Just as in equities and fixed income, women are making their mark trading, issuing and investing in exchange-traded funds. Yesterday, women in ETFs made their presence felt at Nasdaq’s Ringing the Closing Bell for Gender Equality event.
As part of International Women’s Day, consultancy ETFGI, Women in ETFs, Brown Brothers Harriman and other distinguished women and financial firms celebrated the importance of diversity in the corporate world and in finance in particular. About 50 guests attended the Tuesday close of the all-electronic exchange at 4 Times Square in New York.
This year, Women in ETFs partnered with UN Global Compact, Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative, UN Women, IFC, and The World Federation of Exchanges to host events across the globe this week, to raise awareness about the importance of gender equality to sustainable development and business.
The first bell rang on the Nairobi Stock Exchange on March 3 and the series has since traveled to the New York Stock Exchange, London Stock Exchange, and Bolsa de Santiago. The celebration ends with a ceremony at Bursa Malaysia on March 11. The events are designed to showcase the actions companies, exchanges, investors and other key stakeholders are taking to achieve gender equality while improving the bottom line.
Muy Chan, Vice President of Global ETF Services at Brown Brothers Harriman, told Markets Media that BBH and other firms have witnessed that emerging and new fund structures have resulted in increasingly more complex exchange-traded products. And this growth in new products has left openings for female professionals.
“This has led us and our peers to explore more technology solutions and innovate the ways in which we approach our ETF servicing model,” she said, which includes more diverse hiring. “The best part for me is working with clients to design creative technological and servicing solutions, and I look forward to doing more.”
Chan noted that ETFs is a growth area, citing ETFGI data that showed global ETF assets doubled from $1.48T at the end of 2010 to $3T at the end of 2015. “ETFs are one of the strongest growth areas in the financial services industry today,” Chan said. “It’s an exciting area that is attracting many of the industry’s top talent — including women.”
Women comprise about half of BBH’s ETF team.
“Studies such as the new survey by the Peterson Institute for International Economics of 21,980 publicly traded companies in 91 countries demonstrates that the presence of more female leaders in top positions of corporate management correlates with increased profitability of these companies” said Deborah Fuhr, one of the WE founders and Managing Partner of ETFGI. “And we continue to encourage the opportunities for women in ETFs, ETPs and other areas where we can make significant contributions.”
Photos courtesy of Nasdaq