“That’s where it starts, building the bench early,” says Nancy Davis, a hedge fund veteran and CIO at Quadratic Capital Management in Greenwich, Conn. “At larger firms, it’s about building a culture where leaders encourage and promote women to go into these sorts of roles. So it’s education, but it’s also mentorship and coaching.”
Davis says the problem is that women are diverted into other fields before they can test the alternatives industry.
Though 100 Women in Hedge Funds is only now addressing the pipeline problem, it already has a growing Next Generation (Next Gen) initiative, where committees of women with 10 years or less of industry experience in New York and London focus on career development.
Yulia Galasyuk, a sales and trading team member at Citigroup in London, heard about 100WHF through her employer. A native of Russia, she found camaraderie at the association’s events and quickly became an active member.
“Right before Christmas last year, Amanda Pullinger met with me and three other ladies to brainstorm the launch of the London Next Generation committee,” Galasyuk says. “As I met other 100WHF members, who were also at the start of their careers, we benefited from arranging informal gatherings, which helped us to build our network further and strengthen relationships.”
Through Next Gen forums, women may establish professional relationships that can persist through every stage of their careers.
“We wanted to provide a safe forum for younger members to have an open dialogue and equip them with the tools necessary to build a successful career in this industry,” Galasyuk says.
Molloy, co-chair of the association’s New York Next Gen committee, says young professionals need help networking outside of the workplace.
“When I graduated college, my first firm was small, and many of the women in my office were not within my age group,” Molloy says. “I was interested in meeting other women in the same stages of their career. I had a lot of friends who didn’t end up in finance or hedge funds. I was really looking for a peer group. Having that resource, someone to talk to who is going up against the same issues that we’re going against, is important.”
That means 100 Women in Hedge Funds’ most valuable resources are its members and the networks they develop.
“We engage our membership in terms of connecting senior practitioners to their peers and also connecting junior members to their peers,” Pullinger says. “So we play an industry association role of connecting and educating our members.”
When the association’s peer leverage pillar was established, it was concerned with connecting individuals within the industry.
“I think if you’re going to have a process or establish a goal, you have to have someone to coach you along the way,” Davis says. “You have to work by your strengths and compensate for your weaknesses, and good mentors help you identify those things and grow.”
To that end, 100WHF created 70 peer advisory groups to allow members to share experiences and resources. These groups’ concentrations include investor relations, endowments and foundations, strategic leadership, law and compliance, and operations.
But peer leverage also means linking members with external organizations. 100WHF hosts an online forum and job board directly linking firms with its established pool of female investment managers. A “Women on Boards” initiative attempts to elevate more women to non-profit and corporate boards. Members are surveyed about their interests and expertise, and the results are placed into a database. When the organization receives an inquiry for potential female board members, it shares information on qualified candidates (with their approval).
From its base of support in a close-knit group of female industry leaders to a burgeoning next generation of women inspired to pursue investment management careers, 100WHF has the potential to reshape the financial services industry in the coming decades.
“I’m a huge believer in the importance of your professional and personal network, and I am sure it does make a difference,” Galasyuk says. “That’s why I’m so involved in Next Generation and spend a large portion of my free time [at the expense of weekends, evenings and holidays] working together with other committee members on building the group. Hopefully, sometime down the line, a woman like me will be telling successful stories about how the Next Generation group helped to open the doors within a successful career.”