“Finance Professional” vs. “Financial Professional”

I recently delivered a writing workshop to a group of bankers. As is my wont, I tweaked the title of my presentation to include the phrase, “For Financial Professionals.” My host changed this to, “For Finance Professionals.”

Which phrase is better?

On the basis of grammar, both are fine. Lest you think “finance” isn’t a noun, English allows a noun to be pressed into service as an adjective. For example, we say a “woman president.” In that case, “woman” is an “attributive” noun. Ditto for “finance” in the phrase “finance professional.”

For the basis of usage, I turned to Google Trends, which catalogs keyword searches around the world. It turns out that “financial professional” is significantly more common than “finance professional.”

On the other hand, to complicate matters, I can’t think of a country that has a “financial minister”; everyone has a “finance minister.”

So, which phrase is better?

Either is fine.