Here Are America’s Top 100 Women Financial Advisors. Our Ranking Turns 20.

Dozens of women have repeatedly made our list over the past two decades. It’s a testament to the overall excellence of the advisors we highlight each year.

(Illustration by Janne Iivonen)

The publication of this year’s Top 100 Women Financial Advisors special section marks the 20 th edition of this Barron’s ranking—and only a handful of advisors can say, “I was there at the beginning.”

A mere four women have been ranked in the Top 100 Women every year since the list’s inception: Susan Kaplan of Kaplan Financial Services in Newton, Mass. (ranked No. 4 this year); Debra Brede of D.K. Brede Investment Management in Needham, Mass. (No. 21); Debbie Jorgensen of Merrill Wealth Management in San Francisco (No. 28); and Sharon Oberlander of Merrill in Chicago (No. 45).

Another eight advisors from this year’s Top 100 Women also appeared in the 2006 edition and have been ranked multiple times since: Kathleen Roeser of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management in Deerfield, Ill. (who has been in 19 of the 20 rankings); Dalal Salomon of Salomon & Ludwin in Richmond, Va. (in 18 rankings); Patti Brennan of Key Financial in West Chester, Pa. (18); Emily Bach of Morgan Stanley in Orinda, Calif. (18); Susan Kingsolver of Morgan Stanley in New York (17); Lori Van Dusen of LVW Advisors in Pittsford, N.Y. (15); Kimberley Hatchett of Morgan Stanley in New York (11); and Ann Marie Etergino of RBC Wealth Management in Chevy Chase, Md. (11).

This is more than statistical trivia. The best advisors are those who are able to sustain excellence over time. A consistent presence in our ranking speaks to an ability to retain existing clients while adding new ones at a pace that compares favorably with peers. To highlight these advisors, Barron’s created a Hall of Fame six years ago, featuring advisors (male and female) who have appeared in one of the following rankings for at least 10 years: Top 100 Women Financial Advisors, Top 100 Independent Advisors, and Top 100 Financial Advisors. The Hall of Fame features 77 women advisors, and a majority of them lead teams that will carry on their work with clients after they retire.

The best women advisors have been aggressively growing their teams in recent years, as part of an effort to expand the range of services they can provide and to reassure clients who might otherwise fret about who will manage their money when their advisor exits the business. In the past decade, the average team size of a ranked women advisor has grown almost 30% to 15 team members. Only seven women have secured the No. 1 slot in the Top 100 Women Financial Advisors ranking since its 2006 inception, and their teams have been even larger—21 team members, on average.

With the best advisors growing their practices at an outsize rate, this trend of larger and more sophisticated wealth management teams is likely to accelerate in the coming years.

Write to Matt Barthel at matthew.barthel@barrons.com