IMPACT Newsletter: March 2021
Rachael Ferguson
MD / Founder, Investment Management. Please do get in touch with the office/direct email Rachael.ferguson@levertonsearch.com 02031514000.
The clocks have gone back, the weather is warming up, and we’re a month closer to normality! I hope you are all feeling that extra motivation that comes with the brighter days.
Here at Leverton, March has been a really exciting month. The market has remained lively and we’ve made some great placements, as well as spending time focusing on diversity and our passion to promote change.
At the start of the month we shared a post discussing Women for Women International: a programme supporting female survivors of war. Their work enables women to build their independence through teaching a range of skills, including managing finances to support their family. Leverton has been supporting Women for Women since 2017 through our sponsorship to an amazing woman in Nigeria.
The following week, we shared information around the Women in Finance Charter. This is a pledge for gender balance across financial services by HM Treasury. We are proud to announce that Leverton Search is now officially on the Signatories list, as of March 2021!
Last Friday we shared a discussion with Rachael Ferguson (Director) on the importance of International Women’s Day, the barriers women still face within society and how these barriers have impacted Rachael's own journey. We hope you enjoyed the thought provoking questions, and in case you missed it, you can find it on our LinkedIn or Instagram pages.
Over the next few weeks we will be sharing four interviews with some inspiring women from the IMPACT network. The first of the series was with Abigail Kwao (Defined Contribution Investment Analyst at BlackRock and Founder of Equip), which is live on our LinkedIn now! We will discuss these women’s journeys to the successful positions that they are in today, and how they #choosetochallenge.
Take a look at our favourite articles from March:
Big fund houses fail to promote female portfolio managers
Fewer than one in five portfolio managers at the world’s biggest asset managers are women, despite long-running campaigns to improve gender diversity in the investment industry and research that indicates female investors outperform.
The Financial Times contacted more than 20 of the world’s biggest asset managers and found that while women make up more than 40 per cent of employees on average, they account for just 18 per cent of portfolio managers.
Institutional investors increase focus on ethnic and gender diversity in wake of 2020
More than half of US institutional investors report that the events of 2020, including the protests over George Floyd’s death at police hands, have influenced their thinking on diversity and inclusion in their investments.
A survey of 100 institutional investors by Aon found that 58 per cent have become more attuned to issues of gender and ethnic diversity in their investment approach and thinking.
Time running out for FTSE 100 firms to hit deadline to end all-white boardrooms
Time is running out for FTSE 100 firms, including the British Airways owner IAG, BAE Systems and JD Sports to appoint at least one director of colour before a year-end deadline, after analysis showed nearly a fifth of the UK’s largest listed firms were led by all-white boardrooms.
An update from the Parker review, a government-backed report into ethnic diversity in boardrooms of stock market-listed companies, showed that 81 FTSE 100 firms had now met the voluntary target for “one by 2021”, up from 52 last year.