The Big Gender Short in Investment Management

Ellen Carr

BA, Harvard'94; MBA, Kellogg Graduate School of Management'99
Adjunct Associate Professor, The Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing
Columbia Business School

Katrina Dudley

MBA, NYU Stern School of Business'00
Senior Vice President, Investment Strategist, and Portfolio Manager
Franklin Templeton

Diversification is a core principle of investing. Yet money managers have not applied it to their own ranks. Only around 10 percent of portfolio managers—the people most directly responsible for investing your money—are female, and the numbers are even worse at the ownership level. What are the causes of this underrepresentation, and what are its consequences—including for firms’ and clients’ bottom lines?

In this talk coinciding with the Women's History month, experienced practitioners Ellen Carr and Katrina Dudley examine the lack of women in investment management and propose solutions to improve the imbalance. They explore the barriers that subtly but effectively discourage women from entering and staying in the industry at each point in the pipeline. At the entry level, the lack of visible role models discourages students from considering the field, and those who do embark on an investment management career face many obstacles to retention and promotion. Carr and Dudley highlight the importance of informal knowledge about how to navigate career tracks, without which women are left at a disadvantage in an industry that lionizes confidence.

Carr and Dudley make a compelling case that increasing the number of female portfolio managers could help transform active investment management at a time when it is under threat from passive strategies and technological innovation.

Time will be allocated for Q&A.

This program is part of the ColumbiaDC CUP series.

“Today, all forms of inequality are being scrutinized. The underrepresentation of women in investment management isn’t in the headlines, but it’s something many of us in the profession want to change. How can we make progress in this regard? Undiversified by Ellen Carr and Katrina Dudley is the authoritative source on the subject and a great place to start.” Howard Marks, co-founder and cochairman, Oaktree Capital Management

Ellen Carr has over two decades of experience as a high-yield bond portfolio manager, most recently at Barksdale Investment Management, a majority-women-owned, institutional fixed-income investment management firm. She is also an adjunct professor of finance at Columbia Business School, where she teaches courses on the credit markets and cash flow modeling. She is a frequent contributor to the Financial Times.

Katrina Dudley is a global equity portfolio manager at Franklin Templeton Investments, one of the world’s largest asset managers. She is the author of the introduction to the Vault Career Guide to Mutual Funds (2016). She is a frequent market commentator on CNBC and Bloomberg, a mentor to up-and-coming female investment professionals, and a guest lecturer at Columbia Business School and the Stern School of Business.

CUP Series: This is a new initiative between ColumbiaDC and Columbia University Press to showcase acclaimed and pioneering work by renowned academics, scholars, and researchers published by the Columbia University Press.