The Financial Services Council (FSC) has released the results of its 2024 Women in Investment Management Survey.
Conducted by Storniolo Consulting, the survey measures women participation in investment management teams in Australia. The survey shows women, on average, make up 27 per cent of the investment management teams.
The survey is consistent with the results for the past two years, which showed a result of 29 and 27 per cent representation respectively.
The FSC and our members recognise this survey demonstrates that achieving greater diversity remains a challenge for the funds management industry, however to develop a better understanding of this challenge we used the survey to explore the medium-term recruitment and pipeline issues and to provide case studies and tangible actions that the industry can implement.
CEO of the Financial Services Council, Blake Briggs said: "Growing women participation in investment management teams remains a focus for the industry. Funds are considering ways to make their teams more diverse, and this survey is design to assist them on this journey, but the industry acknowledges there is still a long way to go.
"The survey highlights the efforts a number of funds go to in order to increase diversity in their teams, including growing the pipeline of talent by investing in school and university education programs."
Examples of this include a number of fund managers offering summer intern programs to attract more women to the industry and presenting at student university career days.
Other findings from the survey include:
- 94 per cent of organisations track gender diversity statistics in their investment management teams;
- 72 per cent of respondents have set formal diversity targets for their organisation (Up from 56 per cent in 2023); and
- 83 per cent of respondents have expectations, KPIs or linkages to remuneration in place for leaders and managers related to diversity and inclusion.
Storniolo Consulting Managing Director Cecilia Storniolo said: "The survey highlights there are investment managers who are leading the way for diversity, including gender diversity, and it's not necessarily just the bigger, most well-resourced funds that are doing the most.
"Funds of all sizes have varying programs and metrics they are using to track diversity and this survey contributes to the literature, allowing funds to benchmark themselves against other Australian businesses."
This is the fourth year the FSC has conducted the survey and it was completed by 18 members. The survey participants are both global and domestic fund managers representing a broad range of funds management businesses.
