Established 1961

MONDAY, MARCH 1, 2021 Business Women making inroads on , but still a long way to go Jane Fraser arrives as head of banking flagship today

NEW YORK: Pin-up photos and smutty jokes have in their organization... long been commonplace on trading floors, but the and which structures finance world is gradually opening up to women- they can put in place, so underlined by the arrival today of Jane Fraser as the that it is not just on head of Wall Street banking flagship Citigroup. women,” said Muriel Her elevation marks “a milestone,” according to Wilkins. At JPMorgan Lorraine Hariton, director of Catalyst, an organiza- Chase, America’s largest tion that promotes women in the workplace. “But bank by asset size, there is also a long way to go,” she said. there has long been an Employment figures demonstrate the mountains informal women’s net- that still have to be moved to achieve parity work. In 2013, women at between men and women in the financial services the most senior level sector. Women in 2019 made up more than 50 per- started organizing cent of employees in the field in the , women-only meetings but only 22 percent of managers-leaving aside the while on business trips Jane Fraser highest positions-according to a report by Deloitte. around the world so Current trends predict that figure will rise to 31 that they could hear employees’ thoughts. percent by 2030. And male financial analysts earned Company head wanted to formalize 17 percent more on average in 2020 than their these various initiatives and so in 2018 the “Women female counterparts. Several women told AFP that on the Move” program was created, said project women have to work harder than men to climb the manager Sam Saperstein. “It allowed us to reinvigo- ranks, and have to be seen as beyond reproach. rate what we were doing with HR, with training and Prestigious professions and those that pay the just pull everything together and elevate it in a clear most, like investment bankers and traders, still strategy across the firm,” she said. remain strongholds of white men. And sexist The initiative organized a career development remarks still come out from time to time. “For every program open to all women in the company. About A woman walks on Wall Street in . —AFP Jane Fraser, there are hundreds, if not thousands, 500 participated in the first session last year, and out there,” said Muriel Wilkins of the executive 2,000 have applied for the second. consultancy firm Paravis Partner. “Are they being provided with the opportunities to be able to Sponsorships The organization wants to prove that contrary to those same numbers at the associate level.” advance?” she said. But the old certainties have To tackle the citadel of asset management, which popular belief, women are not at all turned off by “Measurement and holding people accountable is started to shift. is still the preserve of men, the organization “Girls the job: companies just have to go out and find critical to make change,” said Lorraine Hariton of who Invest,” founded in 2015, has set itself the goal them. It scours university campuses to recruit stu- Catalyst. Michael Corbat, Jane Fraser’s predeces- Women’s network of having 30 percent of the money invested in funds dents, train them and offer them internships. “The sor, was one of the first in the industry to release Vague promises about the need to diversify worldwide managed by women by 2020. Women industry had moved tremendously in the past five statistics on diversity within his firm. It is also recruiting have gradually led to some real reflection currently represent only six percent of managers in years,” said director Katherine Jollon Colsher. essential, Hariton said, for companies to put in place on the issue. “Slowly more leaders... are starting to venture capital companies, according to the group, “More and more firms are now having 50 per- support measures, whether it is sponsorship pro- think and to talk about what it means to have equity and only three percent in hedge funds. cent female analyst classes and are focused on grams or parental leave. —AFP

and further their knowl- A look at three edge. Batson applauded Citigroup’s appointment China investment in of Jane Fraser as the first women in finance female chief executive of a giant Wall Street bank. Australia plunges as NEW YORK: Women in the US finance industry “For a woman, or any- applaud signs of progress at financial giants like body that’s underrepre- ties sour, virus bites Citigroup, which became the first big Wall Street sented, to be able to look bank to name a female chief executive. and see someone that SYDNEY: Chinese investment in Australia Still, even as more women rise and some compa- looks like them, or has a plunged almost two-thirds last year to less than nies allow greater flexibility to working mothers, similar upbringing, is very, $1 billion as