 Hi, and welcome to Bright Minds from TicMill. I'm your host, Patrick Munley. In this series, we're setting out to answer some of the most commonly asked questions around investment and trading through entertaining and insightful conversations with seasoned insiders. A recent Fidelity report on women and investing found that 67% are now investing in addition to their pension plan up from 44% in 2018, and that women outperformed their male counterparts by 0.4% on average. Despite these figures, women in general rated their confidence levels in their own abilities as low, with only 33% expressing confidence in their ability to make investment decisions. Today we're joined by Phoebe Shamier. Phoebe manages bespoke discretionary portfolios for private clients, trustees and financial advisors, and has over 10 years experience in financial services. She is also the co-founder of Femalefolio, a group set up to empower women to write their own investment stories. Phoebe is also co-host of the She Wolf Investor podcast. In this episode we'll be discussing the gender investment gap and the reasons for it, why it's bad for the market and how we can fix it. We discussed recent research around the performance of male versus female investors, and what we can learn from these findings, plus we give advice for women looking to get started in the world of investment and trading. Christine Lagarde, the chief of the European Central Bank, has stated in a report in The Guardian that male domination of the banking industry made the collapse of Lehman Brothers more likely, and she urged further reforms to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis triggered by its failure over a decade ago. To quote her directly, as I've said many times, if it had been Lehman's sisters rather than Lehman Brothers, the world might well look a lot different today. Phoebe, welcome. Could you start by telling us a little bit about yourself and your career so far? Hi Patrick, thank you so much for having me on the show. I'm really excited to talk about this topic because as you've alluded to in my intro, this is a topic that is close to my heart. I've been working in financial services and servicing clients in their wealth management and investment management for over 10 years now, and the journey towards focusing on female investors, or the lack of, really started when I started my position as a senior investment manager at Brooks MacDonald. It's a question that I asked in my interview, why are there so few women running money? The industry average I think is 17% or something like that in the UK, and that really spurred on my CIO, my manager, to propel me forward and explore this further. So why did you set up female folio and how did that come about? So with the autonomy of trying to make more of that question, why there are so few women in the industry, and also another question that's completely tied to that, why there are less female investors than male investors, I began trying to think about the barriers that exist that stop women from investing their money, stop them from taking that step over threshold from saving their cash to doing something that generates more from their money, and I came to understand that there was other women in the business who also felt the same way. So that's how female folio was born out of a common interest amongst women in the business, and through that, and through a variety of expertise from investment management, financial planning, to marketing, we were able to create something that really went a lot further than we all thought it could have done originally. Right, okay. In terms of the reasons for the disproportionality, the low number of women investors, what do you think from your experience is the cause of that? You could put them into two brackets. You've got the generalised systemic issues that exist through decades upon decades of history, and then you've got the more immediate day-to-day constraints that we face. So if you think about finances, money, the world of finances is an industry that's been dominated by men, and so it's been created by those men and appealed to other men, but we're now living in a world where women work, that's not new really, but women are earning more and more wealth in their own right, and they're due to inherit a large amount of money in the coming years. By 2025, 60% of global wealth will be in the hands of women. So it's really important that women are equipped and they know how to make the most out of that wealth, and due to the historical gendered factors, we perhaps haven't built up that knowledge and that confidence that we need now that we're in a position to invest. I also speak to my female clients or potential female clients who feel a slight risk aversion or are more aware of the risk, so they shy away from investing, which is more risky than cash, but they also need to understand the risk of not investing, that if they are holding cash and large sums of cash, that cash is getting eaten away by inflation every month, every year, and you've got to outpace that inflation if you're looking at a long-term investment horizon. Interesting, and just from your personal perspective in terms of you talking about this male-dominated industry, how did you decide to move into the investment industry yourself? Well it was a bit, it was chance and luck. I came out of university having done a degree in history of art in Italian, and I came back to my family home, which is Jersey, and I thought, right, I'm going to earn a bit of money and then I'm going to go off to London and do something creative and amazing. I had a friend, a recruitment agency, and she got me this fantastic job in a wealth management arm of BNP Paribas, and it was amazing. I really enjoyed it, I enjoyed making connections with the clients, working my way up, I went straight into my exams, and it was a very fulfilling role that suited me, and I got to know, I got to know the industry and working in investments and understanding the economy, it's very relevant, and so it just kind of went from strengths to strengths from there, but I think that it was very much chance and luck that that was the first job that I got and I enjoyed. I'm not sure that I naturally would have inclined to working in the financial services, it's something I've learned, and I think role models are