 Okay, hello and welcome to this session where I am joined by Tanya Tracy, who's the CEO of game girls are investors and really excited to talk to Tanya because we're going to talk about girls in finance and more broadly than that the much bigger topic about gender quality and and what is it this fantastic initiative that Tanya is in charge of and what she does and opportunities on the back of that. Tanya herself worked at JP Morgan for over 12 years, she also worked at Nomura, the CFA before being involved now with Gaines so she's done some tremendous things but really thankful to have some time with her to ask her a bit about her background first. So if we can kick it off there but Tanya pleasure to have you with us. Thank you very much for having me and it's great to be here. So your background then I just said to you offline I was just looking for spying on your, your LinkedIn, and I was like, wow, what an incredible resume and maybe you could take me back to even before your professional working life. What was your childhood, where did you grow up, where are you from, did you have an idea about your career because you know you spent a long time at JP Nomura and so on. So where did it start for you. Yeah, so I grew up in Oxfordshire, went to school in Oxford and I was not a math, sea science, sea person at all so finance was never really on my radar. I was I did a levels in English history in German was very much on the outside and I went on to study German that UCL. Really, the first inkling I had that finance was where I wanted to be was when I was in the sixth form and I did an insight day insight into the city day and we've tripped up about 20 of us and had a tour and the city and at that time. We went into life like they had the trading center and, and the whole thing just blew me away and sort of the buzz of it was, I thought this is where I want to be, but I thought how on earth am I going to get here because I'm not doing anything related to finance. Anyway, so I finished university and then got sort of didn't go through the graduate program or anything like that. But I managed to sort of a few months after I graduated sort of getting by the back door if you like and I got an a desk assistant position on the syndicate desk in the equities department. So I was in global markets and, and from there and I was literally running road shows so when you do an initial public offering or you do a secondary offering. The company goes round and meets all the investors around the world. And that is what I organize and I often accompany the companies as well. Sat in on their investor meetings and did everything so it was a lovely first job and it led on to other things and I've sort of moved into investor relations advisory and then corporate broken. And yes I was there for quite a long time. And I had three children while I was there. And then after my third, I decided that I needed to stop for a bit because I have three children under five and I was frankly exhausted. So I did, I stopped for a bit, and then have a few years off, and then I came back and I started working at Nomura. And so I went to a Japanese bank this time and doing a very similar thing. And then I was there until they close their European equities business and decided to focus on the Japanese and Asian side. And yes, and then I went to the CFA, I got very interested in diversity and inclusion, I guess because of my personal experience as a woman in a very male dominated environment. And so I was developing an interest in it because I had two daughters, and they were coming up at that point in teenage years. I was seeing some of the challenges that they were facing. And, you know, a lot of the careers experiences they were getting were quite that there was a lot of pushing to stem but there wasn't much push into finance. There was a lot of much focus on engineering and science but not on the massive buy on that side. So when the gain opportunity came about, then it really ticked a number of boxes for me and I thought this is this is what I want to do so. So yes, again, being set up for three years ago. And so I came on board two and a half years ago to run the charity on a day to day basis so it was set up by women in the industry. So yeah, who are all still on the trustee board and incredibly supportive. Yeah, amazing to hear the life floor is what kind of sparked it to life. I remember when I mean I'd started in the city in 2006 and there was some some of the old traders from the floor was still around the transition onto screens but they were some lively characters to put it mildly. And then you, I mean it looks you work through like the what the IPO boom in the late 90s and I be so. What was that experience like then but presumably it was almost entirely male at that point in time would that be right. Yeah, it was very male. And I was sitting on the training floor, and it was very noisy, you know at that point, people didn't call each other they would literally stand up and yell. And I remember the first few weeks months of being there, being utterly terrified most of the time and you know having to make a decision quite early on, you're either going to have to toughen up a bit. And so I decided to keep trying with it and, but it was a very reward it was a growing business so jay from all the time extras is pretty small. And it really grew grew grew and now is the enormous, you know, department that it is. And you're right I was there in the mid 90s, and it was dot com boom, and you know I was traveling around the world with these incredibly exciting organizations and meeting some fascinating people I mean that's the beauty of that