Esther Gilbert | Investec Wealth & Investment
Esther started her career as a fixed income fund manager focussing on client mandates investing in government and investment grade corporate bond markets.
She moved into fund-of-funds management in 2010 and has managed fixed income, equity and multi-asset products. Esther joined Investec Wealth & Investment in 2015 and is responsible for fixed income third party fund selection.
Esther is actively involved in the Investec gender balance initiative and mentors a number of internal and external peers.
Lucy White | GrowthInvest
Lucy started her career working for high-growth technology businesses and their investors.
Having worked in the commercial marketing teams at CMR Surgical and Silicon Valley Bank, Lucy also developed and co-launched a social impact accelerator programme for early-stage SEIS/EIS-qualifying businesses.
Lucy is the founding director of a charity that exists to champion girls and young women in their faith and leads its global team. She has advised on investment and fundraising strategy for several small businesses and charities and is a Marketing Mentor for Durham University Women in Business. Lucy has a First Class degree from Durham University and is qualified with the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
Johanna Copol | BNY Mellon
Johanna is responsible for the Relationship Management and Client Service for Money Market Funds investors at BNY Mellon Investment Management.
Her career in Asset Management began when she joined the bank in 2008 as a Personal Assistant before joining her current client-facing role.
Johanna is originally from Guadeloupe, in the French Caribbean. She moved to France when she was seven years old and lived in Paris before settling in the UK twelve years ago. Her personal story has inspired her to advocate on the importance of fostering an inclusive culture in all possible settings. Her passion for Diversity and inclusion (D&I) led her to join the leadership team of IMPACT (BNY Mellon’s Business Resource Group focusing on driving ethnic diversity in the work place) in 2015. She took on a role as Chief Administration officer for the group before joining her current role as a work stream co-chair. Passion and teamwork have enabled her to dedicate her efforts to a number of projects aiming to advance the Diversity & Inclusion agenda. Johanna constantly demonstrates role-model behaviour by driving and supporting initiatives to advance diversity and Inclusion in the workplace. She firmly believes that corporations have the power to transform communities by changing their company culture, and by inspiring employees to embrace diversity and inclusion in all areas of their lives.
She is passionate about fitness and wellbeing and holds an Advance Diploma in Personal Training. Giving back is one of her core values and for the last three years, she has been delivering free weekly fitness classes for her peers. She provides encouragement; inspire them to take control of their health and fitness and the classes provide a sociable environment to foster camaraderie.
Johanna holds a Bachelor degree in Management specialised in Human Resources from Marne la Vallée University (France). She has also achieved an Investment Management Certificate (IMC) CFA UK Level 4.
Monika Dutt | Vanguard
Monika Dutt is a Senior ETF Analyst at Vanguard, the world's second largest asset manager and exchange traded funds (ETF) provider.
In her role, Monika is responsible for delivering ETF analysis, market commentary and investment insights to institutional clients.
Prior to joining Vanguard in 2018, Monika was an ETF Research Analyst at Morningstar, responsible for covering European-listed ETFs offering exposure to US and emerging-markets equities. At Morningstar, she was a frequent contributor to media, including Financial Times, Money Observer and Investment Week. She began her career in 2012 as a fixed income product specialist at Bloomberg.
Currently, Monika is pursuing a part-time master’s degree in Statistical Data Science at University College London, where she is specialising in applying extreme value theory to the ETF market. Ms. Dutt holds a BA (Hons) in Economics from California State University Northridge and has passed the CFA Level II exam. In 2018, she was a Women in Investment Awards finalist in the category of fund analyst of the year.
Shalah Akhtar | PwC
Shalah works within PwC's Tax practice with over 7 years of experience, having joined the firm as a school leaver.
Following her own personal experiences with mental health, she has been passionate about addressing the challenges she had faced in the workplace but also the community she belonged to. She has since become a mental health advocate and has been a visible role model for those from a minority or faith based background.