really important because it's seeing yourself sort of represented in a similar role, so when I first started working in wealth management, I had a female boss, she was the head of wealth management there, and it was really encouraging to see basically an all-male team run by a woman, which was really cool, really cool, and I think that it makes you aim higher for young women coming into the workplace now, I think it's really important to be able to see women in those roles. Interesting, and so in terms of that learned experience of moving into the field, could you share some of your experience as a female investor in what has been predominantly a male-dominated environment, and particularly any good or bad experiences you've had along the way and how you've overcome any challenges you've faced? With it being a male-dominated industry, much of what I've learned and much of the good work that I've seen has been modelled by men that I've worked for and with. I don't ever want to sound anti-male, it's pro-female, you know, this initiative. They've paved the way, but there's always room for more diversity and more diversity of thought, and that's a whole other realm there to talk about, but in terms of what I've experienced along the way, yes, there's been some excellent role models, there's been the old-school role models, and the way that they interact with clients is perhaps it needs to be updated, there needs to be more inclusion for the female partner in a relationship to become more involved in the finances. Often much of the money conversations happen between the male advisor with the husband, and it's really important that we open up those conversations to the women in the partnership, because you don't know what's around the corner. Women are sometimes thrown into very difficult situations if they lose their partner or they go through divorce and they're starting at square one and they don't have any level of financial literacy that gives them any confidence to move forward, it can be completely overwhelming. If you think about more working-class environments, the woman actually tends to run the purse strings in that type of situation, and so they have a very rudimentary knowledge of trying to put money aside and save for things, but like you say, to move to the next level, they need a fresh perspective in terms of the education they're facilitated with or how they even access that education. It can be challenging for people. Yeah, absolutely, and it's interesting what you say about women controlling the purse strings to the general household budget. We generally do. We're deciding which products are being put in the cupboards in the home. Most of the time, women are deciding what house you're going to buy and then what tiles you're going to use. The home is one of the biggest assets you'll ever own, so that's quite a lot of responsibility, a lot of financial responsibility, but we don't necessarily directly think about it that way, but you're absolutely right. Whilst we're really good about thinking about cash, budgeting, controlling a household spend, making sure it all makes sense and it tallies up, fantastic at that. Women are so good with cash. We are just not so good at investing. So in terms of the female folio and how you get clients on board and once they're on board, how you help to direct them and develop their knowledge and know how, is it something whereby they're moving towards being self-directed or is it that you're going to be in a consistently advisory capacity as they develop anyway? It really depends from client to client and a woman to woman because when we're talking about our general services that we're offering as a discretionary investment manager, there's a certain level of wealth required to warrant that cost. So female folio, as it is, is a brand and a network and it brings women into an environment where they can start having conversations about money, not feel like there's any silly questions, they can engage with other women and other investment professionals and have those conversations in a way that they haven't yet been having and then obviously the service level going forward is tailored to them. If they want to have a female investment manager, that is an option. If they don't want to, that is also an option. I mean, there's a lot of the baby boomer generation who actually feel more comfortable with a man managing their money. That's what they've grown up and that's what they know and there's perfectly capable qualified male investment managers out there to do the job. It's just, you know, we are trying to appeal to a demographic that hasn't yet been spoken to in the main. Now, when we talk about younger women, millennials, Gen Z, it's very much about igniting that curiosity, making them realise or understand an avenue to investing and doing something more with their cash, but it's not necessarily an ongoing service level, it's more being part of a network and a brand that they can tap into where we're providing them with educational blogs, podcasts and events that they can attend and engage with other women. Yeah, I mean, and I think in terms of Tick Mill, certainly that's something that they could think about promoting on their platform in terms of having, like you say, not necessarily forcing the issue in terms of acting from an advisory capacity, but more facilitating a network and an exchange of ideas is important. Absolutely. I think part of the problem and what is in our sphere of influencers women is that we do need to start talking about money. Perhaps men are better at doing that and talking to their friends and their colleagues about what they're doing with their money and I'm not sure that women find that so easy to do. And in terms of going back to the study, the fidelity study that women actually, the margin outperform men in terms of investment, what do you think drives that? We've looked at this at female folio as well, it's just such a fantastic point to look at because for all of our lack of confidence maybe in investing, that is all it is because we do have the ability that research shows that women actually do perform better when they invest and I think it's down to a few factors. One of them is patience. I think women set their sites on the long-term goal by a good solid sound investment that perhaps they've done their