Stephanie Pierce, Managing Associate
Mishcon de Reya
In this episode, what is the impact of women in the fund management industry? How does the performance of funds led by women and mixed gender teams compare with those of male only teams? And how can more women be encouraged to join and become leaders in the industry?
Hello and welcome to the Mishcon Academy Digital Sessions podcast. I’m Stephanie Pierce, a Managing Associate in the Singapore team and I’m joined today by Lucie Hulme, CEO of TriLake Partners, an independent wealth management firm based in Singapore and founded twelve years ago by a group of top leading Swiss independent wealth management boutiques. Aside from helping building TriLake to where it is today, Lucie, who was raised partly in Singapore, is also a recent former President of the Association of Independent Wealth Managers in Singapore which gave her additional invaluable insight into the direction of the independent wealth management sector. She served on the committee for the past nine years and is highly involved in the financial industry through her contributions to the Institute of Banking and Finance, the Wealth Management Institute Global Asia Family Office Partners Circle and Singapore Management Institute. Lucie won the Wealth Briefing Asia Awards for ‘Outstanding contribution to Singapore wealth management industry’ and the ‘Women in wealth management Award’. Lucie, thank you so much for joining me today.
Lucie Hulme, CEO
TriLake Partners
Thank you so much for having me Stephanie.
Stephanie Pierce, Managing Associate
Mishcon de Reya
So I want to talk about the performance of funds under female and mixed leadership. It seems clear that the mixed teams especially seem to encourage the highest returns. Why do you think that is?
Lucie Hulme, CEO
TriLake Partners
First, I think it’s important to note that we have to be careful not to confuse correlation and causation. Let me explain. There’s a very good correlation between risk adjusted returns and the presence of women in the investment decision process. For example, funds run by mixed teams often exhibit better risk adjusted performance, that’s a fact, but we can’t for sure conclude that because of the presence of women, you will necessarily get higher returns all the time and this is simply not true. That said, men and women do tend to defer when it comes to risk-taking and decision-making and we can also presume that a collegial decision-making process should have better outcomes over the long run and on that basis we have created a fund at TriLake that invests in fund managed by women or mixed teams.
Stephanie Pierce, Managing Associate
Mishcon de Reya
So, do you see a difference between countries and territories in the gender diversity of their management teams?
Lucie Hulme, CEO
TriLake Partners
Yes, absolutely. I think it’s fair to say that Asia leads the way when it comes to gender diversity in investment management. According to Citywire latest annual Alpha Female report, out of the five top countries with the highest proportion of female fund managers, three countries are in Asia; namely Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. If you look at the CFA Institute membership by country, 8 of the top 12 countries with the highest proportion of female members are in Asia. There are also certain countries where women managers appear very underrepresented. A few that comes to my mind are for example, Germany, India and Brazil. Now, in terms of sectors, we see more female managers investing in equity and the highest percentages are actually in Asian equities.
Stephanie Pierce, Managing Associate
Mishcon de Reya
So, for those territories where women seem to be underrepresented, what do you think has discouraged or perhaps prevented women from taking up leadership roles in funds?
Lucie Hulme, CEO
TriLake Partners
First, traditional gender roles play a big part, for one, and this is a big one. More women than men in households takes on primary responsibility in childcare and other domestic activities, let’s be honest and it’s fine, but working in the financial industry involves quite a lot of networking, seeing clients, talking to companies that are in a different continent and these activities often demand more time than women can actually provide. So women are already underrepresented as a whole and this underrepresentation actually increases at every step of the corporate ladder. In a study made by the CFA Institute just a couple of years ago, 30% of all performance analysts and compliance officers were women. Only 25% of all relationship managers were women. 15% of portfolio managers were women, it’s very little and only a little 10% of all CEOs were women. So I think also that there are still many stereotypes associated with women. In banking for example, we often assume women will do better due to their soft skills in roles such as marketing, human resources and client facing but women actually tend to be highly skilled when it comes to managing money, they often demonstrate good decision-making, they also tend to have good analytical skills and a long-term view and an ability to be very good at managing risks.
