Leadership and mentoring programs needed
More mentoring and leadership programs for women are needed in the financial services industry to encourage them to step into board and executive roles, former Association of Financial Advisers national president, Deborah Kent, believes.
The winner of Money Management, Super Review, and FST Media's Woman of the Year award said more initiatives were required in smaller advice practices to encourage women to step out of the background of administration and paraplanner roles and to help them progress as advisers.
"I think the only way we're going to do that is have female role models out there who can encourage them. This is how everyone learns, they learn through a mentor," Kent said.
"We all go through difficult times and we all find it hard to step out, but if we have people that can mentor us and get behind us I think that's something we need to do."
On her win, Kent said she was proud of being able to use her position as president over the last two years to help drive professionalism in the industry, and the launch of AFA Inspire in 2013 to drive more women to become financial advisers.
Former Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) chief executive, and winner of the Super Executive of the Year award, Pauline Vamos, said the highlight of her year was the ability for the association to convince the government that it was important to change the tax system and that it was important to preserve the benefits for lower income earners.
"ASFA's role was to ensure that public policy that is developed around super puts the member first, front, and centre. At this time when there are so many issues across the industry, we need it to be front and centre and I've been leading that, and I'm proud of that and the ASFA team," she said.
Vamos said the greatest challenge the super industry faced was not being able to keep promises to members as it could risk the community to lose faith in the system.
She noted that the opportunities the industry needed to give were to women around leadership opportunities.
"Women need that support to be instilled and this is where the industry needs to take those steps," Vamos said.
"It often will not happen naturally. We need to ensure they get the opportunity to get the right courses at the right time so they can really take on those leadership roles."
This year's Mentor of the Year award winner, Elixir Consulting business coach, Lana Clark, said winning the award was very important for the industry.
Clark said her greatest achievement was finding the time to make sure she helped people along their career paths.
"[We need] to make sure it doesn't take them 30 years to get to where they need to go. I think we're behind the eight ball as women but there are some fantastic women coming through this industry," she said.
"If I can reach one of those people and get them to where they need to go then I've done my job."
Clark noted that the biggest challenge for women in the financial services industry was "self-belief, really standing up and wanting to make a difference, and not being afraid to take the place at the table".
The video below features what the winner of the Superannuation Executive of the Year award, Pauline Vamos, believes were her greatest achievements of 2016.
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