own fundamental research on or they've relied on a professional to do so and they hold that and through thick and thin, volatile times and that's how you can have a really good investment strategy. There was a warwick business study and they looked at male and female investors and the women traded a lot less than the men and again it's that chopping and changing coming in and out because as we all know it's very difficult to time the market and what is on your side and what you can try to guarantee is time in the market and that long-term growth. For women a lot of the time when they're investing they're thinking about the purpose to be on the profit so yes the capital uplift of x percent is fantastic but what does that mean? Does that mean I can retire at 55? Does that mean I can put my children through university? Does it mean that I can leave a legacy? So I think they set their sites on those and that's what they work towards and they maintain that long-term goal. One thing that stands out to me is that women tend to be far more risk averse than men so the male investors tend to have a more gungho approach to things and are prepared to amp up leverage or extend bigger risk than females in general. Is that something you've found in your experience? If we're speaking generally if we're doing kind of a risk assessment on husband and wife you're going to probably see the husband's risk attitudes a lot higher or a bit higher than the woman. Not always though mind you but I think that comes down to the financial literacy aspect of it because they perhaps understand the mechanics of the financial markets. I think it's really difficult to say that women are risk averse and to keep on saying it because I think it's quite self-fulfilling. I think that women are do shy away from risk either from a lack of knowledge or because they are just more risk aware and I read some articles on this and some of it comes down to the very real reasons as to why women should be more risk averse and that comes back to the fact that a woman's financial journey is a lot bumpier than a man's yet we're living in a financial system that is built for the male trajectory of going up in the workplace reaching the peak of their career and retiring. Women are going to come into the workplace probably on a lower salary because the gender pay gap still exists. She might not progress through as quickly and as smoothly as her male counterpart because it's likely that she might take a break from her career to have children and take some unpaid leave which impacts her pension contributions. She then may go part-time or leave work and then that really stalls the career progression and then at the end of it all she's got to live longer than her male counterpart off a smaller pot so there's reason for women to be more risk averse because there's these pressing matters that happen along your lifetime where you have to call upon your capital perhaps and you know you can't just simply say I've put my money into a high risk investment and I'll see that again in 30 years time it might not be the case for her. Yeah that makes sense really really good perspective on that just thinking about your own journey and where you've got to now and thinking about women listening to this and wanting to get involved in investment or trading what sort of advice practical advice I guess would you give your female counterparts? I would definitely start talking more about money and investing and chat your friends and chat your colleagues your mum your sister and the men in your life because I think that we all need to like wise up to what everybody's doing and realise it's not kind of this big scary elephant in the room that you can't ever approach and then you know we do have the internet at our fingertips and we've got to be careful because it is full of stuff that is true and false and you know you can't guarantee that you're going to get good advice and I'm not saying go to the internet for advice otherwise I wouldn't be in a job but you know there are apps where you can invest your spare change and you kind of to a certain extent get to know how the investment markets work you get a feel for what it's like to lose money and to gain money through investments and you know that is just testing the waters that's dipping your little toe in but if you get to a point where you're ready to put a regular amount away every month you know a young professional who's earning a good salary and perhaps her outgoings aren't aren't too catastrophic and she can put a couple of hundred into a well diversified fund there's plenty of platforms for that and there's also kind of investment houses that will offer that at smaller value clients and I know that we offer free conversations with young people who are exploring and I'm sure they do the same thing just to show you that it's there and it's possible and then if you're on the other side of the scale and you do have a significant amount of wealth I strongly strongly suggest that you go and seek out the advice of a financial planner or financial advisor because they really look at everything according to you according to your life they factor in tax estate planning and they really that they forecast a financial plan for you so you can really see it laid out and they will try and maximise your wealth for you and make it very personalised excellent Phoebe Phoebe thank you so much for your your time today and your perspective is is fantastic and I will certainly take away that phrase purpose before profit thanks Patrick it's been a pleasure is there anywhere that listeners can go to to follow you online or to to to reach out to you absolutely so we've we've got the website which is femalefolio.com and on there you know you've got all of all of the contacts all of the group on there the female folio team links to our podcast links to blogs and of course our upcoming events are on there and if you sign up to the network you'll get emailed and notified of those fantastic thanks again Phoebe and thanks everyone for listening to Bright Minds from Tick Mill while through these conversations we offer tips and insider knowledge nothing on the podcast should be considered financial advice and we actively encourage listeners to seek professional financial advice as Phoebe suggested whenever they can thanks very much everyone