The Diversity Project – an organisation pushing for fairer representation in the investment industry – has laid out plans to increase the number of women in asset management.
Following a review of its gender equality targets, the organisation aims to increase the proportion of female fund managers to 30%, as well as halving the gender pay gap. The initiative is called ‘the 30% Club’.
The funds industry pay gap is the second largest of any UK sector, behind investment banking, the organisation said quoting data from last year.
Since 2016, the proportion of women managing funds has hovered at around just 10%, while only 4% of cash managed in the UK is run by women, according to the group.
Dame Helena Morrissey, Diversity Project chair and founder of the 30% Club, said: “All the evidence suggests we continue to make painfully slow progress towards encouraging more women into fund management and to build their careers in our industry.
“At the same time, a sense of fatigue has set in around the topic of gender diversity,” she added.
Fairer representation of black people in asset management is also a key issue for the Diversity Project. A number of firms are working through the group to address the sheer lack of ethnic diversity in the funds industry.
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