During her time at PwC, she has driven a number of D&I strategy initiatives and campaigns with energy and enthusiasm including driving forward PwC’s ‘This is Me’ video released in April 2018 where people from different faiths and cultures shared their personal mental health stories which helped tackle the stigma. She also sits on PwC’s mental health steering committee and is Mental Health First Aid qualified.
She has a real desire to help others and helped set up Thriving from the Start with other leading organisations including Bank of England, London Stock Exchange and Allen & Overy with the City Mental Health Alliance (“CMHA”). This is a mental health community for those early in their city careers and aims to set a new market standard on how highly employee mental health should be valued.
She was a speaker at the This Can Happen 2019 conference at the 02, the largest mental health workplace conference, and has had the privilege of meeting HRH the Duke of Cambridge for her work in this space. She has done keynote speeches at numerous events, hosted workshops and published articles and blogs sharing her mental health experiences, very much leading by example.
She leads the PwC Muslim Network and is responsible for over 600 people across the UK and recently took 20 PwC volunteers from different faiths, race & gender across London & the regions to Calais to support refugees. Finally, she has also been involved in advising clients on the implications of the government's consultation in ethnicity pay reporting.
Rachel Green | Aviva Investors
I grew up on a farm on the Caribbean island of Dominica and came to the UK when I was 17 (population 70,000 people).
Growing up, I always felt that there were only three career options available to me: becoming a Doctor, a Lawyer or an Accountant. As such, I came to this country with little knowledge of the financial services industry. Working in the City seemed completely out of my reach as I saw very few people who looked like me. After leaving university, I became an Auditor working for a professional services firm. My journey into the City begun when I secured a Risk Management role at Russell Investments, and then went on to Munich Re as a Longevity Associate and finally to Aviva Investors bringing on new business in their Institutional Sales team.
I am particularly proud of my achievements at Aviva Investors where I was instrumental in using my experience to educate my colleagues on the cultural differences and hurdles that ethnic minorities face joining the industry – contributing to changing our recruitment practices and the way we assess candidates. I am an Amos Bursary mentor and mentor young black women helping to raise the aspirations and motivations of the next generation of our workforce.
My most humbling achievement to date is my appointment on Aviva’s Evolution Council – a shadow board of 12 employees created to challenge and provide a fresh perspective to the Aviva Group Board – from strategy to culture and of course, diversity. I also sit on the Diversity Project's Ethnicity Workstream (#TalkAboutBlack) Steering Group leading the Intake workstream. Here, I am responsible for educating and raising awareness of the variety of career options within the Asset Management industry within the black community.
Rebecca O'Dwyer | M&G Investments
A keen student of the Humanities, after completing A-Levels in History, Politics, English Literature, Biology and PE, I went on to read History at The University of York.
Graduating with a first-class honours degree in 2012, I was also awarded ‘The York Award’ for my commitment to a wide programme of cross-disciplinary activities during my degree tenure. An enthusiastic sportswoman, I captained the 1st Team netball and served on a variety of student committees during my University years.
Thanks to my successful completion of a summer internship with The Royal Bank of Scotland over the summer of 2011, I graduated from York with an offer to join RBS’ 18-month Corporate Banking Graduate scheme in London, which I took up in earnest, spending three six-month placements with diverse Bank departments spanning Change Management, Relationship Management and Leveraged Finance. Despite coming from a non-finance background, my time on the scheme sparked my love of structured finance; a discipline that combined the qualitative skills gleaned from my humanities background, with more quantative analytic methodology that my naturally logical brain demanded.
After nearly 2 years after accepting a permanent position with the Leveraged Finance team at RBS, which served as a great training ground in credit analysis, I made the move to Investment Management at M&G Investments, where I have been a member of their Direct Lending team since 2016. Promoted after less than a year to Associate Director, I focus on originating and executing assets and loans on behalf of our pension fund and institutional clients. I have extremely high standards for myself, and routinely seek to push boundaries with my contribution to my team and the wider institution. Negotiation and stakeholder management form a key part of my day job, and I thrive in a corporate culture where I am able to operate with a high degree of autonomy and responsibility, alongside colleagues I find inspiring, with mutually beneficial learning opportunities. I take this approach externally into my extracurricular role as a committee member for 100 Women in Finance’s Gala committee.
