Meet the Advisors: The Financial Experts Championing Women’s Financial Futures

Women now make the majority of household investment decisions, are set to inherit the largest share of the $84 trillion generational wealth transfer, and control a growing portion of total U.S. financial assets. The advisory profession serving them still looks very different. As of July 2025, only 23.9% of CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ professionals are women, according to CFP Board demographics. That gap matters — not as a statistic to cite and move on from, but as a real feature of the industry that shapes client experience.

Bouchey Financial Group has built its team and its Women and Wealth initiative around a different approach. The firm's women advisors — Harmony Wagner, CFP®, CPWA®, Samantha Masey, CFP®, and Catherine Buck, CFP® — are not a marketing feature. They are practicing planners who work with clients on the full range of financial decisions that matter: retirement income, tax strategy, estate planning, and the financial transitions that tend to arrive unannounced.

What Makes a Good Financial Advisor for Women

Women don't need different investment products. What research consistently shows is that the advisory relationship itself matters enormously, and women are more likely to leave that relationship if it doesn't deliver.

According to CFP Board's 2025 Building Wealth report, 99% of women surveyed said it is essential their financial planner find suitable solutions to their challenges and answer their questions effectively. Ninety-eight percent value a planner's ability to explain complex concepts clearly. These aren't unusual standards. They're the baseline of what a good advisor should do for anyone. The data reflects that women are more likely to articulate that standard explicitly and less likely to tolerate an advisory relationship that doesn't meet it.

The Life Stages That Require Real Planning Expertise

Good financial planning for women isn't primarily about gender. It's about the circumstances that shape financial decisions across a life. Those circumstances often include:

• Career transitions and gaps for caregiving, which affect Social Security calculations and retirement account accumulation
• Divorce, which involves asset division, beneficiary updates, and rebuilding independent financial structures
• Widowhood, where 70% of women change advisors within a year of a spouse's death, often because the prior relationship wasn't built around them
• Longer lifespans, which require retirement income strategies designed for a potentially longer distribution period
• Business ownership, where planning intersects with succession, liquidity, and exit strategy

An advisor who handles these situations well is doing comprehensive planning, not a specialized niche product. The difference is breadth and preparation.

Harmony Wagner, CFP®, CPWA®

Harmony Wagner is the Director of Financial Planning at Bouchey Financial Group and holds both the CFP® designation and the Certified Private Wealth Advisor® credential. The CPWA® is earned through the Investments and Wealth Institute and is designed specifically for advisors working with high-net-worth clients on complex planning needs: concentrated positions, tax efficiency, estate structures, and charitable giving.

Her work with clients spans the full planning picture. She has written publicly about financial planning for women, including a piece for the firm's Women and Wealth initiative on what she wants her daughters to know about managing money. That kind of perspective — drawn from both professional depth and lived experience — is exactly what the CFP Board's Advancing Women in Financial Planning research identifies as valuable in building client trust and confidence.

Samantha Masey, CFP®

Samantha Masey serves as a Wealth Advisor and Marketing Coordinator at Bouchey Financial Group. Her dual role reflects something the firm takes seriously: communication and client education are not separate from financial planning. They are part of it.

The OECD's research on women and financial education consistently finds that financial education alongside professional advice produces better long-term outcomes than advice alone. Understanding the reasoning behind a recommendation, not just receiving it, builds the kind of confidence that translates into better financial decisions over time. Samantha's involvement with Women and Wealth events reflects that orientation — building financial knowledge alongside building financial plans.

Catherine Buck, CFP®

Catherine Buck is a Wealth Advisor whose clients include individuals and families navigating complex financial transitions. Her work, alongside colleagues Scott Strohecker and others, has drawn strong client feedback specifically around clarity, responsiveness, and the ability to explain complicated planning decisions in terms that actually make sense.

The OECD's work on empowering women through financial awareness frames this directly: confidence in financial decision-making grows through trusted relationships with professionals who communicate clearly, not through clients becoming financial experts themselves. Catherine's approach reflects that premise.

Why the Team Around the Advisor Matters

A financial advisor is only as effective as the resources they can draw on. At Bouchey Financial Group, the 22-person advisory team includes 9 CFP® professionals, 3 CPAs, and 1 IRS Enrolled Agent. That combination means that when a client's retirement income decision has a tax implication, or when an estate plan needs to account for a business succession, the relevant expertise is in the same building and working on the same account.

For women navigating the financial aftermath of a divorce or building a retirement strategy after years of prioritizing a spouse's career, that coordination matters. Single-discipline advice — portfolio management with tax handled elsewhere and estate planning deferred to a separate attorney — produces gaps. Coordinated advice doesn't eliminate complexity, but it does mean someone is looking at the full picture.

