Women in C-Suite Roles

Art by Irene Servillo

A Harvard Business School study found that, among senior roles in venture capital and private equity firms, just 9% and 6% of such jobs, respectively, were occupied by women. In hedge funds, only 11% of senior management roles were held by women. And, according to Deloitte, women’s overall representation in financial firms’ senior management is just 22%, despite the fact that they make up about 50% of the financial services industry as a whole.

Even if the relatively small representation means it is a slow progression, women have already made important strides in this sector. Many said they felt encouraged when Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser, earlier this year, became the first woman to head a major U.S. bank, while Thasunda Brown Duckett, a former JP Morgan Chase executive and a woman of color, was recently named CEO of TIAA.

During a 2021 California Public Employees’ Retirement System (CalPERS) and California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) diversity forum, Duckett advised companies to assess their talent pool and recognize the privilege that male workers have compared with women and underrepresented communities, especially in senior roles.

“We as leaders have to believe that talent is created equally, but opportunity is not,” Duckett said during the panel “Diversity Dialogue: From the C-Suite.” “If we believe it, then we have to understand our processes and support the policies that accelerate our progress. If we don’t, we’ll be able to make excuses as to why there are not more women in our pipeline.”

Adviser and wealth manager Renee Pastor, founder of The Pastor Financial Group, says she sees encouraging progress being made relative to when she began her career in the 1980s. “I’m seeing a lot of young, smart, energetic women who are entering this business,” she says. “We’ve been ignored as potential, successful advisers, but, when you look around, there are many successful women advisers.”

Pastor attributes these changes to a shift in mindset on the part of recruiters and businesses—and across society at large. Awareness and activism calling out gender bias and unequal pay have finally become the norm, she says.

“Those who recruit into this industry haven’t been looking to recruit women—this was a man’s world,” explains Pastor. “Slowly, they have figured out that we are good in this role.”