How women in finance address failure and opportunities

Women are more scrutinised in the workplace but there could be a ‘competitive advantage’ to standing out in a male-dominated industry, according to female finance leaders.

Speaking at an International Women’s Day panel hosted by Morningstar, Elizabeth Kumaru, head of private corporate assets at Australian Retirement Trust (ART), shared her experience working with “amazing” investors and mentors throughout her career.

“What I will say is that the [fear of failure] was all internal with me, thinking you need to be perfect,” she said.

“One of the biggest lessons was that no-one knows everything, and for me to actually surround myself and seek out talented people.

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“People love sharing their stories and being able to demonstrate their expertise, so harnessing that and gathering information before you come to your own conclusions or solutions has certainly helped me in conquering that fear of failure.” 

Ardea Investment Management’s head of research, Dr Laura Ryan, noted that women in the workplace were put under the microscope more frequently than their male peers.

“There’s quite a bit of published research that shows women are most scrutinised, but I think the industry is becoming much more aware of unconscious biases,” she observed. “Do I think [this bias] is still there? Yes.”

She highlighted another paper that looked into promotion rates in the Australian finance industry, which found men and women were now asking for promotions at similar rates in the country.

Ryan said: “This is countering that argument that women are more agreeable, so I think we’ve got the message we needed to lean in and ask for those promotions. We’ve caught up there.

“The difference, though, is that we found there were more unsolicited promotions for men so overall, they were receiving more promotions than women.”

Industry veteran Katie Hudson, Yarra Capital Management director and former managing director at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, believed looking and sounding different in the male-dominated finance industry could be a good thing.

“I say to the guys in our team, ‘I am unsackable’ because there’s so few women fund managers!” she quipped.

“But it is a massive advantage and we’re seeing it now; women are in demand in equities in particular. It’s an advantage that I’m happy to benefit from.” 

She said she “didn’t mind” being routinely invited to speak at panels and public gatherings as one of the few female fund managers in Australia. 

“Funds management is a relatively new industry in a lot of ways. Investment banking, asset consulting, accounting get the big profile on university campuses, so what we’ve decided to do as an organisation is sponsor the Financial Management Association of Australia (FMAA) and others to try to build awareness.

“Part of our collective responsibility is to build awareness about this as a career and all the opportunities it presents.”

Still, Hudson noted, there was room for improvement in supporting women in the industry, which should begin with superannuation contributions on paid parental leave. 

“Personally, I still look at my super balance and it’s so much lower than my husband’s, but I was out on maternity leave and worked part-time for a period.

“I think we need to do better as far as that’s concerned. That’s a really big one we need to fix.”