The Changing Role of Women in Finance

Finance is a gun. Politics is knowing when to pull the trigger.' In these few words the taciturn Mafia boss Don Lucchese in The Godfather Part III highlights the inextricable link between money and power, which together represent most significant influences on society and gender throughout history. Until the 1960s the very title for this article would have been regarded as a contradiction in terms. With few notable exceptions, women and finance did not mix, largely because they were not given the opportunity to do so. Today, women represent a significant force for change in the financial services industry, both as a target market for financial products and as key employees within the financial institutions. To place the power of financial institutions in an economic context, pension funds and life assurance funds together own about two-thirds of the UK stock market, with a further tranche owned by other collective retail funds, such as unit trusts and open-ended investment companies. As a result, the investment companies that manage these funds effectively control British industry, and are the channel through which the funding for future businesses must flow. The simple fact is, therefore, that the boards of British companies are answerable on a more regular basis to private fund managers than they are to financial regulators or the government itself.