Stand out by incorporating private investments into women’s portfolios

The growing financial force of women—which Wall Street dubs the “sheconomy”—is hard to ignore. A staggering $54 trillion of personal wealth is expected to transfer to women by 2048, according to Cerulli Associates.

Still, women face different, more complex financial challenges than men. They have longer life expectancies, earn less at work, and experience more career interruptions due to caregiving. These headwinds make portfolio diversification and long-term wealth building even more important.

Financial advisors can play a key role in helping women overcome these unique hurdles by introducing them to different investment options like alternative investments (alts) and creating more personalized portfolios that go beyond traditional asset classes like stocks and bonds. In short, you can deepen your relationships with women clients by extolling the benefits of embracing a more creative, personalized approach to asset allocation. The fast-growing private credit and private equity space, for example, is potentially a good fit for women, as these two alts provide exposure to a much wider range of investment opportunities than public markets.

You can help boost the growth trajectory of your practice by narrowing women’s knowledge gap on private markets and reducing the fear of the unknown that may be deterring them from taking advantage of a major market opportunity. Toward that end, you can discuss the merits and risk considerations of allocating a portion of their assets to private investments to help better align your women clients’ portfolios with their priorities and income goals. 

Why women? Why alts? Why now?

Private investments are an increasingly large part of the investment universe. While the number of publicly traded stocks has shrunk from more than 7,000 in 1996 to around 4,000 today, according to researchers at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, there are more than 21,000 private equity-backed companies in the U.S., according to the American Investment Council (AIC). Limiting your women clients’ portfolios to just publicly traded securities could result in their missing out on opportunities.

The investment opportunity for your women clients is best highlighted by the fact that fewer than 15% of companies with revenues more than $100 million are publicly held, according to consulting firm Bain & Company. That means women who only invest in traditional asset classes have “narrow exposure to the broader economy,” Bain concludes. Mixing in private assets gives female clients additional options for building portfolios that pair historically attractive returns with new forms of diversification.

You can play a key role in educating women about the long-term benefits of adding alts to their holdings. “The complexity of these investments requires advisors who can translate sophisticated strategies into relatable concepts,” according to a blog post by the Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst Association (CAIA). There’s an opportunity for you to demystify alts to better connect with your women clients. By doing so you can position yourself as a trusted, knowledgeable resource. Giving women a little so-called TLC—the T. Rowe Price acronym for trust = learning + communication—can go a long way toward building stronger relationships and creating greater trust.

Why alts are well aligned with women’s financial goals

Women manage wealth and think about money differently than men.

• When it comes to investing, women are generally risk aware, not risk averse. They don’t avoid risk at all costs. Instead, risk-aware women understand, assess, and identify risks and take a measured approach before taking the plunge.
• As they are aware of their greater potential longevity, women are geared toward preserving the nest egg they’ve worked hard to build.
• Investing with a purpose is key for many women. The investment decisions they make are influenced not only by potential returns but also by how these investments align with their personal values and the causes they support.
• While women also value positive long-term performance, they tend to prioritize overall financial security and progress toward personal goals over near-term outperformance of market benchmarks their portfolios are tracking.
• Women are inclined to stick to a thoughtful, risk-managed plan, especially after doing their research and gaining confidence in that plan’s merits. Once women do the necessary homework and gain a fuller understanding of investment concepts like private investments, they tend to possess the patience to be more long-term focused and strategic than tactical.

Though these are broad generalizations and individual investing priorities will vary, the investment traits of women generally align well with alts. Despite being less liquid, alts can benefit buy-and-hold women investors with longer time horizons and greater patience than their male counterparts.

What types of alts are a good fit for women’s portfolios?

While there are many alts to choose from, private credit and private equity offer distinct benefits for women investors.

Private credit. Investing in private loans offers women investors the potential for more attractive risk-adjusted returns, stable income, and enhanced diversification. Historically, private credit has generated higher income than more traditional fixed income asset classes, such as core bonds, high yield, and leveraged loans. In fact, private credit posted an annualized total return of 9.55%, on average, from its September 2004 inception through September 2025, data from Cliffwater Direct Lending Index show. That nearly double-digit return compares more similarly with stock market returns.

Women, due to their longer life expectancies, may benefit most by buying and holding private credit so they can take full advantage of the higher income, stability, and diversification they have historically provided. A longer time horizon can also allow women investors to wait for private credit investments to reach maturity and for principal to be returned, though repayment terms may vary depending on the structure of each loan.

Private equity. Owning a stake in privately held companies that don’t trade on the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq provides women investors with access to growth companies before they go public. This type of investment is long term in nature, which means less daily price volatility, making them attractive to patient investors like women with long life expectancies. Unlike a share of a publicly traded company, which can be sold in a nanosecond, private investments take longer to sell. Women investors with time on their side, however, can reap the benefits.

How alts fit into a broader portfolio

Alts are a complement to an already diversified portfolio, not a replacement. Alts, however, should make up only a small slice of an investor’s overall portfolio. Just as you wouldn’t build an all-stock portfolio or have too much riding on a single stock, you don’t want to overweight the portfolio with less liquid alts, either. Adding a sliver of alts to traditional asset classes has the potential to boost a portfolio’s income and capital appreciation, provide an extra layer of diversification, and give an additional buffer to offset downside risk.

How advisors benefit from tailoring women’s plans with alts

Helping your women clients understand more complex investments like alts, as well as the risks and opportunities of owning them, can help build stronger relationships and create greater trust.

Keep in mind that embracing the TLC approach, which emphasizes trust, learning, and communication, can help build an unbreakable bond between you and your women clients. Playing the role of coach and guiding women through the unfamiliar world of private investments will enable them to look at their financial situation more clearly and make better, more informed decisions. Narrowing the “alts gap” will not only redefine what financial success looks like for your women clients, but also clearly highlight the value-added services you provide.

Integrating tailored investment solutions, like adding alts to a financial plan and investment portfolio, can be a win-win for both you and your women clients. By helping them achieve their money-related goals through meeting their differentiated needs, you will build trust with this emerging financial force. And the stronger your bonds are with your women clients, the better client retention and the more assets under management you’ll have.