It’s a Man’s World Managing Money for the World’s Richest Families

(Bloomberg) -- Men dominate the largest financial institutions globally even as their executives say they're trying to make Wall Street more welcoming for women.

The situation is even worse at family offices, outfits which manage money for the world's richest people. Women account for 9.1 percent of chief executive officers and just 8.6 percent of chief investment officers, according to a report Tuesday by UBS Group AG and researcher Campden Wealth. By comparison, 19 percent of c-suite executives in the asset-management and wholesale-banking industry are women, according to McKinsey & Co.

“A lot of the professionals that you can hire as your CEOs and CIOs of a family office come from the financial-services industry, where women are underrepresented,” said Sara Ferrari, head of global family office at Zurich-based UBS. What's more, some families have a traditional view “of women's involvement in certain investment activities as opposed to more philanthropic activities,” she said.

The situation could improve as a generational shift takes place and younger family members get to decide on who looks after the finances.

“Women across regions, but in particular in Asia, are having an increasing role in generating their own wealth and managing wealth in subsequent generations,” Ferrari said.

See also: America's corporate c-suites are getting whiter and more male

Only 14 percent of family offices in the study say they have diversity targets, a level that's below efforts by Wall Street. More than 4 in 10 offices that participated in impact investing said they were supporting companies that favor "women's empowerment."

Within family offices, the CEO and CIO roles are typically the most lucrative, with base salaries of $333,000 and $312,000 respectively. The positions also receive the highest bonuses, according to the report. Women account for 39 percent of chief operations officers and 38 percent of chief financial officers, positions that pay about a third less.

UBS and Campden surveyed 311 single- and multi-family offices with an average of $808 million. Nearly 1 in 5 families had their roots in manufacturing.

--With assistance from Jordyn Holman.

To contact the reporter on this story: Simone Foxman in New York at sfoxman4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Peter Eichenbaum

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