Stephanie Pierce, Managing Associate
Mishcon de Reya
So it’s interesting that you kind of point to those domestic responsibilities and I guess requirements or expectations at home for maybe being part of the reason why women are underrepresented in a lot of territories but you know, you say that actually in a lot of Asian countries, women are better represented in fund management. I wonder if you know part of that is due to the availability of the more readily availability of domestic help in Asia and maybe of kind of family support because again, being based in Asia, I do see that more women here have live-in domestic help, there is also more of a culture of, you know parents, grandparents being actively involved in childrearing, of you, even living in a multigenerational household or living near grandparents who can you know help you with those duties. Do you think that’s fair to say?
Lucie Hulme, CEO
TriLake Partners
I think you are absolutely right. I think in Asia, exactly like you said, there is a, a lot of help and women can get support in childcare with their family but also through domestic help. That is absolutely for sure and this is not the case in many other countries, in the US or in Europe. So, yeah, you are absolutely right. That’s the main driver.
Stephanie Pierce, Managing Associate
Mishcon de Reya
And I mean, I know that we’re saying there’s still a lot of underrepresentation but are we starting to see a shift toward more women in leadership roles in fund management nonetheless?
Lucie Hulme, CEO
TriLake Partners
Over the last few years the asset management industry has been increasing its focus on the hiring and retention of women but the pace at which women are entering the industry is still very slow. According to Citywire Alpha Female report again, the percentage of women manager globally moved very slowly from 10.3% in 2016 to a little, I think 12.1% today. Women continue to run smaller firms than men and men continue to dominate the launches. Just 6.2% of new funds last year were allocated to women. Overall, men continue to dominate the funda management space by far and I can just add, Morning Star made an interesting observation in 2021, in the UK there were still more funds run by men called Dave than there were female managers in total and the exact same story applies in Italy with men called Andrea.
Stephanie Pierce, Managing Associate
Mishcon de Reya
That, I mean, I want to say that’s shocking but I worked in a firm previously where I think there were more partners called Ian than there were female partners. Dave, Ian and you know, Andreas, I mean, I guess the number is quite discouraging in terms of the rate of growth but nonetheless it is an upward trend. I mean, what do you think can encourage or maybe accelerate this upward trend?
Lucie Hulme, CEO
TriLake Partners
I think if you take all the industries, I would say maybe encourage work flexibility of course, especially during the early years of parenthood to allow both father and mother to have more flexibility and also create more accessible childcare and like we have here, for example, in Singapore but for the fund management industry specifically, I believe the younger women should not be scared to consider this career path at all. They should be encouraged in fact to consider such careers because they can be great managers or wealth managers.
Stephanie Pierce, Managing Associate
Mishcon de Reya
Do you think it’s safe to say though that the fund management industry is still a bit of a boys club?
Lucie Hulme, CEO
TriLake Partners
It is very safe to say that.
Stephanie Pierce, Managing Associate
Mishcon de Reya
I mean, you know so much so that it might discourage women from, you know, participating or going for those jobs, going for those roles if they are the only woman in the room?
Lucie Hulme, CEO
TriLake Partners
Yes, it can, it can be very intimidating but you know, when I started, I was one of the only women in the room in most of the events but it’s okay, you can still make something out of it and hopefully more and more women will join so.
Stephanie Pierce, Managing Associate
Mishcon de Reya
Yeah, I mean having kind of I guess female role models for these younger girls, women, to look up to because again, I think probably typically a lot of maybe the graduate roles or the types of you know people who would go for fund management out of university or in the early years, tend to be guys. Certainly, when I was in university, a lot of my friends, in fact anyone I know who wanted to work for a fund was a guy, I didn’t know any women, any girls who were interested in that world. I don’t know you if yours was the same?
