FEATURES
SPECIAL REPORT DAMIENNE LEBRUN-REID Director, standards and enforcement Financial Planning Standards Council Years in the industry: 8
After being called to the bar in 2002, Damienne LebrunReid began focusing on professional regulation and oversight in financial services in 2009. After a stint with the Law Society of Upper Canada, she joined the FPSC as director of standards and enforcement in 2014. In that position, LebrunReid has observed female representation in wealth management improve, but she says the business is still very much maledominated. “In 2016, approximately 30% of CFP professionals in Canada were female, and approximately 37% of FPSC Level 1 certificants
were female,” she says. “Contrast this with the fact that in 2016, approximately 51% of the Canadian population was female, and you can clearly see a disparity.” In her opinion, this isn’t merely a problem for the advisory business. “The concern that women are under-represented is not limited to financial planning professionals or the wealth management industry,” Lebrun-Reid says. “In general, women are under-represented in professional practices. Even where entry levels are approximately equal, women tend to leave professional practice earlier in their careers than men do and are less frequently promoted to senior positions.” As history has proven, the most powerful factor in driving equality is education. For that reason, the number of female advisors now seeking accreditation at the FPSC is reason for optimism. “The higher percentage of female FPSC Level 1 certificants, as compared to CFP professionals, is encouraging,” Lebrun-Reid says. “It may indicate an increase in the number of opportunities for women in the wealth management industry and demonstrate that more women are seeking a career in financial planning.”
“The women of this industry have long since swept the remaining shards of the proverbial glass ceiling into history’s trash bin”
JENNIFER LEMIEUX Vice-president and branch manager RBC Dominion Securities Years in the industry: 20
In addition to her position as VP and branch manager at RBC Dominion Securities, Jennifer Lemieux serves as co-chair of the Women’s Advisory Board and co-head of diversity and inclusion at the firm. Not
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surprisingly, she has plenty of ideas about why women haven’t achieved gender parity in the wealth management industry. “RBC Wealth Management’s Women and Wealth Transfer Report illustrated that we as women tend to prioritize ourselves last on our very long lists,” she says. “We expend our energy on the well-being of others. We know that we do this and that it often affects our own well-being – financially and personally.” This isn’t the only impediment to women prospering in the workplace; Lemieux describes a recent interaction with her six-year-old daughter that gave her great insight as to why some professions are still male-dominated. “We were sitting on her bed sharing the best parts of our day together, and the topic of what she wanted to do when she grew up was mentioned,” Lemieux says. “She
loves to bake; when the career of a chef or baker didn’t make her list, I asked her why. I almost fell off the bed when she told me, ‘Only boys are chefs, Mommy.’ She had never seen a woman chef or baker – not on TV, the movies or in real life yet. She needed to see that it was possible for girls to become bakers in order to see herself in that role one day.” The same can be said for financial advisors or executives at major firms. “How many phenomenal women have overlooked this incredible career path because they didn’t have the role models to show them it was possible?” Lemieux says. “Fortunately, those days are over. There are now women working at every level in the financial industry. The women of this industry have long since swept the last remaining shards of the proverbial glass ceiling into history’s trash bin.”
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