the impact of coronavirus was finance remains a challenging career domain and very important to moving compounded by increasingly fraught relations progress is coming more slowly than many women the needle,” she said. Robin Prunty Anna Zhou Hermina Batson between the two countries. The reading marks would like. ‘Never been easy’ - Transparency has the fourth straight drop and is just a fraction of As a little girl, Hermina Batson was always curious improved following US Mentoring from senior colleagues has been crucial, the $13 billion injected into the country in 2016, when she saw cash exchanged. “I was always won- banking regulations requiring data on employee she said, adding: “I have a clear view of my career with Canberra growing increasingly wary of the dering when my parents paid for things, why we never diversity, but “we’re not there yet,” she said. The wage path ahead.” Asian superpower’s intentions. got the same bill back,” Batson told AFP. “I wanted to gap especially is still too wide, Batson added. Data from the Australian National University know what was happening.” Batson’s mother took her Grateful to work part-time released yesterday showed direct investment to visit the Federal Reserve Bank of New York when Need ‘a strong network’ “Before it was even popular, S&P gave me the plunged to US$800 million last year, from she was six. Anna Zhou, 22, was undecided on her career path opportunity to work part time when I started having US$2.05 billion in 2019. The pandemic has She has been hooked on finance ever since, even when she started at Yale University in 2016 after my family, in 1993,” recalled Robin Prunty. Prunty, 57, almost halved investment globally according to while recognizing that the career, as an African being recruited to the fencing team. She began who has been at S&P Global Ratings since 1987, had United Nations trade body UNCTAD, but a American, “has never been easy.” “I did not feel exploring finance after one of her friends introduced originally expected to work the reduced schedule for much larger drop was seen in China-Australia rejected. I might have felt awkward,” she said. her to Girls Who Invest (GWI), whose mission is to six months, but “ended up working part-time for 17 flows, according to ANU economics professor Throughout her career, senior management or boost the number of women in portfolio management years,” she said. Shiro Armstrong. clients would sometimes hand Batson their coat when and executive leadership in asset management. “I really appreciated that flexibility, and I think it Last year China’s direct investment to they arrived at a meeting. Eventually she learned to The organization helped Zhou line up a summer really made a big difference to other women coming Australia focused on just 20 projects in three return the gesture. After high school, Batson, who internship at Wellington Management in Boston. into the organization after me,” she said. “That really sectors-real estate, mining and manufactur- goes by Nina, immediately began working for a bank. She found support from women at different levels was a big factor in my decision to stay at S&P.” ing-the fewest in a decade. “Naturally, this After studying securitization in college, she worked of the firm. Keeping in touch helped Zhou land a job Prunty kept gaining experience working part-time kind of data is lumpy, because of big projects, her way up to senior positions, eventually spending at Wellington after she graduated. Zhou sees signs of even if her career didn’t advance as quickly as it might but there is a pretty clear trend we can see, 25 years at Japanese bank MFUG. progress on diversity in finance, but says there is have. “When I came back full time and was ready to since the peak in 2016 it has fallen every year “Though I’m currently in transition, I’m very much “room for improvement.” take on management responsibilities, they were fully quite steadily, quite dramatically,” Armstrong looking forward to staying in the financial industry,” “Since my freshman year at Yale, more opportuni- supportive of that,” said Prunty, who currently man- told AFP. she said. ties for women to enter finance have emerged,” she ages analytics and research on US public finance. In 2016 there were a number of large invest- Batson will take over as president of the Financial said. “Through my involvement with GWI, I both Prunty is active in the women’s bond club and ments from the China Investment , a Women’s Association in July. The group was estab- experienced and am currently promoting the impor- applauds the more significant focus on diversity in sovereign wealth fund, and China’s State Power lished in 1956 after its founders were turned away tance of a strong network for females in the finance recent years throughout the industry, but adds: “I Investment Corporation bought Pacific Hydro. from a men’s club to share