How women are changing wealth management

Around the world, a quiet shift is underway: more women are building, inheriting and controlling wealth than ever before. In recent years, while overall financial wealth has grown, albeit unevenly, the share held by women has increased at an even faster pace. Between 2018 and 2023, women’s wealth rose by 51%, compared with a 43% rise globally.

It’s an evolution that reflects not only greater participation in the workforce and business ownership but also changing societal norms around wealth and independence. Still, women continue to hold a smaller slice of total global wealth, a reminder that this progress, though real, begins from a long-standing imbalance. What’s emerging now is a more complex, more inclusive picture of who holds wealth and how that wealth is managed.

“Women are creating wealth for themselves at a faster rate than at any point in history,” says Dina de Angelo, a Managing Director at Pictet Wealth Management. “There are more women in the workforce, more women climbing the corporate ladder and more women entering the entrepreneurial space to launch successful businesses than ever before.”

Meeting women’s needs

Wealth managers and financial advisers are increasingly adapting to the needs of a growing and evolving client base, spanning women from a wide range of backgrounds, generations, industries and cultures. Their financial goals, investment strategies and risk appetites vary widely depending on their circumstances, from first-generation entrepreneurs and senior executives to inheritors navigating inter-generational transitions. “There are some ill-conceived stereotypes about women investors – that they’re more risk averse, for example – but there are definitely differences,” de Angelo adds. “For example, women are often more curious – they want to really understand their portfolios and the companies in them, including how those businesses are run.”

Many of the women we work with are highly detail-oriented and committed to taking more responsibility, not just for their personal investments, but also when it comes to decision-making in family businesses

An Hui Ling, Market Head, Pictet Wealth Management Asia

Women everywhere are making similar requests. In Asia, for example, An Hui Ling, a Market Head at Pictet Wealth Management Asia observes a growing appetite among female clients to take a more active role in financial decision-making. “Many of the women we work with are highly detail-oriented and committed to taking more responsibility, not just for their personal investments, but also when it comes to decision-making in family businesses,” says An Hui Ling.

The wealth management sector is starting to take account of such nuances in two different ways, says Christine Yu, co-founder of Sophia, a financial education provider focused on helping women. “It's partly about how we listen to women's needs better across the entire lifecycle,” she explains. “For example, pre-marriage, women are accumulating wealth and need support to deploy their capital, but later on, they may need a different type of help if they experience, say, divorce or widowhood.”

For example, pre-marriage, women are accumulating wealth and need support to deploy their capital, but later on, they may need a different type of help if they experience, say, divorce or widowhood

Christine Yu, Co-founder, Sophia

“The second part is about how we move past those cliches around risk aversion to really engage with women,” Yu adds. “How do we draw them in?” Sophia’s research suggests, for example, that women investors are particularly likely to be turned off by financial jargon. It also shows they are inspired by the success of other female investors and entrepreneurs.

Investment with purpose

Research suggests many women are particularly interested in investment performance that goes beyond financial return, especially in areas such as sustainability, corporate ethics and long-term societal impact. Whether motivated by climate concerns or a desire for social equity or corporate accountability, more women are seeking ways to align their portfolios with their values. “Women are often very conscious of their responsibility to the next generation and they’re keen to ensure their portfolios align, over the long term, with their values,” adds Pictet’s de Angelo.

Pictet’s An Hui Ling has observed something similar in Asia. “Women are more receptive to wealth planning structures and strategies that reflect their intentions to provide for the next generations,” she says.

You can generate profits and returns while also making the world a better place, it’s not trading off one or the other

Claudia Ukonu, Growth Lead, UpLink

Yet it would be a mistake to assume women investors are less interested in financial returns. “One thing we're trying to demonstrate with the female investors and business founders that we're working with is that you can generate profits and returns while also making the world a better place,” says Claudia Ukonu, Growth Lead, UpLink at the World Economic Forum. “It's not trading off one or the other.”

Ukonu runs the Investor Community at WEF’s UpLink programme, which engages investors such as family offices and high-net-worth individuals with early-stage sustainability-focused businesses that need capital to grow. Encouragingly, Ukonu says, UpLink now works with more women on both sides of the table – even in many of the traditionally male-dominated heavy industries where sustainability initiatives are now aiming to drive decarbonisation.

“Having more women in those senior roles – and in senior roles in the financial services sector, too – is going to have a significant impact,” Ukonu adds. “We’re already seeing greater diversity among the investors we work with, and that will naturally lead to greater diversity in how and where capital is deployed.”

It’s a critical point. As women’s financial influence continues to grow, so does the opportunity – and responsibility – to serve them in ways that reflect their goals, values and lived realities. The gender wealth gap remains vast: data from Oxfam estimates that men still hold $105trn more in wealth than women globally. Closing that gap isn’t just a matter of equity, it’s an invitation to rethink how wealth is managed and who gets to shape the future.