What started as a pursuit of intellectual curiosity has become a taxing but rewarding journey for women leading some of the largest allocators, managers and advisers of capital. Along the way, they’ve enriched the world of institutional investing by creating initiatives to promote inclusiveness, supporting younger women and diverse candidates, and speaking up at industry events.
But to get to where they are today, many of the 60 women who were named to Pensions & Investments’ 2024 class of Influential Women in Institutional Investing said developing the confidence to speak on their own accomplishments and advocate for others was key to their success.
This year’s honorees are influential — and not only in regard to the management of capital. As some of them built portfolios to withstand financial turmoil, members of this year’s class have, too, stayed resilient and confronted tough work environments, belittling peers and low self-esteem.
“You have to walk the walk” and “set the example for others” in the office as well as the broader industry, Kelly Young said. She first joined Acadian Asset Management as a relationship manager in 2009 and was tapped to become the firm’s first female CEO in December 2023.
As one becomes more senior at their organization, especially when taking a position in leadership, acting as a role model is increasingly important because “it helps underline the culture that you want,” she noted.
“It starts with role modeling the behavior of ‘how would someone want to be treated?’ and ‘how would I want to be treated by someone?’” Young added. At the $112 billion manager, “that’s the behavior I try and influence the team to show. It’s collaboration. It’s teamwork. It’s mutual respect and support.”
While being their own champion was part of the equation for each honoree’s success, they acknowledged how hard it was — especially as a woman.
“It’s easier for a man to brag and not be dinged for it,” but as a woman, “if you stand up too much,” then there’s “a negative reaction to that,” said Anne-Marie Fink. She serves as chief investment officer for private markets and funds alpha at the $156 billion State of Wisconsin Investment Board, Madison.
Fink added that women walk “a very narrow path between not standing up for yourself at all” — and if they don’t, they can get “sidelined.”
But they put themselves in danger if they don’t stand up for themselves in opportunistic moments, said Venus Phillips, managing director at the $4 billion Kresge Foundation.
“If you’re doing that, and the next person to you is talking about their accomplishments and advocating for themselves, they’re always going to appear to be more accomplished and more capable than you are,” she noted. “We have to learn to find comfort in that discomfort and speak up.”
While “not great at tooting my own horn,” Phillips said there’s “power in embracing your accomplishments (and) lifting them up — especially when you’re applying for a job or requesting a promotion.”
‘Embrace all the great things that you’ve done’
Through her career, Young has observed that women are less inclined to openly share their achievements, so “you have to push people to brag a little bit,” she said. Leaders like herself also have to help shine a light. She thinks about it “as an opportunity to highlight people’s talents — like the quiet, hardworking folks who have huge upside potential” — to a broader group of people.
“The advocacy piece can be really important to highlight to other people the great work that some of our female colleagues might be doing because they don’t feel that they have the voice to do that themselves — or they feel inhibited to do that themselves,” Young added.
For Ann Miletti, she couldn’t say that she has ever taken a moment to celebrate moving up in her career since she “was always so anxious about surviving in that area.”
She serves as Allspring Global Investments’ chief diversity officer and head of active equity, but her journey in the institutional investing space began at the call center in 1991, when the $504.9 billion firm was Strong Capital Management.
As the firm evolved through its purchase and sale by Wells Fargo, so has Miletti, who would take on roles as an analyst and portfolio manager. But the growth came with an overwhelming feeling, in which she almost told a manager of hers, “I’m not qualified to do this.”
“I think I’ve just lived in fear, and in some cases, of disappointing people (or) failing on the field,” Miletti said. But “the one thing I always knew about myself is I could work hard, so if I was willing to put in the work, I could probably figure it out.”
An organization’s culture can play a big role in how a person feels about their work. After joining Kresge in 2019, Phillips started to allow herself to be celebrated because “I was in an organization that celebrated me,” she said.
“There is something to be said about being in the spaces where you are celebrated in the best way that pours into you, and then it makes you feel better about advocating for yourself,” Phillips added. “It makes you realize that you can be more confident without being cocky.”
While Phillips does not “think that’s as common as it should be,” having a culture that celebrates its employees’ works “lets you really show up as your full authentic self and really embrace all the great things that you’ve done along the way,” she noted.
The ‘sad reality’ is that ‘we forget’
Progress can be tracked in multiple ways, from resumes to a daily checklist. For instance, checking off tasks and goals of a checklist and reviewing that list can leave a “encouragement that I am moving forward,” as it does for Joy Booker, managing director and head of institutional client relationships, Americas, at PineBridge Investments.
As she carries on with her work at the $169.7 billion manager, Booker keeps “notes on everything,” adding that she finds it “very satisfying to look at all the collective progress” she has made over time.
For those seeking a primer to self-confidence, “we can point to many examples of being underestimated, undervalued and overlooked for opportunities as reasons why we must beat our own drum of capability and excellence,” Booker added. But then, it’s a matter of getting others, including managers, to acknowledge one’s worth, too.
Even if one has an MBA from a top business school in addition to industry certifications, “none of that really matters if you don’t know how to advocate for yourself,” Kresge’s Phillips said. She has asked for several promotions throughout her career, adding that “I got better at making my cases each time.”
Women working in financial services are “substantially less likely” than their male counterparts to receive an unsolicited promotion, according to a study published by the CFA Institute. The study — which was based on a 2019 survey of Australian financial services workers — also concluded that women receive more promotions when they request them.
In her path to Kresge, Phillips asked a previous employer to be promoted to a vacant role, but was told she “hadn’t been at that organization long enough to qualify for a promotion,” she said.
As the employer sought to look outside to fill this role, she reflected and asked about the desired qualifications — especially since this hire would come in with zero years at this organization as opposed to Phillips’ two years.
“They’re like, ‘10 years of investment experience, a CFA, probably an MBA — and you don’t have that,’” Phillips said. “It was great that I asked the question because I actually did have those qualifications. They just forgot.”
That is the “sad reality” with many managers, Phillips noted. “We look at these resumes, we talk to people during the recruiting process (and) we get excited about these individuals. Then once they get in the seat, we forget about what it was that excited us in the first place,” she added.
“The whole idea of ‘just work hard and keep your head down, and people will magically reward you for that,’ is not necessarily the case,” Phillips said. “But you’ve got to speak up, and in doing that, amazing doors could open for you.”