A unicorn in the institutional investment universe, CalPERS is now run by three female leaders. And they are looking to the money management industry to follow their lead.
A more diverse money management industry "is not going to happen by itself," Nicole Musicco, CIO of the $461.4 billion Sacramento-based pension fund, said at its second annual Pathways for Women Conference in Anaheim, Calif.
The California Public Employees' Retirement System has "the responsibility to be that strong voice" to urge money managers to place more women in top investment jobs, Ms. Musicco said, speaking on a panel that also included CalPERS CEO Marcie Frost and Board President Theresa Taylor.
The panel was moderated by Julie Tatge, executive editor of Pensions & Investments.
Ms. Musicco and Marlene Timberlake D'Adamo, CalPERS' chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer, are working on ways CalPERS can "really move the ball forward," Ms. Musicco said.
CalPERS is starting to get diversity data from managers that are honing in on diversity as a priority, she said. "We have to push a little," but there are managers that have shown real leadership, Ms. Musicco said.
CalPERS works with consultant Lenox Park Solutions, which recently completed an external manager inclusion survey. The results of the survey are expected to be revealed in coming months.
The money management industry has a long way to go, Ms. Frost said in her opening remarks at the conference. Women account for only 12% of senior leadership positions at money management firms, she said.
"Equal opportunity remains even more elusive for women of color and those in the LGBTQ+ community. For example, only 4% of C-suites contain women of color," Ms. Frost said.
During the panel discussion, Ms. Frost said that CalPERS is taking steps to diversify its staff and ensure that it has an inclusive culture by, among other efforts, holding unconscious bias training sessions for staff.
Attracting more women to its organization involves "following through on your commitments," Ms. Frost said during the panel discussion. When searching for new executives to join the team, sometimes the first pool of candidates needs to be broadened and so, CalPERS executives will take the time to get a more inclusive candidate pool.
It's not about the time it takes, it's about having the right candidate pool and thorough training to eliminate unconscious bias that a person sitting on the interview committee might have, Ms. Frost said.
CalPERS executives also aim to do the same thing with the procurement process to increase the diversity of its suppliers and vendors, Ms. Frost said. But, she added, at this point these are targets and CalPERS officials will "see how we do in the next 12 to 24 months."
As a leader at CalPERS, Ms. Taylor said that she tries to mentor women in the organizations she is involved in by sharing the story of her own career journey and trying to bring women along on the same path.
Ms. Taylor said she has had leadership roles in three organizations. Not only is Ms. Taylor in the midst of serving her first one-year term as CalPERS' board president and her second term on the board, she is also a principal compliance representative at the Franchise Tax Board, Sacramento, and has been active in her union, including in 2015 serving as vice president/secretary-treasurer for the Service Employees International Union Local 1000.
Women still get passed over for male colleagues, Ms. Taylor said.
Sometimes an organization is so large that senior executives "overlook a lot of talent," she said. But women need to "keep working, keep pushing," Ms. Taylor said.
Women need to carve their own paths, Ms. Musicco said. Women have a tendency to say they aren't qualified for the next step on their career path. Women need to ask themselves, "why not me?" she said. What's the worst thing about putting yourself in the mix for the new job or promotion, she asked, adding that it is up to leaders who wish to be champions to "pass on that vibe." Leaders and mentors need to reach into their teams and encourage employees to put themselves in the mix for new opportunities — especially those working in mainly male-dominated industries, said Ms. Musicco, who had been an investment banker and then shifted to private equity prior to her appointment at CalPERS.
"Talk up your game a bit," Ms. Musicco said.
And don't be afraid to take an off-ramp from your career when you need to bear and raise children, Ms. Musicco said, just as she did following the birth of her second child.
Both Ms. Frost and Ms. Musicco spoke about women's career paths as a lattice rather than a straight route.
"Career paths don't have to just go up," Ms. Musicco said. People can make lateral choices to help develop their skills and experience to put in their toolkit, she said.
Before joining CalPERS, Ms. Musicco was a partner at New York-based private equity shop RedBird Capital Partners. Prior to RedBird, Ms. Musicco spent a year as senior managing director, head of private markets at the C$73.7 billion ($56.7 billion) Investment Management Corp. of Ontario and spent 16 years with the C$242.5 billion Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, both in Toronto, leading the private equity and public equity investment teams.
While at Ontario Teachers, Ms. Musicco said that even though most of her experience to that point involved U.S. private equity, she put herself up for a new job in charge of the pension plan's Asia-Pacific private equity investments. She was appointed managing director for Asia-Pacific in September 2015 and moved her "two small children to Hong Kong," she said.
Mentors are also important — so much so that a woman might choose a job that may not give her additional compensation. Rather, she might choose a job that, for instance, is led by a person she thinks could be a mentor for her, Ms. Frost said.
And mentors do not have to be other women, according to speakers on another panel examining how male sponsors and allies can help further women's advancement that was moderated by Ms. D'Adamo.
At State Street Global Advisors, 25% of executives, including the heads of cash and quantitative investing, are women, Cyrus Taraporevala, president and CEO, said on the panel.
"And we have miles to go before I sleep," Mr. Taraporevala said.
SSGA is also moving to have a more inclusive group of vendors, he said. SSGA spends billions with suppliers and the firm is moving to do business with a more diverse group, Mr. Taraporevala said. For example, SSGA traditionally had used large Wall Street banks for its bond underwriting and other, smaller firms would "pick up a few crumbs," he said. So, SSGA began making minority-led firms lead underwriters of bond issuances, Mr. Taraporevala said. Today, 50% of SSGA's underwriting is led by minority firms. Managers need to challenge the status quo, he said.
Men can be allies by standing by and supporting women in their organizations, he said. Mr. Taraporevala said that he makes the positive assumption that men do care that women do not have the same opportunities for career advancement, but they just don't realize "what it means to walk in all of your shoes," referring to the predominantly female audience at the conference.
Mr. Taraporevala said that even though he is not female he could relate to what many of the speakers at the CalPERS conference said. He said he is often "the only brown man in the room."
And he said that he looks at diversity as broader than gender, race and sexual orientation. For example, the U.S. Supreme Court lacks diversity because all of the justices attended Ivy League schools, Mr. Taraporevala said.
Diversity also means including people with different life experiences and from different backgrounds, said Carin Taylor, chief diversity officer at Workday, who spoke on the same panel.
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