Researching for this report has given us the opportunity to engage with our wider network of asset managers, allocators, brokers and service providers to identify candidates.  

In addition to private credit and private debt, the report highlights senior women in private equity, buyouts, venture capital and secondaries, infrastructure, as well as some service providers notably law firms, depositaries and a recruitment agency with a special focus on diversity. 

Firms represented in this report include asset managers offering a pure play on one asset class, and more diversified asset managers that cover several; as well as allocators, including the UK’s largest pension fund, funds of funds, private banks and wealth managers.

Some 29 of the 50 women in this year’s report are investment professionals and this is a deliberate act on our part to combat the misperception that women struggle to reach the most senior investment roles in portfolio management, fund selection and allocation. Non-investment roles are in finance and accounting, law and compliance, human resources, and notably two women in the report are leading ESG at their firms. 

ESG and DEI

Many private markets strategies are pursuing ESG and/or impact investing in different ways. This could be sustainability linked ratchets on private loans, especially in Europe; increasingly extensive carbon reporting, and even fully fledged “impact investing”, especially in infrastructure. 

The featured women are also naturally focused on their firms’ own ESG credentials. Many women in the report strive to empower and mentor youngsters, students, trainees and colleagues. They are promoting diversity, equality and inclusion both inside their firms and in the wider industry, through committees, interest groups, industry groups and special initiatives. 

A handful of firms have disclosed aggregated firm level statistics that are very impressive in terms of the number of women (and sometimes other minorities) in the most senior positions. 

While some of the oldest and largest firms are present here, a purely quantitatively asset-based ranking would have overlooked many female founded firms. We wanted to showcase a variety of asset classes, strategies, geographies and firm sizes, including several firms founded or co-founded by women, with one started in 2022. Regardless of seniority in job titles, new private markets managers launched by women help to redress the balance of ownership in asset managers, which were historically nearly always founded by men.  

An asset size ranking could also have been almost entirely dominated by the US. In fact, only 23 of the 50 are US-based, with 15 in the UK, and the rest mainly in European countries including Belgium, France, Finland, Italy and Switzerland. There is more diversity in terms of countries of origin. 

The honorees are ordered alphabetically because this is not a competitive ranking. Honorees announcing their inclusion may be tempted to use terms such as “best” or “top”, but such superlatives can be perceived to exclude others who can demonstrate comparable seniority and achievements. The report is rather intended to provide a variety of role models to inspire future cohorts and generations of women leaders. 

We appreciate the efforts made by some firms to provide us with original content going beyond boilerplate corporate bios. There are also three extended profiles in the report.

Foreword

by Claudia Bertolino, Head of Private Equity and Private Credit, Citco Fund Services (USA) Inc.

Holding the position of Head of Private Equity and Private Credit at Citco Fund Services (USA) Inc., Claudia Bertolino spearheads the Citco group of companies’ (Citco) wide-ranging plans to become the ‘next generation asset-servicer’ to private markets.

We are delighted to be sponsoring the First Edition of Private Markets: 50 Women Leaders in association with The Hedge Fund Journal. We celebrate the outstanding achievements of the 2024 honourees. They are an inspiring group of individuals.

At Citco, my team are focused on implementing operational efficiencies as part of plans to digitize the client experience within both private equity and private credit markets. Clients sit at the heart of everything Citco does, and the company is investing in its proposition constantly, creating and upgrading numerous solutions to enhance client interactions and create the best client experience possible.

There is a clear focus on client journeys and offering a more consultative service model, with Citco creating more digitized, technology-enabled platforms to support clients. In the coming years, our team are also planning further data integration between Citco and our clients, while helping to provide tools that increase collaboration between managers, lawyers, accountants and investors. With automation and cybersecurity increasingly front of mind across the industry, technology will play a key role as more clients adopt data-driven workflows. This is all part of Citco’s goal to be true partners with our clients, acting as their operational backbone.”