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The Financial Planning Association of Australia (FPA) has launched its FPA Women in Financial Planning (FP) Mentoring Program.
The inaugural program aims to support women in financial planning to further their careers by matching eligible females in the financial planning profession seeking guidance and support, with more experienced FPA members.
“The FPA is thrilled to launch the program to encourage and support women in financial planning”, said FPA CEO Dante De Gori CFP®.
“Women account for around 20% of financial planners and 27% of the FPA membership. Further, the demand for female financial planners is there, so encouraging more women to enter and remain in the profession will be vital to serving the needs of the growing number of Australians seeking advice. Our challenge and opportunity is to both support women throughout their financial planning careers and also convert this consumer demand into financial planning clients.
“Feedback from our members has shown there’s an important opportunity for the FPA to play a role in offering mentoring in financial planning. We’ve been able to launch this initiative with the support of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet’s Women’s Leadership and Development Program and the $1.5 million grant awarded to the FPA”, added Mr De Gori.
The FPA is calling for applications from members to become both mentors and mentees in 2022.
“For mentees, it’s an opportunity to receive guidance and support, networking opportunities and a window to professional growth and career planning. Mentors stay abreast of emerging issues and develop their leadership and communication skills through the same process,” said Mr De Gori.
Mr De Gori said the program will be a way for experienced members to give back to the profession and help develop the next generation of financial planning practitioners. The FPA is committed to supporting more women to not only consider a career in financial planning but importantly the FPA wants to help those already in the broader profession take the next steps in their career development.
“It is important for the profession to provide more support for women working in financial planning. It’s wonderful to have the opportunity to offer a formal, structured mentoring program for FPA members,” Mr De Gori said.
To join as a mentee, candidates must be a member of the FPA, and a female working in the profession, and satisfy one or more of the eligibility criteria. Mentors can be a male or female members of the FPA with at least three years of experience in one or more areas, including client service or associate adviser roles, paraplanning, business development, compliance, practice management and financial planning or advice roles.
The program will commence mid February 2022 and over the course of six months, mentors will be given training and matched with a mentee to work with on a monthly basis. The program will include:
Applications are now open until 14 January 2022. For more information and how to apply: https://faaa.au/education/fpa-mentoring-program/