Fidelity Investments’ Abigail Johnson was scheduled to take center stage on Tuesday, as she counsels money managers gathering in Washington about charting their future in the digital world.
But the chief executive, a featured speaker at one of the industry’s biggest conferences, will also be struggling with a stubborn legacy of the past: the treatment of women in the world of finance.
Over the last two months, Fidelity, one of the largest investment companies, has dismissed two portfolio managers -- one over allegations of inappropriate sexual comments and another over claims of sexually harassing a female junior employee.
The departures join a growing number of such cases that have been roiling industries including Hollywood, Silicon Valley and television. Women who once remained silent are now speaking up against what they describe as workplaces that ignore or cover-up years of harassment and assault.
On Monday, Johnson, 55, issued a video to the firm’s 40,000 employees in response to the reports saying: “We have no tolerance at our company for any type of harassment. We simply will not, and do not tolerate this type of behavior, from anyone.”
Male-dominated Wall Street has long struggled with its treatment of women. In a 1990s class-action lawsuit, women claimed harassment at brokerage Smith Barney, where one branch’s basement playpen known as the “boom-boom room” epitomized a frat-house atmosphere. State Street Corp. recently settled U.S. allegations that it discriminated against hundreds of women by paying them less than male colleagues.
Recruiting Challenge
Now, the allegations of sexual harassment at Fidelity may make it harder for Johnson to accomplish one of her key goals: recruiting more female employees. Johnson is the first woman to run Boston-based Fidelity, which is controlled by her family and manages $2.3 trillion. She is one of the fund industry’s rare women CEOs and the only female speaker featured solo at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association conference Tuesday, according to the program on Sifma’s website.
“We have a real need in our business right now to recruit more women,” Johnson said in an interview with Carlyle Group LP’s David Rubenstein last month. When women come into Fidelity branches, “very often, the first thing they say when we’re trying to get them paired up with a rep is, ‘I’d like to work with a woman.”’
Women have historically been underrepresented in the asset-management industry. They’ve made up about 10 percent of fund managers in the U.S., compared with 36 percent of lawyers and 33 percent of doctors, according to Morningstar Inc. research published last year.