iConnections Global Alts 2024

Kaitlin Malin, COO, iConnections | Discover ’50 Leading Women in Hedge Funds 2023′ in partnership with EY, celebrating industry diversity and trailblazing achievements.

Discover ’50 Leading Women in Hedge Funds 2023′ in partnership with EY, celebrating industry diversity and trailblazing achievements.

This edition marks the eleventh edition of our 50 Leading Women in Hedge Funds report and is published in association with EY for the tenth time. We thank EY for their continued support for this inspiring report and thank our industry network for continuing to provide nominations for exceptionally talented high achievers in the hedge fund industry.

We first published this report in 2009 and continue to receive nominations for women who have featured before over the past fourteen years, but we restrict the number of repeats to special circumstances such as significant promotions or other milestones; one repeat this year is Lone Pine’s COO Kerry Tyler who is celebrating a 25 year anniversary with the company.

Five firms are featuring for the first time: alternative credit manager, 400 Capital Management; managed futures multi-manager, Abbey Capital; illiquid alternatives specialist, Fiera Private Markets; alternatives allocator, Hedonova; digital currency manager Nickel Digital’s multi-strategy Constellation Fund; systematic cryptocurrency hedge fund Strix Leviathan; and multi-strategy equity market neutral sector specialist, Woodline Partners.

The remaining firms namely Balyasny, Bridgewater, Brevan Howard, Caxton Associates, Citco, Citadel and its affiliates, Citadel Securities, D.E. Shaw Group, Dechert, Indus Capital, Lone Pine, Maples Group, MFA, Marshall Wace, Millennium Management, Moore Capital, Mudrick Capital, Point72 and affiliate Cubist, Schonfeld Strategic Advisers, Sculptor, Schulte Roth & Zabel, Seward & Kissel, Sidley Austin, Simmons & Simmons, Surveyor Capital, Taconic Capital Advisers, Tudor Investment Corporation, Verition and Wellington Management have featured at least once before and some more frequently (if not necessarily featuring in every single report). These firms provide serial honourees because they boast a broad and deep bench of senior female professionals – who are also getting promoted. The giant multi-strategy platforms have a big presence because they employ such large teams – Millennium Management has more than 5,000 employees.

Nearly eighty percent of the women in this report work for hedge fund or other alternative managers (including some that have returned external capital and are strictly speaking family offices); twelve work for service providers; one for a trade association; and one for a specialist networking platform and conference organiser.

Most work for medium sized or larger firms, though we are open to those founding their own firms or units within firms. Sadie Raney co-founded Strix Leviathan, and Natalie Faye Smith has co-founded a number of businesses within Brevan Howard, including BH Digital.

The report illustrates a spectrum of senior investment and non-investment job functions.

Ten women are in investment or trading roles covering areas such as equities, fixed income, commercial mortgage-backed securities and global macro trading. Fourteen are in sales, marketing, business development, investor relations or client servicing roles, often dealing with many of the world’s largest institutional investors. Six are in human resources (where hiring portfolio managers can also be dubbed “business development” inside multi-strategy funds), which is often driving forward the diversity of teams. Twelve are lawyers, working either as in-house counsel or in private practice: some of whom have expertise in ESG. Five are in operational and/or financial roles. There is a broker relations specialist and an industry advocate.

Some are wearing multiple hats: one individual combines responsibility for trading and execution with DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion).

Some 80% of this year’s honourees are based in North America, mainly the US, with two in Canada and one in the Cayman Islands, which reflects the US-heavy industry asset breakdown. In Europe, seven are based in the UK, one in France, and one in Ireland. In Asia, three honourees are based in Hong Kong. Many of the women based in North America have come from other countries, such as Albania, Australia, China and Ireland.

Many honourees participate in multiple women’s groups inside and outside their firms, such as formal women’s affinity groups or networks at BNP Paribas, D. E. Shaw, Exodus Point, Millennium Management and Tudor; while Bridgewater’s Melody Rollins co-founded a wider industry group, Women of Color in Investments. Mentoring is also receiving more attention as firms seek to increase the diversity of their internships, university recruitment and lateral hires, and more broadly entrepreneurship in and around the industry. Some women mentor those from their alma mater schools or colleges, while others broaden it out to encourage first time university applicants. Citadel has a Thrive Scholars program for students of colour from low income communities interested in careers in finance. One individual in this report is mentoring incarcerated people on their business ideas.

Gender equalit is attracting ever more attention. The 2023 Nobel prize for Economic Sciences was awarded to Claudia Goldin of Harvard University, for her work on women’s earnings and labour market participation over the centuries, which included documenting the gender pay gap. Female participation has been climbing up the right hand side of a U-shaped curve since the services sector started to dominate over manufacturing in the early twentieth century. Some professional services firms, such as a law firm in Hong Kong, now have more female than male trainees. Elsewhere in the industry, there is much further to go, but hedge fund managers are traveling along a positive trajectory for diversity.

– Hamlin Lovell, Editor, The Hedge Fund Journal

Download the report