A DIVERSE APPROACH
So it appears that more diverse teams could provide companies and asset managers with an advantage. Some pension funds are aware of this and when handing mandates some are looking for firms with a diverse investment team.
One such scheme is the Environment Agency Pension Fund, where chief responsible investment and risk officer Faith Ward has been on record as saying that a better balance will lead to more robust, sustainable teams, which will lead to a better long-term financial performance.
Dudney has also seen people wanting more a diverse leadership team. “They want people from different backgrounds,” she says. “We deal with senior appointments and people are asking us for a diverse range of candidates. Clients look at it from capital allocation. They want to see if they are applying money to funds in the most efficient and effective way to get the best result.
“Fund management is a people business. Therefore it would be far-fetched to assume that 80% of the fund management population can produce all of the alpha. You cannot have team full of David Beckhams.”
However, on the corporate side Van Hyfte says that although it is an issue that is sometimes raised, clients are not requesting that they invest in gender diverse companies. “There is definitely a sea-change in the attitude in terms of women in the workplace and it pops up in meetings with pension funds, but it is not top of their agenda,” he adds.
The most crucial thing is that companies are convinced that gender diversity is important, Van Hyfte says. “If companies are being forced to communicate on these metrics it becomes visible. “Transparency is the first step to do something about it,” he adds.
GETTING BETTER
Despite women still being underrepresented in senior roles, both in companies and asset managers, there have been a lot of improvements.
Morrissey entered the fund management industry in 1987 when she joined a fixed income team where she was the only woman in a team of 16. She wasn’t expecting her gender to make any difference, but it did.
When she was 25-years-old she felt she had been passed over for promotion. In search of feedback Morrissey asked what areas she needed to improve on, but she was told that there was a doubt over her commitment now that she had become a mother.
“No one would say that now, but it was a different environment,” she says. “The City was quite hostile for women. There was a lot of overt discrimination and harassment and it was quite sexist. I wasn’t expecting that.”
Morrissey didn’t give up and during her 30 years in the fund management industry the hostility she encountered turned to tolerance, where people realised that they couldn’t say certain things to women. Then after the financial crisis there was a realisation that they might bring something different, positive, and not just a case of add a few women to be fairer.
“Most companies now don’t need any convincing that encouraging women to progress would be a good thing for the bottom line and for connecting with customers,” she adds.
“We should all be working together to solve the world’s problems, not still working on whether we should have women around the table.”
Van Hyfte agrees saying that although there is still a glass ceiling “there is a definite change in attitude”.
An example of the lack of diversity that once dogged the City, and one of those you couldn’t-make-it-up moments, came in the late 1990s. Morrissey was shortlisted for a bond fund manager of the year award. She was vying for the title against three men. “They were all called Paul,” she said.
“So we have come a long way, but we have a long way to go.”
