IBD Elite's women-advisor ranking gives breakaway teams a culture benchmark

In a field where fewer than one in four certified financial planners is a woman, an independent brokerage whose advisor base is 25% female is ahead of its peers — the benchmark set by Financial Planning's 2026 IBD Elite study, which published its ranking of the independent brokerages with the largest share of women advisors on Aug. 26. The top 10 includes LaSalle St. Securities, Kovack Financial Network, Independent Financial Group, J.W. Cole Financial, Osaic and Centaurus Financial — firms that, as Financial Planning notes, are hiring, retaining and advancing more women than their rivals across the midsize and giant brackets.

For an advisor weighing a move, the list is a rare public culture benchmark, because recruiting pitches run on transition packages, payout grids and equity while culture is harder to quantify and easier to be sold than to verify. A firm's gender composition is a concrete data point about whether a platform can attract and keep women advisors — and, by extension, how seriously it treats team-building. Because the ranking measures concentration rather than headcount, a focused mid-size firm can outrank a much larger one, which tells a breakaway team something about where the platform actually invests its recruiting effort. The list will not answer every question about a firm's culture, but it belongs in the diligence folder alongside payout grids and contract terms.

The picture the list exposes is still mixed: Financial Planning describes an industry with both an unprecedented rate of women entering and launching RIAs and a stark lack of representation that dates back to the broker channel's 'old boys club' legacy. Vanessa Martinez, CEO and founder of Chicago-based RIA Expressive Wealth and a co-founder of the SER Summit for Latinos in Financial Services, told the outlet she has watched an 'intentional push toward bringing in more women' fade in recent years. She also pointed to what works: dedicated recruiting programs aimed at women, many of them focused on career changers, plus women-focused events and business initiatives around career opportunities. Her broader argument is that the industry should be telling women the advisor's chair is their space, not steering them toward compliance, marketing and client service — and as the wealth transfer proceeds, the profession will naturally become more reflective of the country's demographics.

Osaic's appearance on the list lands in a busy stretch, per WAD's records, with two team liftouts since July and a Solo 401(k) expansion with Betterment. For the firm's recruiters, the ranking supplies an answer to the culture question before it gets asked; for an advisor negotiating an affiliation, it supplies a number to demand from every platform, and that number is part of the real economics of a move.