The Racial Job Gap Among Financial Advisors : Planet Money : NPR

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

After a successful career in advertising, Erica Williams decided it was time for a change. She went back to school to get her MBA at the University of Chicago and eventually landed a job as a financial advisor at Wells Fargo in 2012. It was exactly what she wanted.

Erica is black — a relatively rare situation for a black financial advisor at a major bank. Banking is one of the last white-collar industries that actually hires black employees. When Erica arrived at the office, she started to feel strange before she even got acclimated. She felt like her coworkers were acting strange around her. “I was getting a lot of stares. And then the stares turned into, I mean, they were almost ignoring me. That was my first day, my second day. And it was pretty much every day until I left.”

She wasn’t sure if her experience could be called racism … until she learned that Black employees in other Wells Fargo offices felt the same way.

On today’s show, we tell the story of Erica’s journey through the halls of money and power. And why her story is not unique, but just one piece of a much larger puzzle.

Today’s show was produced by Alyssa Jeong Perry, with assistance from Emma Peaslee. Sierra Juarez fact-checked. They also assisted with reporting. Sally Helm edited. James Willets engineered, and Brian Jarboe assisted with production.

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