Female-focused brokerage wins $100,000 grant

Ms Bergel-Grant said her motivation to help women had come from seeing the financial struggles of her mother, which were caused by a long and messy divorce.

"I think the most vulnerable clients who walk into my office are the clients who are in their mid-to-late forties or early fifties who have been divorced and who haven't been given the right advice," she said.

Ms Bergel-Grant told The Adviser that while her younger female clients tend to be as financially literate as men of the same age, there is a clear knowledge gap for women older than 40.

"When I talk to female clients, they might be in a great relationship, but they're actually quite afraid to ask their partners financial questions because they don't want to look stupid," she said.

"If you change the way women interact with money, you might in turn change the way families interact with money."

Leapfrog Financial launched a separate website in 2013 to help women improve their financial literacy.

Ms Bergel-Grant said that her female-focused strategy offered a point of difference from other brokers, but that the industry as a whole had a responsibility to educate clients.

"If all we do is a transaction, where is our longer-term value to our clients?" she said.

Connective director Murray Lees, who was one of the judges on the reality show, said he had been impressed by Ms Bergel-Grant's strategy of focusing on the financial literacy of women.

"We all go into business for various reasons, but that's a great starting point. There is a clear vision for her business and it's a worthy goal," he told The Adviser.

[Related: Financial literacy has 'never been more important']