Inspiring women to join the financial planning industry is a passion for the incoming national president of the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA), Deborah Kent.
Announced in the role at the AFA national conference on Sunday, Kent has been a board member for a number of years and has more than 26 years’ experience as a financial adviser.
Kent says the AFA is already seeing an increase in enquiries around its education program.
“We are strong in our belief of getting consumers back toward trusting advice again. That’s a big piece of what we want to do,” she says.
She refers to the financial literacy program the AFA has put in place, which will come into effect in 2015.
“We understand that at the moment, there’s low confidence in advice within the marketplace,” Kent says.
“What we need to do is lift that, and we feel we’re on track to do that.”
“We really need to lift the profile of advice”
As president, Kent leads the board of the AFA in developing the strategy and supporting the more operationally focused role of the chief executive officer, Brad Fox.
Female advisers
Kent refers to AFA’s Inspire program, which recently celebrated its first anniversary and which she helped launch.
“One of the reasons that we launched Inspire nationally was because we believe that we need to get more women in advice, and that’s what Inspire represents,” she says.
“It’s really engaging women to step up and step into higher roles.”
She explains that the AFA covers the entire financial services area.
“I think we still need to improve what we can to increase the level of women seeking advice,” she says.
Kent says the numbers of women attending the AFA conference and joining the association have increased, as has female involvement at the highest levels of the AFA itself.
“Now we’ve got a president, vice president and we’ve got a state director who are all female, which I think is very good for the AFA,” she says.
Speaking more broadly about her new role, Kent says she wants to get more involved in the grassroots areas in engaging with members.
“We’re engaging, we’re inclusive.,” she says.
“I want to get out there and be a little bit more visual with our members so they can see who our president and who our Board is.
“I’m very excited about the role, up to the challenge and really looking forward to it”.
Working with other industry associations
“We’re more than happy to work with other associations. On certain issues, you do need to have a common voice. If you do work together, [it improves] the strength of the voice, the better the outcomes.”
“And we do talk to other associations, we don’t close the door, we pick up the phone and have a chat.”
Kent says the AFA faces a challenge in countering some of the negative sentiment in the market.
“It’s pretty hard to go up against those that have a big machine out there,” she says.
“We can only do what we can do and just keep getting the message out through our adviser network, through licensee partners – that’s the way we tackle it.
Adviser education
“There is going to be growth. Licensees will be mandating association membership, and a lot of them recognise the AFA as something they should join.
“I think there is going to be an uplift in membership. Our Fellow Chartered Financial Practitioner is going to be there. I think it’s what defines us as an association.”
Kent says the AFA is already seeing an increase in enquiries around its education program.
“We are strong in our belief of getting consumers back toward trusting advice again,” she says.
“That’s a big piece of what we want to do.”
