No Strippers? No Promotion
Accusations of a boys club culture at one of the world’s largest asset managers coincide with star money manager likening winning business to «getting into a girl’s pants».
A fund manager’s gender has no statistically significant difference in performance for either equity or fixed income managers, a 2018 study from Morningstar found.
Yet, 85 to 90 percent of new fund managers joining the industry is male. Not surprisingly then, a self-perpetuating vicious cycle of masochism and gender-based-discrimination pervades trading floors across the globe.
Can’t Take The Heat? Get Out Of The Kitchen
Ken Fisher, a billionaire fund manager and one of the most prolific public figures in the industry, told a California audience earlier this week that executives who were not comfortable talking about genitalia should get out of the financial industry, Bloomberg reported (behind paywall). The man who is on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with an estimated worth of $3.6 billion also likened winning new business to «getting into a girl's pants».
Fisher’s firm serves large institutional and wealthy private clients but he clearly lacks the ability to read a room, he followed up his offensive comments with shock at the reaction they caused - saying he made the point that the art of wooing clients is similar to seduction.
Fisher later added: «Some of the words and phrases I used during a recent conference to make certain points were clearly wrong and I shouldn’t have made them. I realize this kind of language has no place in our company or industry. I sincerely apologize.»
Two Pregnancies? Give Up Your Career
Not far from where Fisher made the comments, an African-American female employee brought claims of gender discrimination against fixed-income giant Pimco, alleging she was passed up for promotions because she held back from fraternizing with colleagues and clients at strip clubs, golf outings and poker nights. Although the firm has dismissed her allegations, a court is likely to hear from both sides soon.
A female MD at a bank in London empathizes, «there is a misconception that American firms are somehow more woke,» she says, «perhaps because they are more vocal about being politically correct. The truth is the environment [in financial services] is openly hostile to women, especially at key life stages like pregnancy and child-birth».
