By Damon Kitney
Girls Do The Maths has just secured a doubling of its funding over the next three years with the support of Paradice, fund manager Wilson Asset Management (WAM) and UNSW board member and former Australian Rugby great Simon Poidevin in a fresh funding round.
Paradice’s philanthropic foundation, The Paradice Foundation, also provides honours year scholarships for talented female students in the final year of their undergraduate mathematical studies at UNSW. “It has always perplexed me: all the studies show female fund managers consistently outperform males. So it is illogical that the majority of fund managers are not female,’’ says WAM chairman and chief investment officer Geoff Wilson.
“We talk about efficient markets but it is a most inefficient market in Australia where there is a low number of females in investing and funds management. It should be more than 50 per cent.”
Gender inequity
WAM hired its first female fund manager three years ago and there are now three in the its team of 14.
The firm recently staged a lunch forum just for its female investors, which was fronted by CEO Kate Thorley and portfolio managers and analysts Catriona Burns, Dania Zinurova and Anna Milne. “More than 50 of them came along and it was really well received,’’ Thorley says.
“Anything we can do to encourage the tables to turn and get more girls interested in maths that follows through to financial services is great … Increased gender diversity has undoubtedly improved the financial services industry. I hope the GDTM program will show girls that funds management is one rewarding place mathematics can take you.”
Read more in The Australian.