{"id":3359,"date":"2025-02-04T12:23:44","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T12:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/04\/i-dont-think-the-world-is-getting-the-best-talent-meet-the-woman-recruiting-the-next-generation-of-risk-takers\/"},"modified":"2025-02-04T12:23:44","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T12:23:44","slug":"i-dont-think-the-world-is-getting-the-best-talent-meet-the-woman-recruiting-the-next-generation-of-risk-takers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/04\/i-dont-think-the-world-is-getting-the-best-talent-meet-the-woman-recruiting-the-next-generation-of-risk-takers\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I don\u2019t think the world is getting the best talent\u2019: Meet the woman recruiting the next generation of \u2018risk-takers\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the US, just 19% of all venture capital (VC) investment partners \u2014 the people who write the cheques investing in entrepreneurs \u2014 are women; in Europe, a 2023 report found that number to be 16%. That has a knock-on effect: women are more likely than men <\/strong>to invest in women-led enterprises, and US companies with only <\/em>female founders saw just 2% of all VC investment in 2022. <\/p>\n

According to the European Investment Bank, female-founded companies deliver twice as much revenue per dollar invested, despite receiving less than half the investment capital of their male peers. Research has also consistently found that female investors are more interested in social impact businesses, which can benefit society more widely. <\/p>\n

In a bid to address the gender gap, Amanda <\/strong>Pullinger founded Global Female Investors Management in 2024 with fellow finance industry veteran Vanessa Yuan. One of its core services is the Global Female Investors Network, a 2,000-strong community of women who manage money, whether it\u2019s hedge funds, traditional funds or VC funds. <\/p>\n

After spending 25 years in finance, including over a decade as the CEO of 100 Women \u200bin Finance, a global non-profit professional association with over 30,000 registered \u200bmembers, Pullinger was ready for something different. Her mission has always been to address the under-representation of women in finance, but in the <\/strong>investment sector it was lacking more than any other. <\/p>\n

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.<\/em> <\/p>\n

Amanda Pullinger (AP):<\/strong> I\u2019d say the biggest challenge remains the fact that there are so few women in leadership roles. I\u2019m a big believer in visibility. I grew up in the UK, and I was the first in my family to go to university. I went to Oxford because of a woman who was visible to me in a leadership role: Margaret Thatcher (the first British female prime minister). Like me, she was the first in her family to go to university, she went to Oxford. So I said to myself, \u201cWell, she\u2019s like me. If she can do it, I can do it.\u201d <\/p>\n

While that sounds trite, most women want to be able to see a pathway into leadership. What\u2019s the perception that you have of <\/strong>an investor? It\u2019s very often a White man, because that\u2019s who we see on television or on panels at conferences. The reality is there are women in those roles, but we need them to be more visible. <\/p>\n

AP:<\/strong> By introducing women to their peers. That\u2019s why networks are so important. That network is important in sharing experiences because we can\u2019t possibly know everything. <\/p>\n

The second step is to really get men on side. In my career, men have been massive advocates for me. Women don\u2019t rush to do those panel discussions and be visible, but men can be helpful in saying, \u201cI think it would be great for you to represent the organization,\u201d and really push women into those roles and say, \u201cLook, if you\u2019re not comfortable, I\u2019ll get you a communications coach. We\u2019ll get you through some of the challenges that you may feel.\u201d Men are such a critical part of getting to the solution. That\u2019s why for me, sometimes when there\u2019s discussion about DEI (Diversity, equity, and inclusion), I worry that men are excluded from that conversation. <\/p>\n

AP:<\/strong> I\u2019m a believer in meritocracy. I didn\u2019t come from privilege: I made my own way, very much with the help of men in my career, but I made my own way. But here\u2019s my big question to those who say, \u201cWell, the world\u2019s equal, and there are equal opportunities, so surely it should just be giving a job to the best person\u201d \u2014 my challenge would be, how sure are you that you are giving access to the best person? <\/p>\n

I hear in the finance industry all the time from companies saying, \u201cWe don\u2019t get any women applying for investment roles.\u201d And I\u2019m sitting here thinking, \u2018I\u2019ve got 2,000 members in our database who are female risk-takers.\u2019 You are saying they\u2019re not applying; there\u2019s something missing here. I\u2019m all about getting the best: but without some kind of action where you gain access to a broader range of people, you are potentially missing out on the best talent. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s the same with female fund owners. I\u2019m not saying they\u2019re always the best, but if they\u2019re excluded for all sorts of systemic reasons from the process, again, I\u2019d ask allocators: how do you know you\u2019re picking the best fund? It\u2019s very much around creating access and opportunity, and then things can fall where they fall. But without that access and opportunity, I don\u2019t think the world is getting the best talent. <\/p>\n

AP:<\/strong> What\u2019s really fascinating is we are now in a place in the world where I believe, globally, there are more women going through universities, proportional to men. But actually, the big issue I find with most professional women who are well-educated is that we\u2019ve all been told that if we work hard and we perform, we\u2019ll be noticed, we\u2019ll be promoted, we\u2019ll be acknowledged. That works while you are in full-time education because full-time education is about working hard, doing a test and getting a result. The reality is when you come into the business world, it\u2019s about relationships. <\/p>\n

So the advice I give to women is to spend a little bit less time focused on hunkering down doing the work, and do what the guys do: build relationships, take the time for yourself, get yourself on conference panels, put your hand up, be vocal. All those things, to some extent, take away from this notion that it\u2019s all about hard work \u2014 of course it\u2019s about hard work, but women have got to learn that it\u2019s also about relationships. We\u2019ve never been taught that, and it\u2019s something that I say all the time to women. <\/p>\n

AP: <\/strong>I wish when I was younger, someone had said to me, \u201cDo not give up maths at 16.\u201d I should have done maths at A-level (a pre-university school qualification in England, Wales and Northern Ireland), I was perfectly capable of doing it. So I think first of all, it\u2019s about giving women the fundamental skill set and confidence in numbers. The second is, I wish that more young women knew the impact you can have in the world by becoming a capital allocator or an investment professional. <\/p>\n

If you want to create change in the world, managing money is one of the best ways to do it, because you can guide where that money goes, and that money can have an impact. This is not just a greedy industry, it\u2019s a place where you truly can make a difference in the world. That\u2019s something I wish more young women knew. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n

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In the US, just 19% of all venture capital (VC) investment partners \u2014 the people who write the cheques investing in entrepreneurs \u2014 are women; in Europe, a 2023 report found that number to be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3360,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/invest360pro.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}