HESTA progresses gender diversity targets

HESTA is doubling down on its commitment to working with more gender diverse investment teams, saying that as of this year it no longer works with any all-male external managers.

Releasing its biannual Gender Diversity in Investment Management 2024 progress survey, HESTA said women now make up 28% of the investment management workforce across its external managers.

This is up 4% when compared to 2022 and 11% since the survey first began in 2018.

Based on its observations, HESTA said it expects this year will be the first where it is working solely with mixed gender management teams.

HESTA found women now hold 24% of investment committee positions, up from 14% in 2020.

It also found that 45% of investment managers have implemented gender diversity targets for their investment teams, up from 34% in 2022. And 100% of HESTA's external managers have policies to prevent and respond to workplace sexual harassment.

The only area in which progress receded was in the percentage of women in roles below portfolio manager level, which declined from 32% to 30%. Still, this remains higher than in 2020 when it was just 26.5%.

The review also highlighted investment managers that are working hard to attract and retain female talent, noting IFM Investors' payment of 26 weeks' parental leave, and the returnship initiative from Generation Investment Management which supports employees returning from extended leave.

In terms of its own progress, HESTA noted that 42% of its investment management team is female, including 67% of the investment committee. Of this, 28% are at the portfolio manager level or above; 51% below this level are female. While this was also a decline from 57%, HESTA said that was largely due to internal promotions.

HESTA chief investment officer Sonya Sawtell-Rickson said: "All of HESTA's investment partners now are anticipated to have mixed-gender investment teams this calendar year, which is a significant milestone and demonstrates the impact of our partners' willingness to embrace diversity."

"We remain committed to advancing gender diversity internally at HESTA and working with our investment partners to drive change. As part of our ambition to achieve this 40:40 target across our investment value chain, we will look for opportunities to allocate future capital to investment partners who capture the benefits of gender diversity."