industry is that you are surrounded by incredibly interesting incredibly bright people. And, you know, there was a buzz, there was a real buzz, and it was great fun. Did you, did you feel, or do you feel as a woman in that environment that you need to do like rightly or wrongly that you need to do more than your male counterpart of a similar level, or within the same team, for example, does that exist. I think there is an element of you having to prove yourself. You know, in that environment, everybody works hard, you know, everybody's expected to work hard and put in the hours. And you all do because frankly everybody's doing it around you it's not like every, you know, people are working at different speeds or anything so it's very pressured, there's a lot of shouting, you know, it's a lot of, you know, but it is incredibly and it was, I think it settled down a lot now. It wasn't quite what it was then but it was then but yeah it was great fun and it was good. I think the time where things change is when you get married and you have children, start having children, and then you know responsibilities lie elsewhere and having to put in the hours that you did have to put in became more problematic. And, you know, I would often be traveling at the drop of a hat, you know, they say right you're going to Geneva this afternoon, you simply can't do that when you've got children and you've got other responsibilities so it was fantastic early on but it became more and more difficult when you had other responsibilities. So the solution in that scenario would be to pivot in your career to a different division within a bank. Or is it, are we expecting too much for the bank to just change like you said, you're basically working for a client. And if they need something, you have to deliver that. But if there's that balancing out where you can't be at these places that drop the hat anymore, is it a case of then of just changing role. Is that right? Yeah, I mean, you know, when I think back at the hindsight, that's probably what I should have done but I was, I guess I really enjoyed what I did and I was trying desperately to keep it going and I think they were also trying to help me do that and they came around four days a week and I think I was the first person on the, on the floor to be able to do that at that point that was really unusual I had a fantastically supported boss. But what it actually had effect me and this is a new for everybody at the time but what it actually meant was you did five days in four. And so it became even more pressured. The hindsight is wonderful there, isn't it. I think, yes, I could have moved internally but at the end I was carried on and there was movement, you know, we got moved into ECM and things like that so things were changing anyway. I mentioned there to kind of teenage daughters and obviously now in your role you interact with young women all of the time. Is there is there any kind of reoccurring theme in those interactions you have with the sort of 15 to 21 year old female demographic. In terms of reservations that they might have in terms of a lot of the female students I work with in our programs. I would say the issue of kind of imposter syndrome or lack of confidence. It seems more apparent, often in women than men. Is that, is that a true consistent thing that you see as well. I think that's right. And, you know, there is that stat about young women not applying for a job unless they meet a minimum of 95% of the criteria whereas men see a job as long as they meet 50% they think great I've got a fantastic chance. So there is a slightly different approach. What we notice, what we've noticed with gain is very much that the female role model piece is so important, because if young women can't see women in finance and relate to them. How can they see themselves in that career so user say you can't see her you can't be her. It's so crucial that being able to see women working in the industry, and then being able to tell their journey and how they got there and the experiences they're having. And this can seem quite a scary sector to a lot of young people, and really a lot about what we do again with our events that we put on and sort of our panel sessions online and things. It's sort of about humanizing it a bit and having a sort of series of women speaking about how they got into the industry, what they found their challenges, what the great things are about their jobs. They are human and they're very normal and they're really nice people and I think that comes across in a lot of these events, and it starts students to start realizing actually, I can relate to that and I can see myself being there now so that that whole area is difficult I mean the other thing is students all think they have to be studying maths or finance in order to get in, and that's simply not the case so just to give you some idea in terms about the applicants for our programs. So about half are doing maths, finance, economics, a good quarter are doing art subjects, and a good quarter are doing more science or engineering subjects. So there is a real spread and companies are really looking for that diversity of background as well they're not just looking for the straight maths economics students all the time. And your summer program that you do like a summer internship applications I think is open now, is that right. So open now yes so do apply if you're interested so essentially what it is. It's an internship program a summer internship program and it's open to penultimate and finally undergrads and masters MBA students and recent graduates. And we have for next year so we're recruiting now for next summer. So