It can be argued that there is a certain amount of gender blindness when it comes to investing – as long as the manager does the required job, many investors are unlikely to be too bothered about whether the first name is Jane or John.
However, investors who take little account of gender might be missing out on the benefits of having more gender-balanced funds in their portfolios.
Studies have shown that more diversity prevents group-think and encourages ideas to be challenged.
Paola Binns (pictured), fund manager at Royal London Asset Management, said having people “just like you” working together on a fund may be comfortable but might not necessarily lead to a many-sided approach to problem solving. 
“In my team we’re all very different and it’s not that there’s conflict but there’s challenge,” she explained.
“We’re all facing in the same direction with the same philosophical approach to investing. But that doesn’t mean that we all agree on everything or have necessarily the same outlook. I think diversity is very important.”
Yet, it is a particular challenge for the asset management industry. A report into the gender pay gap by the Investment Association trade body last year found that women make up just 38 per cent of the employee base across all respondents to its survey.
What women bring to the table is rather subtle, Binns argued.
“It’s not something that’s necessarily obvious in the daily activities performed at work,” she explained.
“I don’t think my being a woman necessarily impacts on the routine work me and my teammates do. We do very similar things, and whatever differences might be there does not necessarily stand out.”
“It’s important not to generalise when comparing men and women,” said Tsitsi Mutiti, investment manager at Charles Stanley, “but women tend to think more holistically and are more values-based when it comes to money.”
In addition, female fund managers are likely to be more concerned about the social impact of their investments and their motivations for investing in the first place, said Mutiti (pictured). 
“There is also a distinct difference when it comes to attitude to risk,” she said. “I have found that women tend to be more risk aware whereas men are considered to be risk takers.
“This can mean women hold their nerve more and are more likely to invest for the long term rather than frequently changing their portfolios which can have a more positive impact on returns.”
Gender stereotypes are reinforced in the home and in the media, Mutiti said, “but society is changing, and companies need to engage with women by speaking in a language that resonates with them”.
RLAM’s Binns, who oversees the £2.1bn Royal London Sterling Credit and £867m Royal London Short Duration Credit funds, said while women can bring a “softer touch” to things and are proved by studies to take less risk, investors should be aware that they can be as aggressive as men.
“Some of the most aggressive investors or traders I know are women, funnily enough,” she noted. “So, I think women can be just as aggressive as men when it comes to trading and investing.”
Darius McDermott, managing director of Chelsea Financial Services echoes the warning about the danger of gender stereotyping when it comes to investment.
“I’d argue that you need to be careful when making these generalisations, especially when it comes to professional investors,” he said. “Take my colleague Juliet [Schooling Latter], for example. She’s our research director and is far more pro-risk than I am.”
McDermott, who said only about one in every 10 fund managers is a woman, deplores the absence of “more people from different walks of life”.
“I think too many companies still look to Oxford and Cambridge for graduates, when there is a big pool of talent all over the country,” McDermott (pictured) explained. 
It’s something that Binns agrees with, arguing that diversity, generally, “means not just more women, but people from variety of backgrounds as well”, which will benefit the industry.
“You just don’t want only the public-school boys,” she said. “The trouble is that the public-school boys are very polished, and they come across very well. So, they do have a natural advantage.”
“But it’s still important to expand the range of background you get into the fund. You have to take into consideration people who are less well-trained and had less advantages.”
Binns has given talks at schools and universities, such as the University of East London, talking to young people looking to work in the industry.
She also belongs to a group of senior fund managers – put together by executive search firm Sapphire Partners – that meets informally every two or three months.
“The discussion around the table is about ‘How do we get more women into fund management?’, ‘Why are women not attracted to it?’,” she said.
Discussions in this group further led her to get involved in RLAM’s yearly 10-week internship programme, “to try to find practical ways to get more women through the door”.
When it started four years ago, the programme had one woman but this year, about half of the dozen or so interns are female.