Brokerage firms have actively tried to recruit women, with mixed success. Those who manage to stick it out through the training period mostly gravitate toward financial planning.
By HELEN HUNTLEY
Published October 11, 2004
Dana Hakes is excited about her new job as a broker trainee. With an MBA and 15 years of sales and marketing jobs behind her, she looks forward to the freedom to run her own business.
"Even within a branch, at the end of the day, I'll be responsible for my own marketing, my own clients and their financial success," she said. "If you feel comfortable with the lifestyle and the requirements, I think it's a fantastic career."
Raymond James & Associates wishes it could find a lot more women like her. Only 11 percent of the St. Petersburg company's 860 brokers are women. When Hakes completes her training, she will be one of just two women brokers in the downtown Tampa office.
The numbers are a little better at sister company Raymond James Financial Services, where women make up about 15 percent of the 3,850 brokers, all of whom work as independent contractors.
Raymond James has been recruiting women brokers for years, but recently stepped up its efforts, participating in job fairs for women, developing a mentoring program and revamping recruiting literature.
"There's a need and this is an opportunity," said Tom Hudson, national sales manager for the company's private client group.
The challenge is not unique to Raymond James. Men dominate the brokerage industry nationwide. Securities Industry Association surveys show that more than 80 percent of the executives, branch managers, traders, brokers and investment bankers are men, nearly all of them white. Women are the majority in support positions, assisting brokers and processing transactions, and staff positions in areas such as human resources and public relations.
In fact, Hakes says that although she knew women lawyers and accountants, she didn't know a single woman broker when she began considering a career change.
If people outside the industry have heard anything about women brokers, it may have been the well-publicized complaints of sexual harassment and discrimination. Most famous was a 1996 lawsuit against Smith Barney over practices in its Garden City, N.Y., office, which had a "boom boom room" in the basement for partying. Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank also have settled discrimination complaints brought by women who worked for them.
"Those stories have been around for years," said Michelle Danielson, vice president of private client group administration for Raymond James & Associates. But she thinks the barrier to recruitment is much more basic: "Women just don't have a clear enough picture of what this career really entails and don't know that they can be successful."
Danielson chairs the company's women's advisory council, which works on efforts to recruit, train and retain women brokers. Among other things, council members serve as mentors to trainees and organize an annual two-day symposium that nearly all the company's women brokers attend.
The goal is to help women succeed as brokers, particularly in the difficult early years, when more than two-thirds of the men and women who begin training wash out. Like many other brokerages, Raymond James & Associates initially pays trainees a full salary, but puts them on a declining salary schedule as they begin signing up clients. After 21/2 years, pay depends entirely on production.
Danielson says that on average, women at Raymond James generate slightly lower commissions than their male counterparts but are more effective at attracting assets for professional management.
Many women brokers gravitate toward financial planning, which involves understanding a client's needs and goals before recommending investments. Nationally, 25 percent of the those who have earned the Certified Financial Planner designation are women.
"It really is a wonderfully viable career for women," said Laura Waller, a Tampa financial planner who has been a broker for 26 years. She claims the late Bob James, founder of Raymond James, as a mentor. Waller now runs her own company, Laura Waller Advisors, which is affiliated with Raymond James Financial Services.
Several traits traditionally associated with women, she says, are valuable in financial planning.
"Women are very, very good listeners," Waller said. "They hone in on the nonquantitative factors. They look at the relationships, what's going on in the family. Somehow women are perceived as being more honest. They don't force you or push you aggressively into things."
Waller says she has found clients accepting. In fact, she thinks some men feel more comfortable asking a woman adviser questions about things they don't understand.
"It's a long time between when you start and when you really are productive - so you've got to have that staying power, but sales is where the sky's the limit on how much you can eventually make," she said. "At Raymond James Financial Services, some of the largest producers are women."
But, Waller says, it can't help recruiting when women walk into a brokerage office and see a single woman broker.
Marilyn Littlejohn, manager of a Raymond James & Associates office in St. Petersburg, says she hears women remark that they are intimidated by numbers.
"I use a calculator, not high math," she said. "I have a friend who's an interior decorator and math is a lot more critical in her job than it is in mine."
Broker trainee Hakes says she always has been interested in investments and is comfortable with numbers, but she would be worried about her career choice if she didn't have more senior advisers she could turn to for help.
"You want to be as effective for your clients as you possibly can," she said. "I have four managers I can use as a backup and resources at any time. If I didn't have that, I think I'd be scared to death."
