Sallie Krawcheck Had a Few Things to Say About Women, Younger People, and the Finance Industry

Yesterday, Sallie Krawcheck had a few things to say about the wealth management industry. Krawcheck has had an extensive work history in finance and previously had been voted one of “The World’s 100 Most Powerful Women” by Forbes in 2005. She recently was ousted from Bank of America in September as the company claimed it was part of a “restructuring”.  According to “Wall Street needs women, younger clients to compete: Krawcheck” by Suzanne Barlyn and Ashley Lau, Krawcheck placed her comments on the subject of women and young people:

“The securities industry ‘doesn’t do a great job for women or being appropriate’ for the next generation, said Sallie Krawcheck”

On young people:

“Indeed, becoming more relevant to a younger generation of prospective clients and building more diverse teams of advisers are among the changes Wall Street will have to make to compete in the future”

“Younger prospective clients have become skeptical of the industry through press images of advisers being untrustworthy and repeated messages to avoid the markets”

On women:

“Our industry does not do a great job for women… We do have large groups of people – women – who are underserved by our business”

In reference to her visit to Harvard Business School last week, “where she spoke to a group of young women interested in pursuing careers in the field”

“I kept wanting to say, ‘I’m sorry – I felt sort of sad that, when I was your age I really wouldn’t have thought that 25 years on, that we wouldn’t have made more progress than we’ve made”

The way to move an industry forward is to focus on the clients that can become long-term. Her comments about the industry needing to become “relevant” to younger people and “building diverse teams” is sensible considering the younger generation has more room to grow and diverse teams appeal to diverse consumers. Her comments on women are a reflection of the reality of them in the finance industry. When Krawcheck left Bank of America, within the same week, two other female executives were ousted from their companies. There may have been valid reasons for their ousting, but the loss of a few female executives makes such a gigantic impact because there are few female executives to begin with.

There’s nothing more telling than an experienced woman of the finance industry feeling the need to apologize to women who have yet to the enter it.