All 20 of the Financial Services Council’s (FSC) global and domestic fund manager members surveyed want to improve diversity in their investment teams, the FSC’s latest Diversity Survey has found.
While the survey found that women on average make up 27 per cent of investment teams — a 2 per cent increase on last year’s findings — the investment community recognised there is more work to do.
Namely, among the FSC’s fund manager members, 95 per cent said they are tracking gender diversity statistics within their organisations as well as within their investment management teams.
Commenting on the findings, FSC CEO Blake Briggs said: “Women are underrepresented in asset management roles and the fund management industry continues to work on this to ensure women consider financial services as a career path”.
“Fund managers are connecting with industry initiatives such as F3 – Future Females in Finance and Future IM/Pact to raise awareness of the interesting and rewarding roles a career in investment management offers,” Mr Briggs said.
“Driving change will take time but we are heading in the right direction when it comes to encouraging more women to choose the fund management industry to build a career.”
The survey also found that 68 per cent of fund managers have set diversity targets for the business across a range of areas such as having an inclusive environment and using a range of measurements and targets to monitor this.
Moreover, 45 per cent of fund managers have set formal diversity targets within investment management teams and 78 per cent reported making progress against their target.
The FSC uncovered that organisations are focusing on a range of areas to drive change, including refreshing diversity and inclusion (D&I) policies, focusing on the development of talent, increasing graduate pools, setting targets, introducing accountability at all levels, and having teams monitor progress in gender diversity and setting targets.
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