INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
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other areas of finance, except, it would seem, when it comes to employing women.
Women are in the minority across the financial industry
when it comes to top jobs
A Reuters analysis of regulatory filings shows the proportion is especially low among British hedge funds, most of which are private and not
funds, the lowest level in at least a decade, the analysis found
They took on 82 men in that period.
Of all the places to work in hedge funds, the investment team is the most coveted
Portfolio managers or traders decide where to invest client money and are traditionally the highest-paid members of staff
Such roles are a launch pad for star managers to set up their own firms in the future, establishing the next generation of hedge funds.
In
comprises senior marketing jobs.
A Reuters analysis of CF 30 filings for 76 financial firms showed hedge funds registered women at a
fraction of the rate of other finance companies.
Hedge funds say they struggle to find women to work as portfolio managers and point out
that women are better represented in other areas, including compliance and legal counsel
These are middle-office or back-office positions, rarely involved in investment calls.
People who work for or in financial services say more
female candidates would emerge for trading positions if hedge funds cast the net wider for potential candidates, and offered better
large, listed companies are now required to disclose pay gaps between men and women, and are under public pressure to have more women in
senior roles, hedge funds can mostly operate below the radar.
Usually privately-owned and run by their founders, they are not the target of
represented across all functional areas of the firm as well as in senior management positions which are not covered by CF 30 registrations,
since 2009.
Emso Asset Management said 35 per cent of its employees were women and said it paid employees for the first 26 weeks of their 52
to comment publicly on its maternity pay.
Paid leave after becoming a parent can vary widely between firms
One portfolio manager told Reuters she had to argue her case to get paid while on maternity leave
She declined to be named for fear of damaging her career.
Valerie Kosenko, at recruitment consultant Mondrian Alpha, said maternity pay was
Management - registered slightly more women than their British counterparts, at nearly 13 per cent, in 2018, according to the Reuters
analysis.
A spokesman for Millennium declined to comment
Citadel did not respond to requests for comment.
CF 30 is an imperfect measure of diversity because firms can have a different
interpretation of the FCA guidelines as to who should be registered.
Some firms register investor relations staff as CF 30
Women tend to be well-represented in such jobs, meaning that the CF 30 category may exaggerate the actual number of women hired or promoted
to be traders.
In the decade covered by the Reuters analysis, the ratio of women employed under the CF 30 designation by 20 of the top
portfolio manager hires in the United States, but data on US firms founded in the last few years show the industry remains dominated by men
Women-led firms managed only about 3 per cent of the assets in new funds launched between 2013 and 2017, according to figures from Hedge
Women in Finance Charter, which sets targets to increase female representation in the upper echelons of the City.
The London-headquartered
firm is targeting 25 per cent female representation in senior management roles by the end of 2020 from 22 per cent last year and has
introduced a number of measures to improve gender diversity, including a returners program for women who left the industry.
It offers 18
weeks paid leave globally for new parents, male or female.
Man Group registered five women as a CF 30 last year, but that represented a
potential, introduced a lot of mentoring, ensured that we always consider a female candidate and looked at things that have historically
Group globally in 2018, up from 11 per cent in 2017 and 8 per cent in 2013, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The sleazy
bitsInterviews with nine women who work or worked as portfolio managers in Britain and the United States, said hedge funds could be a tough
sector for female investment managers
Some of them had experienced disparaging comments about their appearance or their investment abilities.
Male colleagues making unwelcome
advances at female co-workers on nights-out was not an unusual occurrence, according to seven women who worked in a variety of different
women on the investment team had to walk to another part of the building, two of the women said.
None of the women, who requested anonymity
to avoid damaging their careers, worked at the hedge funds named in this story.
Clare Flynn Levy, a former hedge fund portfolio manager who
now runs her own behavioral analytics company, said women might put up with a toxic work culture for a while but ultimately they tended to
hedge funds where they might be the first female on the trading floor.
But with investors increasingly considering diversity when deciding
where to put their money, some hedge funds are looking to shake up their ranks
Last year, Kosenko had five meetings with hedge fund clients about hiring women
