Advisers Giving Back: Rickie Taylor

Rickie Taylor didn’t intend to be a mentor.

The regional director for Retirement Plan Consultants, in fact, was quite content with his career, having advanced through the ranks to consult on qualified plans and lead business development with financial advisers and CPAs.

As a Black man, he certainly was aware of the need for more diversity and inclusion in the financial sector and had taken on multiple volunteer positions, including as the first vice chair of the Association of African American Financial Advisors, vice president of the Philadelphia Securities Association, director of DEI for the Financial Planning Association of NJ, and member outreach chair for the Association for Wholesaling Diversity.

Rickie Taylor

Then, one day, a young, Black person just starting out in financial services contacted Taylor on Zoom to discuss the business and get advice. Taylor, feeling it was the right thing to do, agreed. The contact then asked if a friend also interested in the sector could attend. Then another, and another.

“So, there were the two of them I was speaking to, and then both of them said, ‘I’ve got a friend who wants to learn a little bit more, can they join?’” Taylor says. “And then it just multiplied. Before I knew it, we had a dozen people who wanted mentorship.”

At that point, Taylor suggested they all do a periodic Zoom call in which everyone could ask questions about and discuss a career in financial services. Some of the participants were already in the early stages of their career, and others were soon-to-be college graduates. The unifying goal for Taylor was making sure they all received an unvarnished look at life in financial services.

Straight Shooting

“I said to them, ‘Nothing is sugarcoated,’” Taylor says. “’You ask everything, and I’m going to try and give you the real answer. Or if I can’t, we’re going to get someone who can give you the answer to get you where you want to be.’”

What had started as an ad hoc learning session became something of a master class for these aspiring professionals of color, aged 21 to 27. For a few of them, Taylor’s connections in the industry led to job interviews and, for some, even job placements.

For others, it was a chance to consider whether financial services was right for them, Taylor says.

“We talked about everything,” Taylor says. “There would be questions like, ‘What exactly is asset management?’ to things like, ‘What should I wear to an interview?’”

Today, Taylor says mentoring is an everyday part of his life, often done on weeknights or weekends when he will grab a coffee or jump on a Zoom call with an aspiring financial adviser.

“In fact, I’m meeting someone for a coffee who is interested in finance this weekend,” Taylor says. “It’s not always easy, of course, but this person reached out looking for advice, and I feel it’s important to try and help them.”

Not all of Taylor’s mentees are people of color. They are a mix of men and women at various points in their journeys. But Taylor does his best to share his experience of financial services and, when it makes sense, connect them to the appropriate people in the industry in what is now a large roster of contacts.

Giving Back

Taylor says he is motivated to mentor, in part because he knows what it’s like to go it alone.

“Everything I do is centered around my own path coming up in this industry,” he says. “Point blank: I didn’t have a mentor. I didn’t have somebody trying to guide me and keep me on the path that would advance my career.”

Taylor says he has people he could have reached out to, but he didn’t think at the time it was possible to reach out and ask. Today, Taylor does not want to see people in that position struggle or give up altogether due to lack of guidance or a real-world example.

Taylor started his own career as an Internal Consultant at New York Life Insurance Co., where he worked with retirement plans and marketing for a then upstart 529 group. After that, he spent about 15 years working as a third-party administrator before joining Retirement Plan Consultants eight years ago.

Today, he appears regularly on the retirement speaking circuit, discussing topics ranging from retirement consulting best practices to efforts in diversity, equity and inclusion in finance. But more important than that, Taylor says, is a mentality of always keeping his door—or to be more accurate, his LinkedIn messaging open—to people interested in the industry, particularly those of color who, like him, are coming to the space with little experience, but a desire to succeed.

“All I ask [mentees] in return is that, when they make it, they take the time to do what I’m doing,” he says. “When somebody comes to you, a young person—help them. Pay it forward. That’s it.”

When it comes to the bigger picture of diversity in financial services, Taylor says there is a lot of work to be done. He notes that what had been a strong push toward DEI in the space a few years ago has died down a bit recently. That makes it even more important for corporations, and people, to make connections between individuals of color who are interested in finance.

“I believe we need to be honest and transparent about what is going on,” he says. “I think my transparency and my honestness is what brings people to me. … I’m not necessarily that person who will get up first at the party and start singing and dancing to get things going. But I’m always ready to answer a question or step aside with someone to sit down and have an honest conversation.”