Headhunters Seek Larger Pool of Women Candidates

City of London headhunters are having to redouble efforts to build comprehensive databases of women to fill senior investment banking roles to meet new demands by clients who are increasingly putting equality at the heart of their hiring policies. The firms, who are paid handsomely to place senior investment bankers in high-profile roles, are searching a universe which is short on senior female talent amid a renewed focus on hiring women which has gathered pace over the past six months, headhunters say. With limited supply, some say they are now having to employ ‘forensic’ research and lateral thinking to identity candidates who are suitable for senior roles. This may involve selecting women employed in non-investment banking positions, or who are currently insufficiently senior, but who show sufficient potential to be selected and trained for more high-powered roles, the headhunters say.

A survey by Financial News, published in March, showed that less than 5% of those sitting on executive committees, or at an equivalent level, across a sample of 20 investment banks and investment banking divisions are women. Research by recruitment firm Selby Jennings shows that in areas such as trading, technology, and quantitative analysis, around 15% or less of the workforce in investment banking is female. And the more senior the position the worse the inequality gets, headhunters and bankers say.

Pressure to overcome that situation has grown markedly over the past six months, headhunters said. Big banks, including Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and Société Générale, have set new targets to recruit more women globally, with interest in hiring women increasing markedly in the UK. Former minister and Standard Chartered chairman Lord Davies of Abersoch was asked by the UK government to develop a business strategy to increase the number of women on the boards of listed companies in the UK in August 2010. At the time, the recently elected government set itself the target that by the end of the parliamentary term—usually four to five years—at least half of all new appointees being made to the boards of public bodies be women. Meanwhile, the World Economic Forum, at its Davos conference in January, introduced a minimum quota for female executives, asking that at least one of the five official delegates sent by the largest corporations be female.

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