Fund selectors are increasingly using diversity metrics, such as gender balance, to make decisions. And with good reason: mixed teams perform best in all markets on a risk-return basis, for example. This was revealed by Citywire’s exclusive analysis, published in the annual Alpha Female report.

Click here to read the 2021 Alpha Female report.

For the first time, Amplify will reveal the mixed-team makeup of the biggest asset managers, along with other key findings from the 2021 Alpha Female report. Each issue we will showcase a business from our category of firms with 100 managers or more. This time we will be looking at the firm that topped our table for female fund manager representation: Abrdn.

Below we look at four key numbers at group level: turnover rate, tenure, proportion of women managers and number of mixed teams. In the table we compare Abrdn’s numbers with other groups with 100 managers or more.

Here is how the industry did as a whole, when we compiled our last analysis in 2021.

• Of the 16,353 active managers on the Citywire fund manager database, 1,932 (11.8%) were female.
• The turnover rate for women was 44%; for men it was 33%.
• Overall industry average tenure was 5.4 years for men, 4.6 years for women.
• Mixed teams made up 11.8% of the Citywire manager database.

The next report will be the seventh time Alpha Female analyses female representation in fund manager roles. One insight this gives us is the rate of progress that groups are making. In 2016 just 6.7% of the Citywire Fund Manager Database were members of mixed teams. In 2021 that number had nearly doubled, to 11.8%.

So, despite the real advances that have been made over the past six years, it will still take 127 years to reach a 50:50 balance. However, that forecast could change again in our 2022 report.

As long as the turnover of female managers remains high – leaving roles at a faster rate than men – this will be hard to fix.

A closer look at Abrdn

Abrdn topped the table for groups with more than 100 managers last year. A quarter of its fund managers, 24%, were women according to our 2021 report. This was an increase of four percentage points from the previous year.

Citywire’s head of ESG research, Nisha Long, attributed this progression to Abrdn setting ‘actionable targets’. These included a well-established plan to increase gender balance at all levels. Currently 36% of its leadership roles are held by women. By 2025 Abrdn wants this to be at least 40% (with 40% held by men and 20% any gender). Six of its 12 board members are women, following the appointment of financial services veteran Catherine Bradley as a non-exec in January.

Group: Abrdn

Size: 100+ managers 

Citywire Gender Diversity Awards: Most-improved gender representation

Abrdn told Citywire it had seen good results from partnering with organisations such as Gain (Girls are Investors), SEO Her Capital, Investment 2020 and Springboard, which had helped reach candidates who would otherwise not have considered the asset management industry. It said 37% of its early careers intake (graduates, interns, apprentices) came through these routes.

Another factor is a programme offering six-month return-to-work positions in fund management teams for women, something Abrdn CEO Stephen Bird said was ‘incredibly important’.

In 2021, the returner programme had a 75% conversion rate into permanent roles. 

Bird also highlighted the new parental leave policy introduced in 2019, for its staff in the UK. It includes 40 weeks full paid leave, regardless of gender, and including adoption or surrogacy. ‘It’s most often the female whose career takes the hit,’ said Bird. But since introducing the policy, he said, ‘55% of those availing themselves have been the men’.

The Alpha Female report is a significant piece of research read by fund selectors and other intermediaries. Work has begun on crunching the data for this year’s edition, which will also be used to pick a shortlist for our annual Gender Diversity Awards.

To see the benchmarks being set for your business, keep an eye out for the report later this year, and stay tuned to the Amplify newsletter, which will highlight the diversity details of a different asset manager each issue.