Lucie Hulme, CEO
TriLake Partners
Yes, yes, and it’s absolutely the same and I can say that it was the same both in Switzerland where the, you know, the financial industry is very big there and it was the same, it was still dominated a lot by men and in Asia when I started here twelve years ago, it was the same but I can see more and more women though taking on roles in this space and it’s very encouraging actually.
Stephanie Pierce, Managing Associate
Mishcon de Reya
So you mentioned that, you know, more needs to be done in terms of encouraging women in leadership positions in fund management, you know, so, encouraging diversity, work structure and flexibility but how much of this do you think is a real, sincere effort to encourage gender diversity to end this boys club perception and how much is really just corporate window-dressing?
Lucie Hulme, CEO
TriLake Partners
Hmm, it’s a bit both side but there’s, there’s a drive and I think company are realising the need for diversity within the workplace. Not only they are realising that there’s a need and that, you know, the customer wants that and the industry needs diversity but it also comes from the regulator come from above so, in the long run, we would definitely see more diversity coming.
Stephanie Pierce, Managing Associate
Mishcon de Reya
So you mentioned earlier that TriLake as a, you know a specific fund essentially run by gender diverse teams, I mean what else is TriLake specifically doing to promote women in general?
Lucie Hulme, CEO
TriLake Partners
So first we have committed to support the cause of a U-Go, which is a non-profit organisation and their mission is to help young women in low income countries to pursue higher education and TriLake Partners, we donate 15% of the management fees generated by Eden – this is the gender diversity fund where we invest only in female and mixed team fund managers – to this organisation. The financial support will enable the scholars to help them achieve their aspirations and who knows, some of them may become fund managers one day. Let’s hope so. And finally, I like to work with female clients and providing them with tools and educational one-to-one meetings to help them navigate all the dos and don’ts when it comes to managing their wealth. As of today, there are still a lot of women who let the men take charge of all financial related matters. It is estimated actually that 80% of women will have to take care of their wealth at one point in their life so, why wait to take charge and if I may, I’ll close by quoting Margaret Thatcher, “It may be the rooster that crows but it’s the hen that lays the eggs.” I’ll let you think about it.
Stephanie Pierce, Managing Associate
Mishcon de Reya
That’s very good. I mean, just before we wrap up, I just also wondered, is there a typical female client profile or not really?
Lucie Hulme, CEO
TriLake Partners
I would say not really, there is no typical female client profile. I don’t wish to, you know, make any generalities but if I can see one commonality between men and women, I would say that women tend to prefer investments that makes sense in the terms of impact and ESG more than women so they care about where their assets are invested and for what purpose, so I would say that’s the main differentiator between men and women. Apart from that, I don’t see any other things.
Stephanie Pierce, Managing Associate
Mishcon de Reya
And lastly, are you seeing an increase in female clients?
Lucie Hulme, CEO
TriLake Partners
Yes, I do see an increase in female clients. I do see that some of them are actually driving the discussions, not often but more and more and also because of divorce rates, they also have to at one point take charge of their wealth so, yes, I can see that there is a rise in there.
Stephanie Pierce, Managing Associate
Mishcon de Reya
So the hens are laying the eggs.
Lucie Hulme, CEO
TriLake Partners
Yes, exactly.
Stephanie Pierce, Managing Associate
Mishcon de Reya
Thank you so much Lucie. For now, let’s wrap up there.
Lucie Hulme, CEO
TriLake Partners
Thank you very much Stephanie.
Stephanie Pierce, Managing Associate
Mishcon de Reya
I’d like to say thanks so much to Lucie Hulme for joining me in this Mishcon Academy Digital Sessions podcast. I’m Stephanie Pierce and do look out for the next episode in the series.
The Digital Sessions are a series of online events, videos and podcasts, all available at Mishcon.com. And if you have any questions you would like answered or suggestions of what you’d like us to cover, do let us know at digitalsessions@mishcon.com.
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