Women make up over half of the U.S. population. They control the majority of consumer spending and earn more college degrees than men. But they still aren’t in charge of many investments.
Managing money is big business. There’s $12.6 trillion in U.S. stock mutual funds alone. Only 2% of that money is handled my female investment managers, according to a report by Morningstar.
“When you exclusively manage a deal, you pull the trigger,” says Tracy Chen, a portfolio manager for Brandywine Global, an investment manager with about $66 billion in assets. “It is important that women are given the responsibility to be complete decision makers.”
Most people don’t care about the gender, race or any other characteristics of their investment managers. They just want to see their money grow.
But there are performance reasons that should make everyone want to see more female investment managers.
While decision making may vary from person to person, Chen has found that women tend to have more long-term investment styles and are more risk averse than men. Those traits help make more money over time.
Some like Sallie Krawcheck, the former head of wealth management at Bank of America, have gone as far as to say the financial crisis might not have been as horrible if more women had worked on Wall Street. Krawcheck saw too much “group think” among the mostly white, mostly male managers and executives.
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