Proving their mettle
Women are claiming their place in the sun on the asset management front, historically dominated by males
For many women, fund management has been more appealing than more macho parts of the industry, such as securities trading.
It is a more collegiate environment which can accommodate time off, whether in sabbaticals or maternity leave, someone else in the team can hold the fort. And it provides flexibility in work.
Gail Daniel, one of the pioneering women in the profession, has continued to run the Investec Managed fund as she has been allowed to opt out of mundane management responsibilities, such as choosing a new coffee machine, and can make her own decisions.
Another pioneer, Anet Ahern, had a sabbatical and was about to teach yoga full time when back in 2013 she was offered the chance to head PSG Asset Management and join Jannie Mouton’s group. She had already made her mark as the first female boss of a major asset manager, BOE Asset Management, as well as of a multimanager, Sanlam Multimanager International. Before that she rose through the ranks at Allan Gray in the late 1980s and early 1990s. During that time Allan Gray himself left to form Orbis in Bermuda, but continued to run a portion of the Allan Gray portfolio. Ahern would implement his deals from Cape Town.
“I have been given opportunities not so much from a more welcoming approach to women in the workplace, but more because of the brain drain of skills going overseas. It created a number of vacancies in my time at Allan Gray and later on.”
Another contemporary of Ahern is Helen Masson, for many years a leading manager at the giant
Eskom Pension & Provident Fund, who later helped Wiphold set up an asset manager, Wipam. Over time this has morphed into PAM Asset Management.
Their generation will be putting their feet up soon. Is there enough of a pipeline to replace them?
This report cannot be a comprehensive glossary of women fund managers, there are too many, especially when sectors such as alternatives and private equity are included. But the progress of women into senior fund management positions has been slow. Fatima Vawda, founder of 27four, is one of just a handful of female entrepreneurs to start their own fund manager. She says the position is worst of all in the hedge fund sector, where no woman fund manager can be considered a star.
Hedge funds form a small part of the Sygnia empire run by the sometimes controversial Magda Wierzycka. She is considered in some surveys to be the richest woman in SA — if only assets on the JSE are considered. This actuary helped develop some of the earliest versions of index funds at the now defunct Southern Life. Then she moved to Alexander Forbes to help set up the asset consulting division. But it was during her nearly seven years at Coronation that she acquired a strong reputation as a businesswoman and as a persuasive marketer. Her three years at African Harvest, with its patently inferior investment team, was a disappointment.
She has proved her strengths as manager and marketer at Sygnia, which has been running for 11 years. She has built the business around fintech principles. And she has a talented woman, Nikki Giles, as the chief operating officer.
Initially, there were few women fund managers, especially on the equity side: Ansie van Rensburg stood out as the senior cash and short-term securities manager at Standard Corporate & Merchant Bank asset management and then Stanlib. Not too far behind is Daphne Botha, who has 16.5 years as a portfolio manager specialising in yield-enhanced products and core bonds at Futuregrowth.
At the slightly racier end of fixed income is Heather Jackson, head of Atlantic Specialised Finance, which
What it means: More female experts are entering an industry that has been dominated by men