The returners, namely Amundi, BNP Paribas, Bridgewater, Capital Fund Management (CFM), Citco, Citadel and its affiliates, Citadel Securities, D.E. Shaw & Co., Jefferies, Lone Pine, Maples Group, Magnetar Capital, Millennium Management, Point72, Schonfeld Strategic Advisers, Schulte Roth & Zabel, Tudor Investment Corporation, Verition, Wellington Management and Woodline Partners have featured at least once before and some more frequently, if not necessarily in every single report. These firms provide serial honourees because they nurture a broad and deep bench of senior female professionals – who are also getting promoted.

We restrict the number of repeats to special circumstances such as significant promotion or other milestones. The only repeat of both individual and firm this year is GoldenTree’s Kathy Sutherland. The other repeat is Carmignac’s Fabienne Cretin-Fumeron, who last featured when at Candriam.

Generally, a high proportion of this year’s honourees have previously worked at other firms that have contributed names to past reports. The giant and medium sized multi-strategy platforms have a big presence; they are collectively the largest employers of hedge fund managers including female fund managers, as well as other senior non-investment professionals.

About eighty percent of the women in this year’s report work for hedge funds or other alternative asset managers, including former hedge funds that are now family offices. Nine work for service providers, including a PR and communications firm, law firms, prime brokers and clearers, fund servicers and technology service providers.

Most work for well-established firms, though it is heartening to see seasoned heavyweight professionals helping to anchor some of the largest launches of recent years, such as Rachel D’Antonio at Jain Global and Kimberly Jensen at Freestone Grove Partners.

This year we feature one women-founded and women-owned firm, namely Pearlstone Alternative, and their COO Sarah Higgins. Pearlstone was founded by Ivelina Green, who featured in this report when she worked at CQS.

Some other women-founded firms feature in our annual Tomorrow’s Titans report on rising star managers: six of the fifty in the Tomorrow’s Titans 2024 report are women.

Separately, women working in private markets – private debt, private equity, venture capital, real estate, infrastructure etc – may feature in our Private Markets: 50 Women Leaders report that published its first edition in July of this year in association with Citco. Private debt can straddle both reports since many credit hedge funds have diversified into direct lending.

The 2024 report spans a spectrum of senior investment and non-investment job functions. Eleven women are in investment, portfolio management or trading roles covering equities, fixed income and global macro trading. Seven are in human resources, which is often driving forward the diversity of teams, and seven are in legal and compliance roles. Five are in sales, marketing, investor relations or client servicing roles. Three are in finance and three are in operations. Two work in communications. Two in technology roles, and one each in strategy, risk management and capital introduction roles. Readers should note that many firms featuring non-investment professionals this year also employ female investment professionals who have featured in earlier reports.

Some eighty percent of the 2024 honourees are based in North America, with 39 in the US, one in Canada and one in the Cayman Islands, which reflects the US-centric industry asset breakdown. In Europe, three are based in the UK, three in France, one in Germany and one in the Netherlands. In Asia, there is one based in Singapore.

Some of the 2024 women sit on as many as 10 committees at their firms and are involved with multiple charities on a personal and/or corporate level. Most firms have women’s groups and some of them have created more specialist sub-groups: for instance, Capital Fund Management has groups for Women in Data and Women in Machine Learning. Gender equality is increasingly one dimension of broader DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) groups and committees, and firms are starting to focus on other aspects of diversity, one example being Black@DESCO, D. E. Shaw’s Black affinity group.

The stage is well and truly set for women to continue to rise up the ranks of the hedge fund industry.