Seema R Hingorani, Columnist

'Girls Who Invest' Would Change Wall Street

It's time for a "girls who invest" initiative.

September 2, 2014 at 1:03 PM UTC

Seema R. Hingorani, the chief investment officer for New York City's pension funds until June, has been an analyst and portfolio manager at U.S. mutual funds and hedge funds for almost 15 years.

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Here's something that puzzled me when I was the chief investment officer of New York City's pension plan: Only 5 percent of the investment firms that managed the city's $160 billion, and only 15 percent of the products the city invested in, were managed by women. The numbers plummeted when counting women of color or asset classes other than public equities.

These vexing statistics aren't performance-related. Over the last three years, my office conducted six manager searches in the stock and bond markets. Of about 550 firms that met the preliminary criteria -- we invited bids from firms with as little as $250 million in assets under management -- only 3 percent were women-owned.