Young girls and women need female role models in the financial world to fix the dearth of women in financial planning and money management, said Rebecca Fender, head of the Future of Finance Initiative at the CFA Institute, an association for investment management professionals.
“Visibility is validity,” said Fender. Without role models, young girls and women do not consider finances and investment management as a profession they should enter, she added.
The institute has held a series of round tables with investment professionals to take on the issues of diversity and inclusion in the profession. Many of the firms represented in the discussions said they are not very far along in including women and minorities, “but they have an open attitude and want to improve,” Fender said.
“We are finding that thought leaders and investment firms agree advancing diversity is a key performance indicator,” she added. “They recognize this is a long-term effort.”
Even if more women are entering the profession, there is still a lack of role models in top positions. Only 10 percent of the CEOs of financial firms in the institute’s database are women. “The higher up the ladder you move, the fewer women there are,” she said.
“We also have to shake the image of the investment industry that has been depicted in movies. This is a profession where you are able to help shape people’s lives,” Fender said.
The institute found through a survey of its members that women in finance do not fit the usual descriptions of women in the general population of being more traditional and more conforming than men.
“Women in finance are contrarians,“ Fender said, noting they are the opposite of traditional and conforming. “And both women and men in finance are ambitious, but the women are even more ambitious than the men.”
Having diverse voices in a firm and on a board brings better results for the clients. A survey of institutional investors showed 51 percent of the respondents said having a diverse workforce improves outcomes for clients. Only 18 percent thought there was no improvement, while the rest were ambivalent.
Improvements are being made, as reflected in the fact that the percentage of women taking the Chartered Financial Analyst exam has grown to 35 percent. But, by comparison, 52 percent of those sitting for the exam in China are women, she said.