Where Are All the Women in Private Equity?
Very few have roles at the top of the world’s biggest firms.
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If private equity dealmakers are a tiny economic elite, they are a narrow one, too. A Bloomberg analysis found that women fill only 8% of senior investment roles globally at the 10 largest firms that use debt to buy companies. Only one or two women are present in top positions on the buyout investment teams of most firms, which are generally made up of dozens of executives. “There is a huge retention problem, since nothing has materially changed at the top,” says Nori Gerardo Lietz, a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School. “Firms ought to be asking themselves why.”
If they don’t, clients might force them to—eventually. The explosive growth of the asset class has been fueled in part by big checks from large public pension plans, some of which have been vocal about social responsibility. More are questioning managers on their diversity numbers, but few have used their checkbooks to force change.
Read more: Everything Is Private Equity Now