When I am not at work, I continue to play netball (in the Regional England Netball league) and am a keen sportswoman. I love to travel regularly – with a strong focus around good food and good wine! – and spend quality downtime with family and friends.
Jenny Qian Qi Quan | Smith & Williamson
I was born in Beijing and moved to the UK when I was 13. I quickly found I had a passion for finance while studying for my Master’s degree in Chemistry at Cambridge.
I realised although I loved the analytical and numerical aspects of scientific research, the career wouldn’t provide the daily interaction with people that I was looking for in a role. So after graduating, I set out to look for a career that would allow me to combine these two aspects.
After internships ranging from luxury jewellery marketing to financial PR, it became clear that the investment management trainee role offered a perfect blend of traits I was looking for in a career. These days, as an investment manager at Smith & Williamson, I work on a team managing assets for a range of private clients, offshore accounts and charities. At Smith & Williamson, we don’t separate the roles of relationship manager and investment personnel, so I am able to speak to clients myself and take the time to understand their needs and build a direct relationship with them.
I am also actively involved in our in-house research process as the lead sector specialist for the healthcare sector. I conduct general research on the sector and put forward stock specific recommendations for the division. My academic experience has allowed me to bring a new perspective and truly add value to these tasks as I am able to offer a deeper, more analytical understanding of these companies and the sector as a whole.
Finally, I sit on the firm’s Diversity & Inclusion working group, working towards increasing female and ethnic minority representation within the firm, especially focused on the trainee level.
Alexandra Jackson | Rathbones
Alexandra manages the Rathbone UK Opportunities Fund (previously called Rathbone Recovery Fund). She was appointed as co-manager in June 2014 and took over as sole manager in August 2017, and has spent over 12 years at Rathbones.
Alexandra joined Rathbone Unit Trust Management in 2007 as an equity analyst, and then became assistant fund manager on the Rathbone Global Opportunities Fund.
Alexandra is a CFA charter-holder, holds the IMC and has a BA (Hons) in Economics from the University of Durham. She is a member of the Rathbone Investment Management Stock Selection Committee, and co-founded Rathbones Included, our internal engagement and diversity network.
Helen Pugh | J.P. Morgan
Helen is the Head of International ETF Marketing at J.P. Morgan Asset Management and is responsible for the marketing efforts for Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) across all countries outside of the US.
The ETF business area was launched in Europe in November 2017 and is focussed on raising its brand profile and distribution efforts across Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific regions.
Starting her career at J.P. Morgan as an intern in their Private Bank, Helen was offered a graduate position on a rotational scheme. Her first role was investigating failed trades in the Securities Services division, she quickly moved to her first marketing role in Asset Management. Since then Helen has thrived in various roles across the events and communications teams, part of an internal agency model.
Aside from her day role, Helen was the Marketing & Communications Lead for the internal Women’s Network for 2 years before stepping up to become co-chair of the UK network in 2014. Whilst co-chair Helen oversaw the launch of the Maternity Buddy Programme and numerous professional networking initiatives including Lean-In circles.
As well as supporting the firm’s diversity initiatives Helen has volunteered her time towards many bank-sponsored initiatives. She was the lead representative for a children’s charity on the bank’s Volunteer Leadership Group, organising events for other members of staff to volunteer their time. She also partook in the firmwide volunteering opportunities with local school children to give them interview practice as well as supporting the firm’s recruitment activities; reviewing student applications and interviewing for the future talent for the firm.
Having returned from a second maternity leave in March 2018, Helen is focused focussed on championing flexible working and raising the profile of women balancing work and family life.