Adviser rewarded for proactive mentoring of women
A proactive commitment to effectively mentoring women throughout their careers in the financial advice sector has seen Wealthwise founder and principal, Jamie Luxton, take out the Mentor of the Year title.
Having a supportive and proactive mentor can make all the difference in encouraging women to both enter and advance within the financial services industry, and the judges believed that Luxton excelled at providing this guidance.
Luxton has proactively mentored women at various stages of their careers, with one financial adviser wrote in a letter supporting his nomination that his “absolute belief” in and support of her from the outset helped her form her career as a financial planner.
He has shown a strong desire to address the challenges women face in the industry, particularly those with young children, and has mentored women facing those barriers as well as shaping Wealthwise as a place of employment to better address those issues.
“Jamie does not pretend to know what it is like for a woman in this industry,” his nominator, senior financial adviser at Wealthwise, Dawn Thomas, said.
“When he is approached with challenges that may be felt by female staff members or clients, his first response is acknowledging how we feel. This act of not sweeping it under the rug, acknowledging the issue and then allowing it to be solved, is a pivotal way for women to feel safe to speak up.”
This is something that Luxton himself sees as his responsibility as a man working in the industry.
He has noticed that women he has mentored often respond well to having encouragement and feedback at least at the earlier stages of their careers, perhaps needing it more than their male counterparts. Through mentoring, he can help them better deal with some of those insecurities and put them into perspective.
Luxton also finds that as women advance through their career, the workplace as a whole improves.
“The positive side to being in that mentoring position and with a supportive environment, is that women then tend to be more loyal, supportive and empathetic – which tends then to lift those qualities in their male team members,” he says.
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