Young Women Into Finance
The journey from high school to employment in finance
Made possible by
By 2030, we want to be able to eradicate the gender bias of new graduates entering the finance industry.
Exactly how male-dominated is the market?
One large investor recently disclosed to us that only 18 out of every 100 applications for its graduate scheme are from females. This tallies consistently with the wider market across Investment Banking and Private Equity where our research suggests that an average annual graduate intake represents a ratio of 75/25 males to females.
Even at the most junior levels, the 50/50 shortlist is simply unrealistic and, when you consider that the imbalance only gets worse as you look to more senior levels (with women leaving the industry for a variety of reasons), the size of the task comes into real focus.
What do we hope to achieve?
50/50 by 2030 – simple as that.
By 2030, we want our clients, our corporate partners in the programme, to be able to publish fair and representative 50/50 graduate recruitment figures.
Who are we targeting?
Our hope is not just to bring young women into finance. It is to specifically target those who need us the most. We are talking about those less privileged, in less advantaged communities, who are less likely to have a role model in the industry already and may feel that a career in the City/Wall Street is not something they could ever aspire to. We want to take the message out to them, that “YES, it is!”
The Story So Far
We started the program in September 2018 with 20 young women from two schools in the London area. By Summer 2021 only 6 of these young women remained on the program and went on to complete full summer internships. They remain in the program and are working towards their 2nd internship this summer and a permanent job upon graduation in 2023.
We started to learn lessons around which young women might be successful and stay with the program, and we worked with our mentors in thinking about success factors and support required by our young women to succeed on what is a difficult program.
By September 2021, we were able to bring on a cohort of 60 young women, and we are very excited about both the calibre and commitment of this crop. Several of them won a prize from CISI for scoring 100% in their Fundamentals of Financial Services exam in December 2021!
In September 2022 we aim to bring on board 100 young women, and as our sponsor base grows, so does our ability to spread our wings and find new feeder schools with bright young women looking for opportunities such as this.
