Over the past year, I’ve spoken with dozens of accomplished women—CEOs, entrepreneurs, philanthropists, business owners, and directors—about their experiences with wealth management. Their stories differ, but one theme appears again and again.
They aren’t asking for different investment strategies. They’re asking for better advice.
They want advisors who listen before speaking, explain before recommending, and treat them as individuals rather than assumptions.
Until recently, that sounded like anecdotal experience. Now we have compelling evidence that it reflects a broader challenge within our profession.
When Assumptions Replace Understanding
A recent American Economic Review[1] study examined nearly 27,000 real-world meetings between financial advisors and clients at a large European bank. Researchers found that women were less likely to receive fee rebates, more likely to be recommended higher-cost proprietary products, and more likely to pay higher ongoing fees than comparable men. Their central conclusion was even more revealing: advisors appeared to use gender as a proxy for financial sophistication, confidence, and price sensitivity.
This isn’t simply a story about women paying more. It’s a story about what happens when assumptions replace curiosity.
Why This Matters
Advice shapes outcomes. Assumptions influence which products are presented, how costs are explained, how much education is offered, and how confident clients feel participating in decisions. Small differences in fees compound over decades into meaningful differences in wealth.
Perhaps the most encouraging finding in the research was that when advisors were given objective information about a client’s financial knowledge, most of the gender differences largely disappeared. Once they understood the individual, they no longer relied on gender as a shortcut.
That is a lesson for every advisor: curiosity is better than assumption.
Better Advice, Not Different Advice
Women do not need a different investment philosophy. Diversification, tax efficiency, disciplined investing, and thoughtful planning benefit everyone.
What should change is the advisory process.
Exceptional advisors begin by asking questions, not making assumptions. They explain not only what they recommend but why. They make costs transparent. They help clients build confidence rather than dependence.
The best advice is collaborative, educational, and deeply personal.
A Higher Standard
Women control an unprecedented share of wealth and increasingly lead businesses, oversee family enterprises, manage complex equity compensation, and direct philanthropy. Their financial lives are sophisticated and deserve advice that reflects that sophistication.
This is ultimately not a women’s issue. It is a quality-of-advice issue.
The firms that will lead the next generation of wealth management will not simply market more effectively to women. They will seek to deliver a higher standard of advice to every client—one built on transparency, partnership, and genuine curiosity.
Because exceptional wealth management doesn’t begin with an investment recommendation. It begins the moment an advisor stops making assumptions and starts asking better questions.
And in the long run, the firms that succeed won’t simply build the smartest portfolios.
They will earn the deepest trust.
[1] Tabea Bucher-Koenen, Andreas Hackethal, Johannes Koenen and Christine Laudenbach, “Gender Differences in Financial Advice,” American Economic Review, Vol. 115, No. 12 (2025), https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20211024