International Women’s Day was on Sunday 8 March, a day that since 1910 has focused attention on women’s rights. The day – and the invitation to speak on the topic at the Institute of Directors on 6 March – prompted me to think through how much has changed for women in the last 110 years. While there are still challenges ahead, this is pivotal time for women.
The first is for companies to continue to promote more women to more senior roles. Gender diversity studies provide a weight of evidence highlighting the benefits of including an equal percentage of women in strategic positions, starting with neurochemistry and the different way men and women’s brains are wired. Women problem solve and come up with ideas in different ways to men; this diversity adds breadth of input. However, it isn’t just gender diversity that matters – we should also look at cognitive diversity i.e. having a group of people of different ages, sexes, cultures and social backgrounds. Companies have gradually woken up to the fact that gender diversity in senior management is linked to better financial performance. It also improves sustainability. These are both areas that consumers and investors focus very keenly on, and could be key to improving the gender equality imbalance too
Empowering more women would also benefit society as a whole since it has been linked to an increase in GDP of US$28 trillion in 2025 according to the management consultancy, McKinsey. To put that number in context that is almost the size of the US and Chinese economies combined!
Meanwhile, the push in the last few years for maternal leave to broaden to parental leave could mean the most common reason cited for the non-promotion of females should start to become irrelevant. That, in turn, will mean women will have more role models, there will be improved mentoring and inter-generational working, which in turn will improve performance and outcomes. And this will lead to more opportunities for women – just as Ariadne helped Theseus navigate the way out of the labyrinth with a ball of thread – to provide guidance, mentoring and support to other women in the workplace.
There remains one area, however, where we can all do more – and that’s with looking after our own interests when planning our finances – especially given the disparity in income women as a gender face. With the UK tax year end and ISA deadline for 2020 approaching, I was interested to find that although women and men held roughly the same number of ISAs, 1.25 million men chose a stocks and shares ISA compared with 957,000 women in 2019. And yet, there is evidence that women are better investors than men. In 2018, for example, the Warwick Business School conducted a study of 2,800 UK men and women investing, and tracked their performance over three years. The men in Warwick’s study managed an average annual return 0.14% higher than the FTSE 100 benchmark used, but women outperformed the benchmark by 1.94%, beating men by 1.8%.
So, while we will have to wait for the opportunity to earn more money professionally, the opportunity to invest our personal wealth is available now.
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Rebecca joined Nedbank Private Wealth in May 2004 having moved to the Isle of Man from Barcelona to pursue a course in Business Studies with the Isle of Man Business School. Rebecca was appointed to the role of investment counsellor in March 2019 to focus exclusively on the company’s discretionary investment management services.
She works closely with our teams of private bankers to provide support in advising our clients with integrity, and to give additional technical investment expertise where more complex portfolio requirements exist.
Rebecca is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment and a Chartered Wealth Manager.
Rebecca joined Nedbank Private Wealth in May 2004 having moved to the Isle of Man from Barcelona to pursue a course in Business Studies with the Isle of Man Business School. Rebecca was appointed to the role of investment counsellor in March 2019 to focus exclusively on the company’s discretionary investment management services.
She works closely with our teams of private bankers to provide support in advising our clients with integrity, and to give additional technical investment expertise where more complex portfolio requirements exist.
Rebecca is a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment and a Chartered Wealth Manager.
+44 (0)1624 645813
Nedbank Private Wealth manages mainly multi-asset portfolios, so our communications don’t tend to focus exclusively on one asset class. However, today we propose discussing equities. Why? Because when you consider the news headlines, and then consider equity markets, we appear to be living in a parallel universe.
Read moreThe news feed from the coronavirus is all consuming, and rightly so. A disease that was widely touted, just a couple of months ago, as ‘similar’ to influenza has infected millions and killed hundreds of thousands of people.
Read moreTwo major disasters have crossed paths and it seems that the only good news we read about these days relates to how the coronavirus pandemic is slowing down climate change. Otherwise the press is full of heart-breaking stories of loss, peppered with acts of kindness and a sense of us trying to pull together. No one can tell us with absolute certainty what the future looks like, or when this will end. It can feel like we are staring into the deep unknown.
Read moreOne of the first lessons you are taught when studying anything investment related is the role diversification plays. For my investment exams, I was taught a diversified portfolio consisted of around 20 stocks ‒ a mere nod to today’s view. Instead, your portfolios – if you are a client of Nedbank Private Wealth that is – are invested across thousands of companies.
Read moreAs we witnessed in our latest webinar (click here for the Q&A), investors are struggling to understand everything given the tsunami of news. Markets have begun to claw back losses in some areas, but there may well be more bad news ahead, before we see a sustained trend in positive headlines. So what’s next?
Read more“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.” ― Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
Read moreAs children, most of us were excited to visit a sweet shop – I definitely was. Dazzled by the bright display of shelf upon shelf of glass jars, there were sweets of every possible shape, colour and taste – all covered in sugar. Some coins lay in my hand, but which sweets would I choose?
Read moreToo often we believe clients sit in too much cash. We understand why people do this, but we think that too much can be an issue. How much do you really need?
Read moreWe are one of only a handful of wealth managers who use currency management as part of our investment approach. In this short 45-second video, we explain why.
Read moreInternational Women’s Day was on Sunday 8 March, a day that since 1910 has focused attention on women’s rights. The day – and the invitation to speak on the topic at the Institute of Directors on 6 March – prompted me to think through how much has changed for women in the last 110 years. While there are still challenges ahead, this is pivotal time for women.
Read moreAllie Kirk, private banker, speaks to Rebecca Cretney, one of our investment specialists, about the current market turbulence.
Read moreIf you are interested in becoming a client, please complete the form via the ‘become a client’ button below. Alternatively, if you are already a client, or if you have a question about how we help clients in particular circumstances, please use the ‘contact us’ button.
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