All-female team wins first national university investing challenge
Students on an all-female team won paid internships after beating off dozens of rivals in the first national university funds management contest.
The team from Monash University beat off challenges from dozens of other investors in the competition aimed at attracting more diverse talent into the male-dominated world of super funds and fund managers.
They had to solve investment problems across one of four themes - infrastructure investing, social impact investing, global equities and Australian equities.
The judging panel - made up of industry veterans from Cbus, QIC, Yarra Capital Management, Mercer, NAB Asset Management and Bloomberg - was“blown away” by the quality of the pitches from the teams that had to have at least two female members.
The reasons Monash University won were because of their detailed modelling, a sound understanding of the investment risks and a clearly articulated impact on the fund.
Emma Tibballs, who formed the team with Louisa Lin, Adete Bhasin & Shivani Sureshkumar, praised her college colleagues and their team work.
“With my non-finance background, I experienced first hand the value of diversity of thought,” she said.
“I was able to play to my strengths and utilise my analytical skills, passion for sustainability and eye for design while learning more about financial models.”
All four members won a paid summer internship with a Future IM/Pact industry partner based in their city.
The contest is the brainchild of Future IM/Pact founder Yolanda Beattie, who spoke about it and the need for more diversity in investment houses in an interview with InFinance back in August.
“Despite Australia’s large and thriving investment and superannuation sector, many of our most talented female university students do not consider professional investing as a career option,” she said.
“Yet the quality of the thinking and presenting from these students was remarkable.”
IM/Pact was launched after 2016 research found women made up just 24% of Australia’s investment professionals.
Speaking to FINSIA earlier this year, she said: “While it’s still early days, the feedback we’re getting from the aspiring women we meet tells me we can solve this problem – at least at the entry level – in the next five to 10 years if we maintain momentum.”
That research showed just 24% of the professional investing workforce was female chimes with FINSIA’s fifth Gender Divide survey where the gaps in pay and leadership prospects were highlighted.
A standout statistic showed that while more than half of those employed in financial services sector are women, they are paid almost a third less than their male counterparts.
Despite the success of the contest which attracted 27 teams - seven of which were all-female - she still recognises there is a long way ahead, partly because of the perception of the business as a male-dominated industry.
Former Workplace Gender Equality Agency executive Beattie said: “Students just don't know enough about investment management as a career path.
“Our 2016 research found female finance students were almost 50% less likely than their male counterparts to consider a career in investments, mostly because they didn’t know enough about it or they felt they wouldn’t fit in.
“We are dissolving that barrier and I’m confident we will achieve our goal of 50/50 junior analyst applicants in the next five years."
FINSIA’s fifth influential industry survey on gender inequality released earlier this year revealed much more needs to be done.
“There is persistent division between men and women’s perception about the extent of the gender pay gap and the levels of female representation in leadership,” is one of the points made in the 50-page report.
That is “despite public data about the pay gap existing and numbers of women in governance and management roles still being low.”
Click here to access the full report.
