner, going through a divorce, being widowed or being a stay at home spouse."
InvestHERS will create content and educational programs for clients and other female investors, with the first being a podcast through Mercer Advisors highly regarded Science for Economic Freedom educational portal. Additionally, InvestHERS will host women's events, create collaboration opportunities, provide expert commentary on news programs as well as focus on helping women investors better manage their personal finances.
"The world is becoming more and more diverse with expanding opportunities for women in leadership, in advisory capacities, as well as being more in control of their own personal wealth," said Dave Weling, CEO of Mercer Advisors. "InvestHERS is our first step of many to continue to ensure that we as a company are able to best serve our clients and the many communities around the country where we have a presence."
*https://www.cfp.net/news-events/research-facts-figures/cfp-professional-demographics
About Mercer Advisors
Established in 1985, Mercer Advisors Inc. is a total wealth management firm that provides comprehensive, fee-only investment management, financial planning, family office services, retirement benefits and distribution planning, estate and tax planning, asset protection expertise, and corporate trustee and trust administration services. Mercer Advisors is the parent company of Mercer Global Advisors, one of the largest independent Registered Investment Advisers and financial planning firms in the U.S. with over $12.3 billion in assets under management and approximately 9,000 clients. Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, Mercer Advisors is privately held, has approximately 250 employees.
Data as of June 12. Client count includes clients of acquired firms where the investment advisory agreements have been assigned to Mercer Advisors, but the custodial accounts have not yet been transferred to Mercer Advisors.
SOURCE Mercer Advisors
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