The average investment team gender split is currently 78% male and 22% female, according to a report by investment consultancy firm Redington. The report noted that just 5% of investment teams consist of more than 40% women, while 60% are three-quarters or more male, an increase of 2% since last year. Yet 97% of the 122 asset managers Redington surveyed as part of its annual Sustainable Investment (SI) Survey said diverse teams “improve their ability to deliver a more effective investment strategy”. Sarah Miller, Redington’s Vice President, said: “There is a gender gap in recruitment figures, with one female investment team hire for every two men. This means that the pace of change to address the balance remains glacial, and we’re still a long way from societal or even broader industry levels of representation”. The report also found that the number of asset managers disclosing investment team ethnicity data has fallen from 39% in 2021 to 32% in 2022. It also highlighted that the representation of Black investment professionals “continues to be notably low”, at just 2% on average, with representation of Asian and mixed groups sitting at 23% and 4% respectively. Fifty-four percent of surveyed managers said that they consider diversity as part of their investment process in potential investments, with 80% of them considering gender diversity.
