Ladenburg Launches LIFT University Gender Diversity Program

Ladenburg Thalmann, which owns and operates the advisory and brokerage subsidiaries Securities America, Triad Advisors, Investacorp, KMS Financial Services, and Securities Service Network, announced the launch of a new recruiting and training program aimed at developing more female advisers.

The program is known as LIFT University and is aimed at encouraging women in college to learn about and enter the financial adviser profession. The program was launched at the Ladenburg Institute of Women and Finance’s Annual Symposium.

As the firm explains, the Ladenburg Institute of Women and Finance was established specifically to raise the representation of women advisers in the industry, and to help promote their professional success through business coaching, mentorship and the sharing of best practices between experienced female advisers.

According to Ladenburg, the first iteration of the program has already enabled 10 female college students with expressed interest in the field to meet with experienced female adviser mentors. The students and mentors will remain in contact to help guide the students towards future opportunities in the financial advice industry.

Moving forward, Ladenburg will be actively looking at colleges and universities with strong certified financial planner (CFP) programs as direct sources for new potential advisory talent, “rather than focusing solely on trying to recruit away younger advisers from the wirehouse or captive broker/dealer [B/D] space sometime after they have completed wirehouse/captive B/D training programs.”

Industry data shows fewer than one in five financial advisers in the U.S. are women. When one considers the professional fields that intersect with the financial and retirement advisory space the problem is thrown into sharper relief; fully 52% of accountants are women and 32% of attorneys are women.