Why the Profession Still Has Work to Do

Women make up roughly 26% of practicing financial advisors and 23.9% of CFP® professionals. Progress has been made. The pace has slowed. Among advisors with less than 10 years of experience, women represent nearly 30% of the workforce — so the pipeline is improving. But the overall composition of the industry reflects decades of male-dominated hiring and the compounding effect of advisors who stay in the profession for 30 or more years.

The CFP Board's Accelerate and WIN initiative is one of several organized efforts to change that. The initiative focuses on recruitment, mentorship, and leadership development for women entering the profession. Research from the CFP Board found something interesting: interest in financial planning as a career jumps from 38% to 65% among college women once they learn it's a human-focused profession built around relationships and life planning rather than trading and spreadsheets. The profession has a perception problem as much as a pipeline problem.

Mentorship Builds Better Advisors

The CFP Board's WIN-to-WIN mentorship program pairs aspiring women CFP® professionals with experienced mentors. The benefit isn't only to the mentee. Mentorship programs that create structured relationships between advisors at different career stages improve technical skill, ethical judgment, and client communication across the board.

Bouchey Financial Group's women advisors participate in that kind of mentorship at multiple levels: as practitioners who came up through the profession and as professionals who support the next generation. That orientation, being in the profession long enough to give back to it, is part of what defines the culture at the firm.

The Standard Worth Expecting

Clients who work with fee-only fiduciary advisors are working with professionals who are legally required to act in their interest. That is a structural protection. But structure alone doesn't produce a good advisory relationship. Communication does. Preparation does. The willingness to engage with a client's full financial picture, including the parts that are complicated and uncomfortable, does.

The women at Bouchey Financial Group work by that standard. So does the rest of the team. For women who want a planning relationship built on those terms, Bouchey Financial Group offers a free initial consultation. Contact the team directly to start the conversation, or explore recent Women and Wealth discussions through the firm's Webinars and Videos library.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do women need a female financial advisor? 

Research does not show that women require a female advisor to receive good financial planning. What research does show is that women are more likely to feel understood and stay in an advisory relationship when their planner communicates clearly, engages with their specific circumstances, and treats them as the primary decision-maker. A male advisor who does those things serves women well. A female advisor who doesn't is no different than any other advisor who doesn't.

What credentials should I look for when choosing a financial advisor? 

The CFP® designation requires a comprehensive financial planning curriculum, a board exam, 6,000 hours of professional experience, and ongoing continuing education. CFP® professionals are held to a fiduciary standard when providing financial planning services. The CPWA® credential, held by Harmony Wagner, indicates specialized training in planning for high-net-worth clients. In-house CPA credentials, like those on Bouchey Financial Group's team, add tax planning capacity that most advisory firms refer out.

What financial planning issues are most important during a divorce? 

Divorce requires dividing assets, updating beneficiary designations across retirement accounts, life insurance, and estate documents, reviewing tax filing status and withholding, and rebuilding an independent financial plan. Retirement account divisions must follow specific legal procedures to avoid tax penalties. The financial planning work involved is substantial and time-sensitive, which is why having an advisor with experience in this area is worth prioritizing.

How does the CFP Board support women in the financial planning profession? 

The CFP Board's Accelerate and WIN initiative focuses on recruitment, mentorship, and leadership development for women. The WIN-to-WIN mentorship program pairs aspiring women CFP® professionals with experienced mentors. The CFP Board also publishes research on workforce trends, compensation, and workplace practices affecting women's entry and retention in the profession.

Why does financial advisor diversity matter to clients? 

Advisors with diverse backgrounds and life experiences bring different perspectives to client relationships. For clients navigating caregiving, divorce, widowhood, or other transitions, an advisor who has encountered those circumstances professionally or personally is often better positioned to engage thoughtfully. Broader representation in the profession also improves mentorship pipelines and expands the range of clients who feel well-served.

What is the difference between a financial planner and a wealth advisor? 

The terms are sometimes used interchangeably. In practice, financial planning typically refers to the process of building a comprehensive plan covering retirement, taxes, estate, insurance, and goals. Wealth advising often includes investment management alongside financial planning. At Bouchey Financial Group, both functions are handled by the same advisory team, which means the financial plan and the investment portfolio are developed and managed in coordination rather than separately.

What life transitions benefit most from working with a financial advisor? 

Career changes and the gap years that sometimes accompany caregiving, divorce, widowhood, business ownership and eventual exit, receiving an inheritance, and transitioning into retirement are all moments where good financial advice has an outsized impact. These transitions tend to involve compressed timelines and decisions that compound over decades. Working with an advisor before and during those events, rather than after, is consistently where the most planning value is captured.