It is apt that EY is sponsoring the report as professional services firms appear to be leading the way in terms of gender equality. Approximately 50% of EY’s trainee intake and 30% of its partners are now women. At law firms the trainee intake is similarly evenly balanced. This report includes lawyers from Simmons & Simmons in London, Matheson in Dublin, and Maples in Cayman and London, where the London office joint managing partner is now Heidi de Vries.

These percentages are generally much lower in the hedge fund industry, but there are some encouraging signs of change. For instance, 40 per cent of the 49 people in Point72’s Summer Academy class of 2019 are women. In the full time Academy class, they represent 25 per cent of the 36 recruits.

As women appear to be most under-represented in quantitative and technology-oriented roles, we have made a special effort to prioritise success stories from firms including: Capital Fund Management; GAM Systematic Cantab; Man Group; Millennium Management, Systematica Investments and Tudor Investments Corporation, where the CTO is notably a woman. (Women may be even more under-represented in the technology industry than in finance, according to some estimates). It is worth noting that investment professionals working in systematic and quantitative firms may sometimes have job titles such as “researcher” or “scientist” rather than investment or portfolio manager, so tallies based on the latter label will overlook many.

Headhunters have brought it to our attention that data scientists are red hot right now. The quants are the only women in this report who have doctorates. The deficit of women in STEM (life sciences apart) is partly due to educational choices typically made in teenage years. Many firms that have featured in these reports over the years have developed initiatives designed to help girls catch the maths and computing bugs.

Women are also under-represented in activist investing, but we continue to find new names here. This report features two from Cartica Capital, whose co-founder, Teresa Barger, developed the first two corporate governance funds in emerging markets. Previous reports have featured women from CIAM (Catherine Berjal); Cevian Capital (Friederike Helfer); Ides Capital (Dianne McKeever) and Blue Harbour Group (Tanisha Bellur and Lauren Taylor Wolfe, who has now launched her own firm, Impactive Capital, with seeding from pension fund CalSTRS). For the first time, we feature a Head of ESG Engagement, at Third Point, and this is likely to be a growing trend. Women have held senior positions in corporate governance for at least 20 years, and the profile of these roles is now rising.

Alternative credit managers have been growing assets faster than most hedge fund managers, and we have started to receive more nominations for women working in private debt: we include Kirsten Bode from Muzinich in this report.

This report and the associated events are, of course, partly a public relations exercise to attract more suitably qualified women to apply for jobs. Four HR professionals feature in this report, and interestingly they have made horizontal career transitions into HR (which is dubbed business development at one firm) from prior roles in four different areas: legal; equity analysis; investment and prime brokerage sales.

In the broader investment and alternatives industry, there are also positive signs of imbalances being redressed. Over 50% of those taking the CFA exam in China are now women, and indeed the CFA Institute will very soon, and for the first time, be helmed by a woman, Margaret Franklin (formerly of BNY Mellon). The CAIA Association is led by Bill Kelly, but it has many women in senior roles, including its regional leaders in Asia and Europe. Trade associations as well have women in senior roles: AIMA’s local leaders in the US and Canada are women.

The standard disclaimer applies. This report is not a ranking per se, but rather a selection of examples of senior women intended to inspire others. Many of those omitted from this report are worthy candidates and may well feature in future reports. We have also received a large number of nominations for women who do not yet seem quite senior enough, but they could well “graduate” to leading women status quite soon as they ascend the career ladder. Many female portfolio managers running very small amounts of money (sometimes outside a fund or corporate structure) could also be considered if they grow assets, form or join a firm.