Financial planning is a relatively female-friendly profession but more still needs to be done to address the gender imbalance that does exist, including more female role models, quotas and male leadership, according to the 2016 Queensland Australian of the Year and holder of the Order of Australia, Catherine McGregor.
McGregor has been announced as the speaker for the Women in Financial Planning breakfast at the Financial Planning Association’s national congress in Perth in November.
She says financial planning is “clearly an industry that has a diverse, and I suspect higher-than-average by industry standards, female representation”.
“It’s certainly a female-friendly industry,” she says.
“I know a lot of people set up their own businesses in that realm and qualify as advisers; and certainly all the financial planners I have had have been females.”
But in all professions, more can still be done. McGregor says there will be “two levels” to her FPA appearance.
“Clearly, in most large groups that I address, I may well be the first trans person they have met in person,” McGregor says.
“If I have the chance to in any way reduce some of the stigmatism around transgenderism, and show people that we are human beings – regardless of whether we’re male or female, we’re fundamentally human beings like everyone else – then I am thrilled to be visible like that.
“And over a fairly diverse working career … in a couple of fairly male environments, namely cricket and the military, I always hope that it gives a certain amount of collateral inspiration to women as well, in the sense that it is possible to be yourself in fairly male environments and survive and prosper.”
Issues facing ‘both sides’
McGregor’s perspective is unusual, in the sense that she can see the issues facing women in the workplace from both sides of the debate.
“I’ve got a perspective of having had a lot of male advantages, but I’ve now become female and do get, I think, what it’s like to be the only woman in a room,” she says.
“That has been very confronting and I’ve probably got a more acute sense of that, in some ways than people who have lived with it all their lives. It’s quite a stark contrast to the way I lived before. It’s been quite an education.”
McGregor says a key message she will convey to attendees at the FPA congress in Perth in November is that it doesn’t matter how much talk there is about the issue “there is no substitute for role models.”
“That’s the message that has come through from the attempt of a lot of people to get higher representation of women on boards, and so on,” she says.
“There’s a cliché that ‘you can’t be what you can’t see’, so having female role models in any industry is really important. It seems the evidence is that unless there are quotas at some point to break some of the glass ceilings, it’s difficult to get critical mass of women in industry.
“I do not have strong views on quotas because I have never had to rely on them, but people that I do trust in corporate Australia think quotas are very important to give women a critical mass so there are role models and mentors to bring the next generation of women through.”
McGregor says aspiring to greater numbers of women in leadership positions across the financial planning profession is far from a pipe dream.
“You look at professions like law, where there are now more women being produced by law schools than men, and I think that’s having a slow-drip effect on the complexion of law,” she says.
“There are separate issues, of course, around some professions – and law is notable as one of them – as not being particularly family-friendly for either men or women. So I think once you’ve got to the point of having a critical mass of people you’ve got to look at the nature of the working conditions. Is it possible, say, to support remote work? Is it possible to work from home on certain days?
“Especially given [the] pervasive social media and communications environment we work in now – it’s becoming much more viable not to be tied to an office during conventional work hours and I think that makes a huge difference for women as well, being able to somewhat set work patterns around parenting and other things.”
Male ‘leadership’ still required
McGregor says that even as more employers empower women to take leadership positions and to create working environments that suit, it still requires male leadership in many cases to begin the process of change.
“I don’t think it’s patronising to say that men still overwhelmingly run companies and lead organisations,” she says.
“Elizabeth Broderick, who was the Sex Discrimination Commissioner, conceded that by setting up Male Champions of Change. She said there’s now a way forward without having male allies in this space, and I think there’s still some truth in that. We’re at a transitional point where the goodwill of men who get the nature of the problems need to be involved intimately in the process.”
McGregor says her own experience of the financial planning profession has been exclusively with female planners.
“I’ve had really valuable support, particularly given the nature of my retirement,” she says.
“I’m 60 years of age now; I had a public-sector pension; and I was involved in a decent superannuation scheme. So getting generally high quality investment advice as I transitioned out of the ADF was quite vital. And I’ve had someone who was very literate in public sector.”
McGregor’s adviser represents Fiduscian Financial Services in Canberra.
“They were exceptional,” she says.
“They were friends of mine in the military who qualified as financial planners and I was incredibly happy with the service I got from them. They took a personal interest in my case; they understood my circumstances; and tailored a plan very much to my needs. I was very grateful for it.
“Sheryn Hoskings is an ex-army officer and she’s a mate of mine. Sheryn was fantastic and I am still in touch with her. In fact you’ve jogged [my memory] – I need to make an appointment to go and talk to her about stuff.”
The chief executive of the FPA, Dante De Gori, says the Women in Financial Planning Breakfast has been a staple of FPA’s national event since it was reconfigured from a conference to a professionals’ congress.
Past speakers have included former editor of the Women’s Weekly Deborah Thomas, the author and journalist Jennifer Byrne, and chef Maggie Beer.
“It’s been one of the drawcards,” De Gori says.
“We’ve been lucky enough to have some really inspiring women as speakers, people who through their stories can motivate and engage with – in our particular space – women in financial planning.”
