In a field in which fewer than a quarter of certified financial planners are women, a wealth management firm with a base of financial advisors that is 25% female is ahead of its peers.
To be sure, the companies that made the top 10 list below of the independent brokerages with the largest concentration of women among advisors, as drawn from Financial Planning's 2026 IBD Elite study, still fall well short of reflecting the share of women in the U.S. population. However, midsize and giant independent brokerages on the list — such as LaSalle St. Securities, Kovack Financial Network, Independent Financial Group, J.W. Cole Financial, Osaic and Centaurus Financial — are hiring, retaining and advancing more women than their rivals.
That mixed picture mirrors an industry that features both an unprecedented rate of women entering and launching registered investment advisory firms and a stark lack of representation dating back to brokers' traditional legacy as an "old boys club."
Veteran advisors like Vanessa Martinez, the CEO and founder of Chicago-based RIA firm Expressive Wealth and a co-founder of the SER Summit for Latinos in Financial Services, have seen "an intentional push toward bringing in more women" fade away in recent years, she said. However, she has also taken part in and observed successful, lasting efforts in the industry that are helping to boost women's careers and professional networks.
"I will say that there are very intentional groups that are doing specific recruiting just for women in the industry, and a lot of [them] have focused just on career changers, which I think is phenomenal for our industry," Martinez said.
Beyond women-focused events for advisors and business-oriented efforts focused on career opportunities and client marketing, the industry and its professionals could bring "a bigger shift" in the sobering statistics by explaining how there is so much more involved with planning than numbers and sales, she said. Many women may have received real or implied messages that they should stick to areas like compliance, marketing and client service while being told that the job of advisor is "not your space," according to Martinez, suggesting that the industry should be doing the opposite.
"Then there's nobody there telling you not to be an advisor," she said. "As the transfer of wealth continues to happen, it will naturally evolve that it will become more reflective of the true demographics."
Scroll down the page for the top 10 firms on Financial Planning's IBD Elite rankings with the highest percentage of women among financial advisors. Click here to see last year's list.
And follow these links to find other features from Financial Planning's 2026 IBD Elite study:
- The cryptic costs of clearing and custody for advisors
- Printable PDF of FP's 2026 IBD Elite rankings
- Deep dive into independent wealth manager data
- 5 independent brokerage executives on clearing and custody
- The 15 largest independent brokerages in wealth management
Notes: The companies are ranked below by the rounded percentage of financial advisors who are women as of year-end 2025, as reported by the companies themselves. Financial Planning relies on each firm to state their metrics accurately. Out of the 37 participating companies in the IBD Elite study, 19 shared no data on the number of female advisors. The industry term "producing registered representative" refers to each firm's most accurate count of financial advisors using the firm as their brokerage or RIA. "Registered representative" refers to a usually larger group of all licensed professionals.
