Huge congratulations to the Houston Philanthropy Committee on a very successful Casino Night last week. We had over 115 people in attendance and a good time was had by all in support of a good cause. Huge thanks again to Andrews Kurth for hosting us and to all of our terrific sponsors. I would also like to single out Nancy Bostic, Carter Wimberley and Raluca Dalea for their tireless efforts in getting this event off the ground and making it a great success. And thanks to all of you who came out and supported their efforts.
There is a great article in Fortune this month titled “Where are all the Women at Finance Conferences?” that I would urge you to read – it is posted on our LinkedIn group. It notes that in the next decade fully half the wealth in the US will be controlled by women and yet, looking at conference speaker line-ups, women are largely absent. So the question is, as industry practitioners, should we care about this? I think the answer is resounding yes. The article goes on to note that “a report earlier this year from Rothstein Kass indicated hedge funds owned by women outperformed the HFRX Global Hedge Fund Index in the third quarter of 2012, netting an 8.95% return vs. 2.69%. I would think these women fund managers would have something of interest to say to the audiences at the Dow Jones and Wall Street Journal conferences.”
I attend my share of conferences and when I bring up the lack of women speakers to the organizers, I am often told that they cannot find any women to speak. As an organization, we are now up to 1800 members, so there obviously are plenty of potential speakers just in our group – so I would encourage each of you to seek out speaking opportunities. I promise you, after the first one, it will get easier. As seasoned professionals, you have a valued opinion, and part of the onus falls on you to be willing to share it! Does this sound like something a bit outside of your comfort zone? Probably. Will sharing your opinion make our industry a richer one? Most definitely!
We have re-scheduled our Austin golf event for Sunday, November 3rd, so please join us for that. Additionally, our members have been offered a discount for the BUYOUTS conference to be held in Dallas in December. If you are an LP who would like to speak at the event, please contact me at info@txwsw.com Also, in Austin, we have our Casino Night next month, so help us get out the word! We have lots of great events on the calendar, so sign up, bring a friend and see you all at an event soon!
