My Salute To The Women In Fund Services

International Women’s Day is a day of celebration and reflection at Maitland Fund Services.

Gender diversity is good for business. This thinking has been backed up by significant research by McKinsey and others who indicate that diversity of thought in business leads to more informed and balanced decision-making. As a global business, are we showing progress? Is equal rights and equal pay a reality? Does our leadership reflect the diversity of our people? What are the intangible factors still impacting women? Tough questions. But worth investigating.

As a husband and father to school aged children, I have experienced first-hand the multi-tasking required to keep everything together during the lockdowns over the past two years. Lives were turned upside down and women were at the center of that storm – juggling home-life, school life and their professional work demands. Sadly, the general consensus remains that women often bear the brunt of the work from home realities. Our records indicate that during the lockdowns, more women reported feelings of distress, depression, and anxiety. It reminds me of the image of a duck serenely floating on a dam while beneath the water, they are paddling furiously to keep things afloat. Clearly, the pressure on women in business remains something that men just haven’t come to grips with yet. Gender diversity may positively impact our bottom line, but it has to be built on a solid foundation that also addresses the pressures impacting our women colleagues. We need to do more.

At Maitland, we are a work in progress, but our progress is real – and exciting. We have long been on a journey to achieve gender diversity and it is starting to pay off. 56% of our staff are women, and women account for 46% of our senior leadership team. The exciting part – our business has grown exponentially during this period, allowing us to break through the R3 trillion assets under administration milestone, client satisfaction scores are the highest they have ever been, and the majority of our staff are choosing to continue to work from home. We’ve also put the spotlight on ongoing wellness initiatives and open communications to address the pressure working from home may bring. Could we have achieved this same level of success without our high level of women in leadership? Research conducted by Credit Suisse and Catalyst suggests not. Their reports demonstrate clear correlations between gender diversity at the executive management level and a higher return on sales, equity, invested capital, and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors.

With ESG factors in mind, tomorrow’s leaders are also on our agenda. The majority of interns in Maitland’s internship programme are young women. This programme is aimed at upskilling previously disadvantaged young people into the world of asset servicing. We are producing interesting research on the social impact this programme has on our interns wider communities in the long-term, which we look forward to sharing soon.

To the women in fund services, and especially my colleagues at Maitland, I salute you. May you continue to flourish and shape our industry for the better.

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