I ask Helena Morrissey, the chief executive officer of Newton, for some female fund managers she rates highly and she can't remember any of their names.
"If you list the fund houses with 'star manager' style - it’s hard to think of a woman that's there," she says. She puts this down to the fact women don't like to push themselves forward as much as men and insists there are some "excellent" female fund mangers in the industry - but many of them are operating "under the radar".
So what do female fund mangers have to offer and where are they hiding? Where women really add value in fund management, according to Helena, is in fund houses where a general team strategy is adopted (like Newton). "Having a mixed team is good for results," she says. "The best outcomes are reached when a diverse group of people challenge each others ideas - and disagreement is good, because no-one has the answer to everything."
Women add value through consensus building, a risk-averse attitude and the ability to multi-task, she says, "without wanting to generalise".
Mrs Morrissey wants to dispel old-fashioned ideas that women don't make good fund managers, but understands a lot of prejudice against women comes from "unconscious biases" which are often hard to let go of. As a young analyst, she used to be frequently shunned by clients on foreign business trips - especially when she was pregnant. "They refused to speak to me," she says. "They saw a young girl with a grey-haired man in a suit. Who do you think they assumed was running the show?"
The now 47 year-old has spent most of her working life as a mother, and a considerable chunk of it being pregnant, as she has nine children, showing being a woman and having maternal duties doesn't necessarily have to get in the way of being the top dog in a fund house. (Although she does employ a nanny and have a stay-at-home husband.) But she says the number of hours spent at a desk is irrelevant as to whether someone is a good fund manager - far more important is their ability to make good decisions.
She's keen to hang on to female talent within Newton and is seriously considering a "returnship" scheme - allowing staff to leave for a few years to have kids and then retrain when they return, so they’re up to speed. She says: "Being a working mum isn’t a lifestyle everyone would want. It's hard going."
When it comes to investors, she admits most fund houses assume their customers are largely men. "Female investors often feel under-served, and sometimes feel like they are being patronised, or over-sold to by men, which can put them off," she says. Sometimes female clients will request female fund mangers because they prefer their style - charities and other organisations run by women often feel more comfortable and have more chemistry with female fund managers.
Mrs Morrissey is not a fan of using quotas to get women into board rooms because she believes it will undermine their talent. At the end of last year she removed one of Newton's female fund managers from her fund managing duties - Tineke Frikkee - who formerly managed the flagship £2.2bn Higher Income fund. She says the new manager, Richard Wilmot, is working "closer in line with Newton’s core principles" and "brings more resources" to the team.
Newton is renowned for its thematic "umbrella" investment approach. It means all fund managers have to consider a set of timely key principles decided by the fund house, when choosing their stocks. But if a manager underperforms, who is to blame? The strategy, or the manager? Unsurprisingly Mrs Morrissey can't give us a clear-cut answer, but she explains the thematic framework is a starting point for more detailed analysis and the two don’t always marry together well. So clashes are inevitable, but ultimately it's difficult for investors to tell if the strategy or the fund manager - or both - has flopped.
In Mrs Morrissey's eyes the biggest investing opportunity at the moment is cashing in on population demographics. We're talking everything from growing middle classes in emerging markets through to the increasing number of grey-haired heads in European countries. She's confident healthcare and pharmaceuticals companies have strong pricing power as a result, and is keen to tell this to investors.
And where does Mrs Morrisey have her own money invested? In a range of Newton funds of course - just like the rest of her colleagues there.
