Wednesday saw another senior woman in wealth management depart from her role. This time it was Lisa Francis, head of private bank UK domestic & crown dependencies at Barclays Private Bank.
It feels as if there has been a flurry of women leaving their roles in recent times.
Penny Lovell left Sanlam Private Wealth as part of the firm’s restructure, while it was only last year Caroline Connellan exited her role as chief executive of Brooks Macdonald and Tanvi Davda stepped down as chief executive of Saranac Partners.
Overall, there have been more senior changes in recent months than for a long time. Michael Morley of Deutsche Bank, Martin Andrew of Close Brothers Asset Management, and David Kilshaw formerly of Rawlinson & Hunter, now at Rothschild & Co Wealth Management, have all left senior jobs this year.
Perhaps, therefore, it is not simply a trend of women leaving top jobs. However, given there are already very few women holding these roles, the effects will be felt more acutely by women in the industry.
Moreover, the talent pool still remains heavily weighted towards men, meaning there is a likelihood the vast majority of these roles will be filled by men. Indeed, Mr Morley’s and Mr Andrew’s already have been.
There is a worry this will hinder younger women at the early stages of their career. Research consistently shows having role models is one of the best ways to improve diversity & inclusion (D&I) within firms and the industry as a whole.
It is very hard to be what you cannot see.
Firms that can retain senior women may well find it easier to attract and develop the next generation of female talent.
Given there are significantly less women at the top of wealth management firms than men, many companies will struggle to hire a woman into a chief executive or similar C-suite role.
Developing talent from within may be the best option in many cases. Of course, this is much harder and more time consuming than simply hiring someone into a role.
However, if the industry is to become more gender diverse and get to a place where four women leaving roles does not feel like a mass exodus, a much larger pipeline of female talent needs to be created.
Let’s hope at least some of the recent female leaders re-emerge at other firms in the wealth sector.
