Cathy Curtis to women advisors: start your own RIAs

Cathy Curtis spent 20 years in packaged-food sales and marketing management before she started her own RIA in 2001. Her advice to women advisors: don't wait that long. On Nov. 5, the Oakland, Calif., founder of Curtis Financial Planning will make that case at InvestmentNews' Women Advisor Summit in New York, where she joins AE Wealth Management president Shannon Larson for a fireside chat on building a career the 'long game' way, according to InvestmentNews. The conversation will center on leadership, resilience, and building a meaningful career over the long term.

InvestmentNews named Curtis a Woman to Watch in 2020. She told the publication she deliberately marketed to a female clientele when few advisors did, and says the move 'really paid off.' Her summit pitch is blunt: women should be lead advisors rather than support staff, and they shouldn't be afraid to start their own RIAs. 'It's an industry where you can become an independent business person and really thrive,' she said.

The argument runs into a stubborn statistic. Women are 26% of practicing advisors, according to industry research cited by InvestmentNews. At broker-dealers, the share is about 31%. At wirehouses, it is 30.6%. Hybrid advisors sit near 25%. RIAs trail the other channels.

That ordering gives Curtis's pitch a pointed logic: she is pushing women toward the part of the industry where they are least represented. Her own career is the case study. She arrived from an unrelated field, built a niche practice for a clientele other advisors overlooked, and became the lead advisor and owner. The 'long game' she describes — packaged-food executive, solo RIA founder, summit speaker — is the model she sells. Two decades after starting her firm, she is the one on stage telling other women to do it sooner.