New data suggest that while more younger women are entering the wealth management field, overall women remain significantly underrepresented in revenue-generating and executive roles tied to client relationships and key strategic decisions.
Research from FINTRX, a data and research firm for asset managers and other investment professionals, from its Women in Wealth Management 2026 report notes that opportunities are plentiful for the wealth management universe to address the disparity.
“While it’s encouraging to see that more younger women are entering wealth management, it’s also clear that women remain underrepresented in producing advisor seats and in the most senior executive roles, so there is still meaningful ground to cover,” said Emily Goldman, VP of data research for FINTRX and co-author of the report.
Key findings from the report include:
- 37.6% of wealth management professionals in the 20-30 age group are women, vs. one-fifth to over one-quarter in older age cohorts.
- Only about 20% of producing advisors are women, illustrating a persistent gap in core revenue-generating roles tied directly to client acquisition and retention. FINTRX defines a producing advisor as a client-facing professional responsible for managing relationships and generating revenue.
- Women account for 26.5% of producing advisors with fewer than five years of tenure.
- Women skew younger across the industry, with a median age of 42 versus 47 for men. Among producing advisors, the median age is 47 for women and 52 for men.
- C-level leadership remains male-dominated, particularly in CEO and CIO roles, even as women show stronger representation in COO and CFO positions.
“Across age, tenure and firm type, women are still underrepresented where revenue and long-term decisions are made,” Goldman said. “That said, more women are voting with their feet — starting firms and using independence as a way to claim ownership of both the client relationship and the economics — even if parity in producing and senior leadership roles is still a work in progress.”
The findings, using FINTRX data on more than 500,000 registered representatives across independent RIAs, wirehouses and broker-dealers in the U.S., also show a growing number of women leaving larger institutions to launch independent RIAs in pursuit of greater control, ownership and flexibility.
“The pipeline of female talent is growing, but the transition into revenue-generating advisory roles and executive leadership remains uneven,” the report notes. “How effectively firms support advancement into these positions will likely determine the pace of gender parity across the industry over the next decade.”
