On International Women’s Day, can you discuss your view of the importance of improved gender diversity in the asset management industry? 
A lot has been said about inequality when discussing the issues of diversity and gender, but I think that inequality is the symptom and not the cause.
One obstacle is attracting women into the industry and the second is encouraging them to stay. At my age, it is disheartening to see that of all the women I started with in the industry in the early 1990s, there are very few of us left.
The imbalance we are experiencing starts with how the industry is perceived by girls in schools and young women looking to embark on their careers. The industry has an image problem that needs to be resolved.
We also need to address the way in which we recruit. Over the last ten years there has been a particular focus on employing individuals with qualifications in specific and often technical degrees, which can be deterring to female applicants at entry level. This has ultimately led to a skewed ratio of male to female applicants at entry level.
Greater attention needs to be paid to how we then develop women’s careers to ensure that the particular issues facing them – that become very acute after they have children – take hold. So far, the industry has done a very bad job at retaining those women and developing their careers.
Is it important to have more women in leadership positions, such as yourself?
Without women in senior positions, it is very hard to provide inspiration and leadership to women throughout the rest of an organisation. It is important to lead by example and demonstrate that the City is an attractive workplace for them.
Personally, I have had a great career in the City and enjoyed it immensely. I am not someone who believes there is a form of institutionalised and systemic sexism going on. However, I do believe that inequality is a symptom of some of these other more structural forces.
We are firm believers at Hermes that gender balance means better business. We are active owners and have a strong shareholder engagement team, which has been engaging for the past 30 years with the companies we invest in.
Gender diversity has been a central engagement theme for us. This has not just been driven by equality, but by what is good for business.
Do you think more diversity can have a positive impact on returns?
Our head of investment has undertaken research in this area, looking at the role that gender diversity plays in being a good investor. He came to the conclusion that the optimal make-up for the best risk-adjusted returns in our investment strategy requires an investment team that is gender balanced 50-50. The academic research that supports this looks at the different ways in which men and women approach problems.
One of the fundamental differences is that men and women have different attitudes towards risk. Women typically tend to be better at navigating and collating information across a broader and more diverse set of issues, while men tend to be better at taking deeper dives on a narrower set of issues.
With that in mind, it makes logical sense that if you have 50 per cent of a team better at looking at analysing investments in one way and 50 per cent analysing in the other way, you will achieve better results than when you have 100 per cent of one or the other.
We fundamentally believe that gender balance creates better outcomes, in both investment decisions and in business more generally.
What steps has Hermes undertaken as an organisation to improve diversity?
We are taking a proactive approach and are implementing a series of measures to improve gender diversity so that we can deliver the best outcomes for clients. Are we where we want to be? Not yet. We are as much hostage to these structural issues affecting the industry as any of our competitors and it will require an industry-wide effort to overcome these barriers.
As I have progressed in my career, I have become more aware of the differences between men and women and the way they think and communicate. These differences are valuable and need to be celebrated.
Saying that, when navigating through institutional structures that are heavily wired-up and tilted towards the way men work, we must be aware of the additional problems this can create for women and the challenges this will place on their career progression.
It is not about trying to make women behave more like men. This is something I try to convey to all the women I mentor. We want a more diverse range of thought processes across financial services, because we believe these differences will bring greater strength to organisations.
At Hermes, we have set ourselves internal targets to improve gender diversity in different parts of the business. We recognise that there is still work to be done and we are willing to invest capital and make the necessary changes to our recruitment process in order to realise these goals.
We know that gender diversity is good for your business and value proposition. The asset management industry is becoming more and more competitive. Our view is that we want to be thinking longer term about how we deliver best value to our clients and greater gender diversity will help us achieve this.