We're barely two months into 2023 and the
There is simply too much young, diverse talent trying to break into the industry and make an impact.
"In terms of applicants this year, we had just about 200 applicants for the Dec. 31 deadline. And that actually caused us to extend the firm application deadline to Jan. 31 because we just had an overwhelming amount of people apply," BLX Internship Program co-founder Luis Rosa told Financial Planning. "It just shows the amount of interest there is in the Black and Latinx community to become part of the profession overall."
Born in the wake of George Floyd's murder and in the spirit of the Black Lives Matter movement, the BLatinX Internship Program was
Known as BLX for short, the organization's goal is to provide an opportunity for underrepresented financial planners to secure internships at fee-only financial planning firms. But as Rosa said, that's easier said than done as the number of applicants ticks up year after year.
"Unfortunately, we won't be able to place every applicant because we just don't have that many firms. And that tends to be the case. We may end up having 35 or 40 slots," he said. "The way it's looking with the number of applications, even if half are qualified applicants, we're still only able to place about a third or so of the qualified applicants."
No matter how difficult, BLX leaders say it's essential to do everything they can to place Black and Hispanic college students, recent graduates or career-changers in a position to win. According to the latest U.S. Census data, the country is 13.6% Black and 18.9% Hispanic. But certified financial planners are still just 1.9% Black and 2.9% Hispanic,
Rosa said part of BLX's work is spreading the word and finding partners who share their vision. In 2022, BLX aimed to level the playing field by
The organization also launched the
And in 2023, Rosa said BLX is following up having a presence at this month's
As BLX prepares for another busy year, Rosa caught up with Financial Planning to talk about what's next for his team and why it is critical that more firms step up to accommodate the future pros looking to change the complexion of industry in more ways than one.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Financial Planning: With so many applicants and not enough spots, how is BLX trying to fill the gaps.
Luis Rosa: We're doing a lot on the education front and just creating more opportunities wherever we can. So to give you an example, we have created an opportunity to provide those applicants that don't get matched with other chances to learn and perhaps placed themselves in a better position to build their resume.
One of the things we're going to be doing is providing scholarships to the
FP: While having too many applicants is a problem, it is a good one to have if the mission is to get more diverse folks through the door. How does it feel to have that overflow of people who are interested in being a part of the program?
LR: It's exciting. I'm also very glad to see that there's a lot of interest, not only from the financial planning firm side, but also from companies that are in the fintech space or wealthtech space that could potentially end up taking some applicants themselves.
We kind of expanded the program this year as well. We were going to roll it out next year officially, but because of the overwhelming amount, we're open to firms that are also in the business of servicing advisors that might want to take on applicants, because in reality, not everyone wants to necessarily be a financial planner. And the goal is to increase the overall access and diversity within the industry itself. So if somebody ends up working in compliance or with a software vendor of some sort, that's great, too.
We will be working with some of our sponsors like Schwab, for example, to see if they might potentially take on some interns themselves. So not only are there sponsors, but they also provide opportunities. eMoney also continues to provide access to their software and their certification program online to all of the interns as well. So there are lots of opportunities there for interns to not only get placed, but also just beef up their resume, learn and place themselves in a different position than they were beforehand.
We're also in the process of continuing to talk to other companies like Envestnet, for example. We recently spoke with them. They have a
FP: Something new for BLX in 2022 was the podcast. How has that been going, and what do you have planned for this year?
LR: Thanks for asking. It has been great. When we launched it, we kind of did so in seasons like Netflix. So it was eight episodes in one shot.
This year, we expect to probably do more than just eight because we want to continue to invite people in the industry that are making a lot of progress in the diversity space and highlight what they're doing. People from different parts of the industry overall. So that's been going very well. We got a lot of great feedback and people have been listening.
I kind of wish I could do it even more often. But you know, because we all have our own firms to run, we're limited in time. But we're going to be starting season two of the
And then we recently created an ambassador program, so we have several people from the industry that have a good social media following that are very involved in helping put the message out there as well and expand our voice.
