Private Asset Management

Women & Wealth: A Female Advisors Roundtable 07/19/2010

The wealth management and family office space is filled with thoughtful advisors, many of whom are women. Female advisors have been shown to interact well with other women, as well as couples, to help them navigate through difficult life transitions. PAM managing editor Kristen Oliveri recently hosted a roundtable featuring Jacqueline Miller West, private client advisor at Wilmington Trust, Doris Meister, regional president for New York at BNY Mellon Wealth Management Mela Garber, tax principal at Anchin Block & Anchin and Linda Ludwig, managing director with Neuberger Berman.

PAM: In dealing with advisors, do female clients ask different questions or bring expectations that are different from those of male clients?

Meister: On average, women tend to question more and are more concerned about some of the risk aspects of things. They are not as concerned in showing that they care about the risk and that they are asking, in many cases, basic questions if they don’t have a lot of familiarity with finance. That being said, I think all clients are or should be concerned with three key things: overall investment performance, whether they have an open and trusting relationship with their advisor, and whether the advisor’s view is holistic.

West: In general, it is less about getting into the technicalities when it comes to my women clients. It's more the issue of 'what does this mean to me in my big picture?' Just as an example, I was talking to a client yesterday and she rarely talks about the details of her portfolio, but a question she had for me was ‘am I living off my interest? I don't want to be touching my principal.’ That's ultimately all that she cared about. It was less about 'am I in stocks, commodities or hedge funds?'

Ludwig: Women look for more communication. They look for a greater sensitivity to their needs and more of a discussion. It’s a learning process for everybody and over the years, I have found that women are increasingly knowledgeable. It’s a discussion of why are we doing this, does this make sense, and what is the outcome?

Garber: What I see as the biggest difference is when I have conversations with my female clients; the conversation will be about taxes, kids, banking, investment doctors, and so on. It is a holistic approach to all the issues, where most of my conversations with male clients is about where he is planning to go into, transactions and the tax ramification of the transaction. It is based on specific points and specific transactions and we rarely go into other issues though the issues are there.

West: If a male client engages you for portfolio management, he may think of you as just his portfolio manager and keep conversations focused on investments, even though you offer so much more. However, female clients tend to express their needs more from a big picture standpoint bringing in their families and values. This helps the advisor understand all the other issues in their lives and how we can help and support the various aspects of their financial situation beyond an immediate need of say, portfolio management.

Meister: One important thing to stress is that there are a lot of different women. For example, you have women who are actively involved in the decision making all the way even if they are not a primary wage earner or even working outside the home. You also have women that are pretty high powered and important careers that are not as sophisticated about financial matters as the males in that circumstance would be. It is important not to see the female client base as monolithic.

PAM: On the flip side, are their any differences between female and male advisors?

Ludwig: The one thing that I would say is a holistic view. I know it’s not true of all males or all females, but women tend to be ...

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