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Alpha Female 2022: ‘An appallingly slow rate of change’
Citywire’s Alpha Female report, which tracks the progress asset managers are making on gender diversity in investment roles, reveals the positive change of recent years has all but ground to a halt.
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The proportion of female fund managers in Citywire’s database increased by just 0.2% over the past 12 months, the 2022 Alpha Female Report has found.
Drawing on Citywire’s database of more than 17,500 individual portfolio managers worldwide, the report shows that just 12% of those fund managers are women – a barely discernible increase from last year’s figure of 11.8%.
In the seven years the report has been running, the overall number of female managers has risen just 1.7 percentage points.
Asset managers have brought in a range of initiatives to address gender imbalances in their investment teams, but that work looks to have been undermined by new fund launches over the past 12 months, as 90% of those have been given to men.
Nisha Long, head of ESG research at Citywire, said: ‘An increase of just 1.7 percentage points over seven years is an appallingly slow rate of change.
‘I cannot understand why, of all the global fund launches last year, only 10% were handed to women, either as part of a team or on their own. If there is a talent pipeline coming through, there is no justification for this.
‘Seven years’ worth of female talent should have progressed through by now.’
The full report, which compares countries and sectors, lists the most consistent female fund managers and analyses the performance of mixed teams, can be found here.
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