Good career opportunities for women in asset management
The German asset management industry used to be considered a purely male domain; today, things are different. More and more women are making a career in the financial sector, partly because employers want to actively recruit them and because the state has started to set the right course.
The development within the financial sector reflects a general social trend. It has long been a consensus, and actually a matter of course, that women should have the same career opportunities as men. Various social conditions have changed in a positive and reinforcing way, so that, for example, the state parental allowance and the legal right to a job after parental leave help to reconcile family and career.
Employers expressly welcome the entry of female specialists and managers into the asset management industry. Various studies have shown that mixed teams can increase entrepreneurial success. Male and female colleagues have different strengths that complement each other in the team. However, the desire for a high level of diversity in the company’s own ranks is not the decisive factor in the actual selection of personnel. Who is ultimately suitable for which job depends on the skills and personality of the applicant.
Against this backdrop, we are seeing a high demand for female specialists and managers in the financial sector. In order to make the workplace more attractive for female specialists, some companies have started to introduce more liberal home office rules or offer daycare places.
Although departments such as marketing/press, HR and sales support are well staffed by women, the female gender currently tends to be underrepresented in sales, for example. In our opinion, this is also due to the fact that sales specialists and account managers have to travel a lot. In terms of the pool of candidates for these positions, we have identified a ratio of 80 to 20 men to women.
So there is a lot of upward potential. Asset management companies are doing a lot to make their jobs attractive to female candidates. In addition to the nursery places and home office rules already mentioned, asset managers offer more flexible working hours or the opportunity to take a sabbatical year. Despite all this flexibility, employers will still require sales specialists to be willing to travel. For those for whom this is not so easy, there are always opportunities in marketing/press, HR, compliance and sales support. We are also seeing opportunities for female specialists in portfolio management.
Another positive development is the “diversity training” for managers at companies, which is organized by the HR departments. In the German asset management sector in particular, there is still a much greater deficit of female managers than in the UK or France, for example. However, the gap to these countries could narrow in the coming years.
Manuel Rehwald
Managing Director, Rehwald Associates GmbH
