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Financial Advisor

Creating financial plans that make money grow

Becoming a Financial Advisor can be the ticket to a well-paying job with growth potential. Learn how to get your foot in the door of this in-demand career from Financial Advisor Trevor Cummings.
Becoming a financial advisor can be the ticket to a well-paying job with growth potential. Financial advisors are compensated by building a book of clients, and then looking after their clients’ financial plans. The job entails making adjustments to investments and savings to make sure their financial plan lines up with their objectives and goals.

Want a job that combines your business acumen, helping others and desire for a great paycheck? Consider becoming a Financial Advisor.

Financial Advisors are professionals who work closely with their clients to help achieve their monetary goals. The job requires an interest in all things money related and a strong sense of empathy and care for your clients.

Financial Advisor Trevor Cummings with a client.
Trevor works closely with clients to ensure their finances remain healthy. Photo – WorkingNation

The star of our video, Trevor Cummings, is a Financial Advisor at The Bahnsen Group. He received his bachelor’s degree in Organizational Leadership from Biola University and his MBA in Finance (Master’s of Business Administration) from California State University Fullerton.

Trevor enjoys the relationships and trust building element of his job and feels the most pride when he sees his clients succeed in their financial dreams.

There is no better time than now to become a Financial Advisor. The U.S. Department of Labor projects 15 percent job growth in the career by 2026, much faster than average. You can work in any state, and the median pay is $90,000.

Here are four steps to become a Financial Advisor:
Understand the Financial Advising Role

No matter the specialization, all financial advisors work to accomplish the same thing — helping clients manage and grow their finances. Effective money management is every client’s priority, so the job comes with a lot of responsibility. Every day will be different, but you always want to make your client happy at the end of the day. When your client sees returns on their investments, so will you.

Get a Degree

A bachelor’s degree is required to be a financial advisor. Majors in finance, economics, and business are common but not necessary. Many financial advisors also obtain an MBA.

Get the Right Experience

There are multiple ways to obtain experience as a financial advisor. The best avenue is through an internship with financial firms. Internships provide training and a better understanding of the job. Another route is in retail banking.

Secure Certificates & Licenses

Not all financial advising services require certificates or licenses. Once you land an entry-level job, the particular field you work in and at what level of service you provide clients is the indicator of what certificates and licenses are required. To obtain these will require time, coursework, exams, and continued education.

Want more information on how to become a financial advisor?
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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.