We’re part of an ever-changing industry, and we change with it. We don’t get to new ideas with the same kind of thinking. We get there by bringing together people with different experiences and ideas. We recognized an opportunity to bring together Financial Professionals (FPs) from across the country to help them better understand diverse markets, how best to serve them and share best practices.

We developed the Equitable Advisors Diversity Educational Summits to provide an opportunity for our FPs to grow personally and professionally. Attending the summit presents the opportunity to learn about building relationships with, and selling to, diverse markets, share best practices and sales ideas and establish opportunities for joint-work partnerships and networking. We continue to support FPs who are looking to reach further into diverse markets and market-specific segments at our annual Diversity Educational Summits.

Each two-day summit focuses on a specific diverse market: Women’s, African American, Hispanic, Asian and LGBTQ. The summits may be named for their diverse and ethnic groups of focus but are open to all Equitable Advisors and Managers, regardless of their production, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. Equitable Executives are frequent speakers and participants at these summits. There are no production qualification criteria for FPs to attend. It is important for us to have a forum for FPs who do not qualify to attend other production-driven conferences and provide those individuals with access to top FPs who attend the diversity summits regularly.

Event participants—over 3,500 to date— we have held 40 summits and have seen over 50% increase in attendance since inception. Highlights of 2018 Diversity Summits:

• 35% of attendees are first time attendees.
• 30% of the Women’s Summit attendees were men.
• 70% of the LGBTQ Summit attendees were not members of the LGBTQ community.

FPs attend the summits each year not only to learn new sales ideas but to share and resolve unique challenges they face in their communities. Through our Diversity Summits we connect people from across the country and truly see the power of coming together working toward one common goal – how best to serve our clients.