Park Jae-hyuk is a seasoned journalist who has provided comprehensive coverage of South Korea's corporate dynamics, economic policies, industry challenges and the global positioning of Korean companies. Based on the articles he has written since joining The Korea Times in 2016, his investigative approach has helped readers understand corporate governance, economic trends and business strategies shaping South Korea’s economy.
INTERVIEW Why UK advocate for women investors downplays Trump's DEI ban
Amanda Pullinger, founder of Global Female Investors Management, speaks during the Global Labor Market Conference's (GLMC) session on labor-management dialogue at King Abdulaziz International Conference Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Monday (local time). Courtesy of GLMC
By Park Jae-hyuk
Pullinger views network building as more critical to women than top-down policies
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — The investment management sector, where only 11 percent of fund managers globally are women, has been widely considered vulnerable to U.S. President Donald Trump’s move to abolish his predecessor’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
Amanda Pullinger, a longtime advocate for women’s participation in the investment industry, however, denied this widespread belief, saying nothing has changed as a result of top-down diversity policies, which the Korean government has also pushed for.
Speaking to The Korea Times on the sidelines of the Global Labor Market Conference in Saudi Arabia’s capital city of Riyadh on Monday (local time), she said that former U.S. President Joe Biden’s policies were more about sidelining male voices and led many men to feel they were being discriminated against in favor of women.
"If the people who have the power — which are largely white men — are not included in the conversation around what women or other minorities want, nothing is going to change," said the British founder of Global Female Investors Management, a community of women in the asset management industry.
Pullinger started her career as a partner at New York-based hedge fund Aquamarine Capital, working with Guy Spier, a Swiss-German-Israeli investor known for his book, "The Education of a Value Investor," which he wrote after winning a bid to have lunch with Warren Buffett.
As a woman who spent the first half of her career in male-dominated industries, Pullinger advised women in the investment industry to build relationships and network with men from the beginning of their careers.
"I didn't mind being the only woman, but a lot of women find that hard," she said.
Citing the successful comebacks of male fund managers responsible for the global financial crisis of 2007-2009, she emphasized the importance of relationships.
"Most women have been told if you work hard and you perform, someone will notice, but that's not how the world works," she said.
A frequent speaker at industry events, she advised women not to avoid standing on stage.
"For us to do that is to give those women visibility," she said. "The big challenge for women is not performance. It's fundraising, and again, that goes back to relationships."
However, Pullinger did not downplay the fact that most mid-career women face pressure to make family-related decisions at the time of their first major promotions, calling this a “double whammy.”
She noted that elderly parents have recently become the responsibility of women, who already struggle to take care of their children while trying to maintain their jobs.
"There are possibilities of paternity leave making a huge difference, but for a lot of men, there's a stigma around taking those months off to enable their spouses to go back to work," she said.
For women out of the workforce for many years, Pullinger said they should maintain their networks and continue dialogues with their companies.
"I'm not saying that's easy, but it's doable," she said. "It's an individual-by-individual case, but my sense is that most companies don't want to lose those women."