The first recipient, Anita Ren, received the inaugural Plato Investment Management Women in Finance Scholarship, with the firm providing a $5,000 grant and a potential internship.
“We see our partnership with UTS as an important step towards empowering talented students to join the profession and creating a more sustainable and equitable future for our industry,” Dr Don Hamson, managing director, Plato said.
“This starts with building the pipeline at the university level and doing what we can to improve the number of women applying for jobs and holding leadership positions.”
Australian women represented 40.7 per cent of management roles in financial and insurance services over 2017-2018, although they made up 54.9 per cent of the sector’s total employees, according to the government’s Workplace Gender Equality Agency.
Women only accounted for 9.4 per cent of chief executives or heads of businesses in the sector.
“Investment management is a global industry, and the diversity of our people, ideas and experiences is just as important for success as the diversity of our funds,” Dr Hamson said.
“We hope our scholarships will encourage young women to consider investment management as a career path, and our internships will help them get a foot in the door and gain the experience and connections they need to get started.”
Sarah Simpkins
Sarah Simpkins is a journalist at Momentum Media, reporting primarily on banking, financial services and wealth.
Prior to joining the team in 2018, Sarah worked in trade media and produced stories for a current affairs program on community radio.
You can contact her on [email protected].
