More women joining Australian equities teams

Yasmine Raso

Senior Journalist, Financial Newswire

16 December 2022

A new research paper from independent investment advisory firm, Frontier, has found significant progress has been made on gender diversity in investment roles, particularly in Frontier-rated Australian equity manager teams.

Since Frontier’s last study released in 2018, the number of Australian teams without any women has dropped from 45 per cent to 15 per cent, with no all-male investment teams among its global teams compared to 19 per cent four years ago.

However, paper author and Investment Strategy Adviser at Frontier, Mary McLaughlin, noted the minimal progress made regarding female participation in teams, only growing by two per cent in the four-year period to 25 per cent across Australia and the world.

“While organisations are seeing the need to ensure they have at least some women in their teams, the overall participation of women in the industry is not reported to be growing,” she said.

In line with the paper’s release, Frontier also announced several strategies it has implemented firm-wide to contribute to an “industry-wide lift in female participation”.

“Firstly, we need to bring more women into investment careers,” Head of People and Culture at Frontier, Sarah Guthleben, said.

“Then we need to support women to remain in the sector by providing career advancement, particularly for those women combining family responsibilities often at times when their careers are beginning to accelerate.

“And, finally, we need to keep senior experienced women in the industry for longer to mentor and provide role modelling for emerging women.

“Finding a creative and constructive way to collaborate with the university sector to help students progress from academia into professional life is a win-win situation for all parties and provides a meaningful way to boost the number of women joining our industry at the entry level.

“Of course, it is vital to ensure women can develop their careers and gain promotion without impediments, but women moving between organisations or different roles doesn’t lift the overall number of participants. We need to find creative ways to bring more women into the industry and keep them contributing more deeply and for longer.

“Addressing any aspect of diversity will have not just an improved equity outcome but will lead to better functioning teams and improved decision making across organisations.”