“Bold change” is needed to increase the number of women working in the industry to bring it into line with other traditionally male industries such as accountancy, medicine and law, according to a Columbia Threadneedle report.
Published to coincide with International Women’s Day, the report quoted Morningstar data which found just 13% of UK fund managers were women.
However, despite a growing awareness of the problem, fund management still lags behind other industries with women now making up 44% of accountants, 48% of GPs and 24% of solicitors at partner level in the UK.
Helena Morrissey, chairman of the Investment Association and an adviser for the Diversity Project, said: “Obviously the fund management industry is not very diverse in any dimension.
“It is perceived as male dominated and I think many women are put off by that. I do feel some of the problem is around image.”
A simple change is to make more women aware of the opportunities that exist in the industry and give it a “human face”, she added, as would measures such as the £5m ‘returnships’ programme recently revealed by Prime Minister Theresa May.
Bev Shah, founder of the network City Hive – that supports women in the investment industry – echoed Morrissey’s sentiment.
She said: “We need to educate people that our industry exists and we need to change our working practices to compete with the tech industry which is attracting all the talent.”
Shah, a former senior fund selector at Aviva Investors, said firms should be using “imperfect” methods to effect change at the recruitment stage if needs be.
