Wall Street’s new version of the gold watch

It seems that times are so good for top women in the financial advice business that some of them no longer have to bother with work — or so we’re led to believe.

It seems that times are so good for top women in the financial advice business that some of them no longer have to bother with work — or so we’re led to believe.
Consider the experiences of two of the most prominent women in the industry, Deborah D. McWhinney, until recently president of San Francisco-based Schwab Institutional, and M. Shawn Dreffein, ex-CEO of National Planning Corp. of Santa Monica, Calif.
Last month, Ms. McWhinney, 52, and Ms. Dreffein, 51, both at the top of their games and earning power, decided that crawling out of bed early in the morning and making lots of money simply wasn’t worth it anymore. Both abruptly said they were retiring.
(Guys, isn’t it just like a woman who is fabulously successful — especially in a business that appears at industry get-togethers to be only slightly less male than the National Football League — to walk away from it all? Dames. They’re so fickle.)
How could Ms. McWhinney and Ms. Dreffein do this to the securities industry, which for more than a decade has been trying to be more welcoming to women?
In some ways, the industry appears to be making strides. A 2005 survey prepared for the Securities Industry Association by Catalyst Inc. of New York found that women accounted for 44% of the securities industry’s work force, up from 37% in 2003 and 41% in 2001.
Yet females represent a far smaller percentage of registered reps.
According to a recent article in Research Magazine, some experts estimate that women constitute only 16% to 18% of the brokers in the United States. Others say the real figure is much lower, the magazine reported.
That’s odd, because everyone knows that Wall Street long has been noted for its distinctive treatment of women.
Remember the male brokers who used to party in the “Boom-Boom Room” at the old Smith Barney branch in Garden City, N.Y.? Sure, there were strippers and booze, but hey, that was back in the 1990s, and everybody forgets what good tippers those brokers were.
Instead, all people talk about are claims of harassment by killjoy female brokers and millions of dollars in settlements, not only at such fun places as Smith Barney but at firms such as Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. and Morgan Stanley.
Now top female executives, who aren’t even brokers, are deciding to bail.
Of course, there are the doubters who aren’t buying Ms. Dreffein’s and Ms. McWhinney’s assertions that they want to spend the rest of their life doing fun stuff such as fishing, shopping and going into politics.
The cynics believe that the two women got the squeeze, caught in the pincers of one of those internal company squabbles in which female executives conveniently become the fall guys.
Schwab honchos didn’t exactly douse the cynicism when it kept Ms. McWhinney away from a reporter’s telephone calls and did not allow her to answer questions about her “retirement” (InvestmentNews, May 28).
Ms. Dreffein, who remains in charge of broker-dealer network National Planning Holdings Inc. until it finds a replacement, stressed that her “retirement” was “a strictly personal decision.”
One rep said such language was hogwash.
“I find it really remarkable that at the young age of 50, senior female executives are being treated this way. This is the kind of blatant crap that’s remarkable because it’s going on in this day and age,” said the female adviser at a major independent-
contractor broker-dealer, who asked not to be identified.
“It’s still OK to wipe women out, and no one sees anything wrong with that,” the adviser said. “Retiring at 50 is a euphemism for being pushed out.”
Another industry observer also remains puzzled by the circumstances around the recent “retirements.” “Usually, retirement is planned, and there’s a big party,” Kevin Timmerman, president of Steele Capital Management Inc. in Dubuque, Iowa, said after Ms. McWhinney left Schwab.
Maybe “retirement” is the new reward for female financial executives who have toughed out the industry’s machismo and broken through the glass ceiling.
Some reward.