“The profession is not on track to meet the population it serves going forward,” said Blaine Akin, chair of the CFP's Board of Directors, at the press club event. The profession needs to “create a more diverse and sustainable profession so that every American has access.”

The CFP Board has been trying. In 2013 the CFP Board introduced its Women's Initiative, called WIN, to address the “feminine famine” in financial planning, and last June it started a WIN-to-WIN program to connect women wanting CFP certification with mentors who can assist them through the process.

Two of the three young financial planners at the press event launching the new campaign were women and each had founded their own firms geared to millennials.

The new campaign aims to address these challenges by dispelling common misperceptions and highlighting the many benefits of a career as a financial planner, including the ability to make a difference in peoples' lives, work-life balance and the opportunity for career and financial growth.

Rianka Dorsainvil founded Your Greatest Contribution (YGC), a virtual comprehensive financial planning firm serving entrepreneurs and professionals in their 20s, 30s and 40s that communicates with clients online. But she also mentioned that her very first clients were a 60-year-old couple who hired her because, the husband told her, the couple's tax advisor and had planner had passed away so they wanted an advisor who could outlive them and pass on knowledge to their children.

Brittney Castro founded Financially Wise Women, a Los Angeles-based financial planning firm focused on millennials and charging an annual retainer rather than an AUM-based fee because many haven't yet accumulated a lot of assets.

The sole male in the group, Justin Sullivan, an investment advisor and vice president at a wealth management company, also talked about his focus on attracting millennial clients as a member of a club in Atlanta geared to millennials.

All three highlighted how the profession allows them to make a difference in people's lives while maintaining their own work-life balance – which is also a focus of the campaign.