we have 225 odd places available to go so we've got over 123 participating. So yes you apply to the program as a whole and then you get allocated out to a firm. And then the application process and the assessment happens in November, and then decisions are made and offers are made in December, so you know before Christmas, whether you've got a place. And then we have a quite extensive training program that we put all the successful interns on, and that covers everything you all the Excel financial modeling cash for analysis all of that stuff is covered, and that whole load of soft skills things as well. And then we have you we allocate you to a mentor so somebody from our network so we have a network now of over 1000 volunteers so these are all industry investment professionals. So they mentor you for that three month period so before your internship, and then during your internship as well as extra support if you like, somebody to ask questions or if you don't want to go to your, the company that you're interning with. Yeah, it's amazing because you said about at the beginning of the conversation mentors, but a question I always get from students is like how do I acquire a mentor seems very difficult but it seems like you've got this network already. It's an amazing network so we basically allocate mentors to all of our programs so there's the internship program which is sort of the big flagship program. Before that we do an insight program and that's the first year undergraduates, and that's a 12 week program which is sort of an introduction to investment. You learn how to do a stop pitch. You have a little virtual portfolio investment competition, and it culminates in like insight days with firms over the Easter break, and you get allocated a mentor and then we also have an ambassador program so students at university can apply to be ambassadors for the academic year. And they have all sorts of other things going on but one of the other parts is that they get allocated a mentor as well for that for that period. Mentoring is really really important and it's not just women who mentor we also have a lot of men signed up on our network as well and they do mentor, but it's really valuable to get that understanding with the industry or different aspects of the industry. So we literally cover everything from private equity venture capital through to hedge funds asset managers allocators right through to wealth management. So there's lots of different areas so depending on what you're interested on, interested in sorry, then you'll get allocated a mentor according to that. That sounds amazing and what I'll do is anyone who's listening to this. I'm going to put some links in the show notes. So if you want to click through to find some information about any of what's just been described by Tanya you can just go there but Tanya one thing to kind of wrap up that I always ask people in conversations that I have is, if you could think back to a particular challenging point in your career. So it could have been right at the beginning could have been later on, and you could go back your current self to yourself in that moment. What would be like a word of advice you would give. Oh, gosh. I guess the advice I would give would be to take control of my career a bit better. So, I and I suspect I'm not the only one. I think it's quite sort of a lot of women tend to do this is you're at school. You think I work hard to do a good job, you know, I just get rewarded and it'll all just flow and you know I'll just move on from the next stage the next stage the next stage. And actually, you do have to structure you think about what it is that you really want and maneuver your way through to that point because nobody else is going to do it for you. So you have to really think hard about what it is that you're good at what it is that you like and where you want to end up being and think about moving your career in that direction and networking with people in the direction that you want to go in, if you leave it up to everybody else, then it's never going to end up being in the end where you want to go so it's really important to think hard about your career trajectory and and how you're going to get there. Fantastic advice and is it okay if I was to put your LinkedIn as well on the. Yeah, please reach out to connect and very happy to connect with anybody on this topic. Yeah. And I know for sure we've had many of the the amplify alumni who've been ambassadors and work very closely with game they've only said amazing things so I'd highly encourage everyone to click and catch that link and have a look at it. Thank you very much for your time. Really appreciate it and yeah I look forward to seeing. I think you just had your third anniversary is that right. Our third birthday. Yes, very exciting. Yeah, so yes we had all our companies that were involved with and some of the students to gone through the whole process of were there as well and it was really fun evening and I think, you know we've reached over 15,000 students in three years through our events and programs. And the ambition is just to keep growing it more you know reach students across the whole country. So, yes, if you're interested, do have a look at our website and get involved I mean all the events and everything is free. So, please just do sign up and you can receive our newsletter if you sign up for that. And that will just basically tell you about everything that's coming up that you can get involved with. Okay, cool look amazing mission absolutely proud to be working with you on on certain events and so forth and we'll speak again soon thanks very much Tanya. Thank you.