Europe’s Fund Managers Lack Women Executives
Sector may be improving overall gender diversity, but few women hold top management jobs, new Bloomberg research finds.
European asset managers have few women in senior leadership positions, highlighting the sector’s failure to extend overall improvements in gender diversity to the most senior levels.
Bloomberg Intelligence examined six major asset managers: Amundi, abrdn, DWS, Janus Henderson, M&G and Schroders. While it found a “reasonable level of diversity between males and females” overall, this disguised a lack of female senior executives.
“The fact remains that the number of female leaders in asset management executive roles remains small,” Kevin Ryan, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Industry Analyst, said.
“Amundi’s CEO [Valérie Baudson] is a woman, M&G has a female CFO and abrdn had one too until March 2023. Yet in our sample of six asset managers, that’s all in terms of the most senior executive positions (CEO or CFO).”
Of the six, French firm Amundi was the top performer in absolute numbers, with 15 women in executive roles, followed by Schroders, with nine. The worst performer was DWS, which had no women in senior executive roles. DWS was approached for comment, but did not respond.
As a percentage, M&G had the highest proportion of women in senior management roles, with 37%.
Overall, the percentage of women across the companies’ workforce ranged between 38% (Janus Henderson) and 46% (M&G). But no company had more than 37% women in senior management roles. Abrdn, Amundi and Schroders were all in the low 30 percent range , while Janus Henderson was 20% and DWS 0%.
Board diversity is better, but stalling
The numbers for board diversity were higher. Amundi, M&G and Schroders all had 50% or more female directors. Janus Henderson was just under 50% and abrdn had 40%. Again, the outlier was DWS. Of the German asset manager’s 15 directors, just four are women.
However, overall Bloomberg Intelligence found growth in the number of women on boards had stalled or peaked over the last four years. The reason for this stalled progress was unclear, Ryan said.
But he added it was “disappointing, given the size and importance of the segment in terms of the wider influence it can – and does – wield on society”.
For more women to make it onto the boards of asset managers, the overall workforce would require more gender balance. But that would be difficult given women represent less than 50% of the sector’s total employees.
“Those numbers don’t bode well for a future boardroom balance, begging the question as to whether asset management represents an attractive place for talented women to seek careers,” Ryan said.
Benefits of diversity
Research suggests the impact of having more women on boards and in senior management positions is considerable, particularly on a company’s approach to ESG factors.
A recent academic paper by researchers from the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, the University of Zurich and the Swiss Finance Institute, found having more women on the boards of US banks was likely to reduce the institutions’ exposure to climate risk.
Meanwhile, a 2020 report by McKinsey found companies with more than 30% women in executive positions were on average more profitable than those with fewer female executives.
Changing employee expectations are forcing the issue, according to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs 2023 Report, which found that over half of Gen Z workers (born between the late 90s and 2000s) would not accept a role in a company without diverse leadership.
A recent survey of asset managers by the Asset Owner Diversity Charter (AODC) found around three quarters of asset managers were collecting high level gender diversity data. But collecting more granular data was less common.
Only 48%, for example, undertook gender pay gap analysis, and only 24% published it.
“We have seen an improvement [on gender diversity on boards], which is great,” said Emma Douglas, Co-chair of the AODC and Senior Stewardship Analyst at UK pension group Brightwell. But she said often female directors were taken from a limited pool and appeared on multiple boards.
“As the Bloomberg report shows, more needs to be done across all levels. It’s not just looking at the board, it’s looking at middle management and beyond,” she said.
The industry was doing a good job of attracting talent at the entry level, but retaining that talent was a key challenge, Douglas argued.
“Are the men progressing quicker than the women? That’s a really important aspect of retention. Similarly, sponsorship and mentoring is often an issue. Whoever is at the top is likely to mentor someone more similar to them.”
Diversity initiatives such as equal parental leave normalised the idea that taking a break was acceptable, she said. It meant men understood what it’s like to have that break, and it created more empathy and understanding.
Overall, Douglas said there were “a lot of amazing women in the asset management industry”, adding: “There are pockets of really great stuff, but it’s about sharing that.”
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