professional experiences industry.” think there’s room for improvement.” —AFP While China remains Australia’s largest trad- ing partner, political relations are at their lowest plans to do. Bond yields have risen else- ly above its 2.0 percent target. there aren’t the same risks of overheat- in decades, with Canberra recoiling at Beijing’s Europe less at where too, with 10-year French govern- But bond yields continued to rise, ing as in the United States,” said Fabien efforts to translate economic might into political ment bonds turning positive on Thursday indicating investor concern about a rise Tripier, an economist at CEPII, a Paris- and military power. China has slapped punitive for the first time in months while the in interest rates that would make bor- based research centre on the world sanctions on a range of Australian exports as risk of inflation benchmark 10-year German Bund has rowing and investment more expensive economy. The US economy shrank 3.5 the two countries clash on a range of issues also risen although it remains negative. and slow the economy. However, many percent last year while the drop for the from influence operations, national security and rate fears European inflation data for January analysts are skeptical that Biden’s stimu- eurozone was nearly double that. rules, China’s internal crackdowns and trans- showed a jump in prices of 0.9 percent lus program will spark considerable There is “no risk of overheating or a parency over its handling of the coronavirus PARIS: Investors are watching inflation compared to a minus 0.3 percent read- inflation. “It isn’t clear that Biden’s recov- sustained rise in inflation” in the euro- pandemic. carefully, worried that a boiling over of ing in December, as increased costs of ery plan will create lots of inflation,” said zone, the head of the Banque de France, There is also growing concern in Australia prices will ruin the expected strong pan- raw materials fed through into services Xavier Ragot, head of the French Francois Villeroy de Galhau, insisted this that Beijing has used trade, investments and demic recovery although analysts and industrial goods. After having Economic Observatory think tank. For past week. The French Economic diaspora groups to gain political leverage, believe Europe faces much less of a risk slowed considerably in 2020, inflation is the European Union, there is no likeli- Observatory’s Ragot also does not which has prompted a slew of legislation. than the United States. Fears that US expected to rise this year in Europe as hood that its pandemic recovery pro- believe that if the Fed is pushed by the Armstrong said new Australian rules to President Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus the economy picks up following the gram would, he believes. “The amounts markets into raising rates that the screen investments for risks to national secu- plan-which was passed by the House of relaxation of measures to slow the of the European recovery plans pose European Central Bank would be forced rity had a particularly chilling effect and could Representatives on Saturday-will stoke spread of the Covid-19 pandemic. absolutely no inflationary risk,” he said. to follow suit. “It doesn’t work like that in help explain the decline. “There is a national up the economy too much have But it is not so much a spike in infla- macroeconomics,” he said, noting that security test now for foreign investment, there unnerved investors in recent weeks. tion that worries investors but that the ‘No risk of overheating’ the monetary policy of the Fed and ECB have been high profile cases of Chinese A rise in yields on 10-year US Fed would raise interest rates faster The European Commission’s recov- had diverged considerably at the start of investments being withdrawn” he said. “That Treasury bonds-a key indicator of than it has communicated. Federal ery program is worth 750 billion euros the last decade. “With loose financial shakes confidence in foreign investors.” expectations-shows the markets believe Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell ($920 billion), with several EU members conditions still necessary to support the Australia has rejected Chinese bids for prices are set to rise much more sharply pledged Tuesday that the US central also having their own national programs. economy, the ECB is unlikely to react to Japanese-owned Lion Dairy and local con- than last year’s gain of 1.4 percent, which bank will keep benchmark lending rates “We have a European recovery pro- the coming inflation overshoot,” said struction firm Probuild. —AFP could force the US Federal Reserve to low until the economy is at full employ- gram... considerably less strong, and a Capital Economics economist Jack hike interest rates earlier than it says it ment and inflation has risen consistent- loss of growth that is much greater, so Allen-Reynolds. —AFP