Tackling gender imbalance in the investment management industry

THE authors astutely grab their title from a core principle of investing - diversification. Readers immediately think of the consequences of undiversified investment portfolios and quickly get the drift of the authors' discussions of an undiversified workplace.

Ellen Carr and Katrina Dudley, CFA, are both seasoned portfolio managers, an adjunct professor of finance and a guest lecturer, respectively, at Columbia Business School. From their vantage point as professionals with fingers on the pulse of the industry, they have crafted a timely study with conclusions and plans for action in the form of a Money Management Manifesto that is actually a broad social mandate.

What mainly differentiates Undiversified from other studies and articles is that it is up-to-the-pandemic fresh and proposes solutions to mitigate the imbalance in the investment management workforce. Where does the issue begin? How does it conclude? Straightaway, the authors reveal that only 10 per cent of portfolio managers are women and investment management firms that are majority-owned by women manage less than 1 per cent of global investable assets.