AFA launches female advice award

The Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) has launched its Female Excellence in Advice award, which the association said would address gender inequity within the industry and encourage women to get involved in the leadership of the profession.

In his speech at the launch, the AFA chief executive Richard Klipin said women were more likely then men to have inadequate savings in retirement, were paid less then their male counterparts, and that Australia as a community was “underinsured, under-advised and under-saved”.

“And when you look behind those statistics, when you look at the issues around women and their experience, the numbers are even starker,” Klipin said.

“This award is about addressing these real issues, about leading the debate, it’s about recognising excellence in advice practices and it’s about giving successful women in advice a platform to share, to learn and to collaborate,” he added.

Professor Honourable Jennifer Boland had launched the award, which was co-sponsored by Tower Australia and Macquarie Graduate School of Management.

AFA’s political strategist and former New South Wales opposition leader, Kerry Chikarovski, is the patron of the new award – while the association’s GenXt chair Sarah Riegelhuth will be the spokesperson.

The launch of the Female Excellence in Advice award was announced at the AFA National Conference last October, where it received a mixed response.

Klipin said the award was not about giving a group of advisers “special treatment” or trying to “separate men from women”, but rather about bridging the gap and fighting for gender equality within the industry.

Nominations are now open on the AFA’s website and the award will be presented at the next AFA National Conference in October this year.