A Woman's View from the Street 10/27/20

Happy Tuesday!

Today we are extraordinarily lucky to have Merrie Spaeth hosting a webinar for us! For those of you that do not know Merrie or her work, she was Regan’s White House press secretary for his two terms and subsequently become one of the top communications consultants in the country working with global brands like Federal Express. She will be leading a workshop, Communication as a Strategic Business Tool, that will help all of us up our communication game which is critical in our virtual environment. Please note that is webinar is coed, so you and your colleagues are welcome to join us for this!

A recent UBS survey noted that even the most educated and high-achieving millennial women are deferring investment decision making to their husbands. This generation of women show less financial independence than baby boomer women and do not see competency in personal finance as a key to freedom and security the way the previous generation did. To quote from the article “There’s a complacency that the world is equal, we’ve got it made, we can do anything we want, we’re going to have awesome partners who will be our equals,” said the woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of a pending legal case against her husband and because she was concerned for her safety. It’s easy to think financial autonomy is not essential when it is, she added it’s part and parcel of our daily independence,” she said, “which has to be constantly reaffirmed.” The full article can be found here.

We all know that four times more women than men dropped out of the workforce last month, and there is concern that the exodus of women from the workplace will undermine the progress that has been made. But is seems that corporate effectiveness will also be undermined. A recent Drucker Institute ranking of the most effective companies noted the following findings: “On average, women make up 20.2% of top executives among companies that scored in the highest quartile in terms of their total effectiveness. For companies in the second quartile, that number slips to 17.5%. For those in the third quartile, it’s lower still, at 15.4%. And at the companies that are least effective overall, an average of just 12% of executives are female.” The upshot is that companies need to reach out to the women who work for them and find more ways to be supportive or risk losing critical staff necessary for effective performance. The full article can be found here.

Lastly, the head of the Yale Endowment, David Swensen, is putting the endowment’s fund managers on notice that if they don’t expand their hiring of women and minority staff, they risk losing their mandates. In Mr. Swensen’s letter to his 70 managers, he suggests recruiting directly from colleges as diversity is lacking at investment banks which are the usual recruiting grounds. The managers are expected to report on their progress and the Yale Investment Office will also report on the progress of diversification of its own staff. The full article can be found here.

I would ask each of you to consider corporate sponsorship of TXWSW. Benefits include attendance at our flagship events and recognition for your firm.  And most importantly, you help us support the life-changing work of the Young Women’s Preparatory Network. To learn more about YWPN, you can find a short video here. To learn more and sponsorship, you may find our sponsor information here. Additionally, we would be happy to create a custom sponsorship for you. Please contact Bianca King atdevelopmentdirector@txwsw.com

Kind regards

Christine

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