The Fraser Factor: Women and Wall Street

The female presence. There is a great deficit on Wall Street, the financial Olympus par excellence, in hiring women for senior positions. Forbes magazine even makes the point and analyzes the reasons as to why, despite the fact that companies that respect diversity at the top are more profitable, the global heart of the financial industry “does not advocate gender equality.”

Why? Cultural differences and the educational background of decision-makers appear to be “the two main reasons that would ‘justify‘ this inequality,” says Forbes. Many believe that the ‘old boy’s network’ on Wall Street makes it very difficult for women to rise to senior management positions.

More numbers: According to data from Deloitte, in 2019 women accounted for more than 50% of hires within the U.S. financial services sector, but only 22% held senior positions, and not exactly on Wall Street. The study revealed that by 2030 only 31% of management positions in the United States would be held by women, clearly not an encouraging percentage.

The situation in Latin America is quite similar. In the Board Members Survey Latam 2021 Report, 20% of the participating companies have between 40% and 50% of women on their boards of directors, while the remaining 76% have fewer than 30% of women in these positions.

A large gap. As of the end of 2019, only 31 women held top positions in the leading U.S. companies listed on the S&P 500 index.

• At a hearing before the U.S. Congress in 2020, the heads of the seven largest U.S. banks were asked about this lack of diversity in senior positions. When asked at the hearing if they believed or thought it was feasible that they would ever be replaced by a woman or a person of color none of them said yes, including Michael Corbat, Jane Fraser’s former boss, the woman whose appointment has changed Wall Street history.

But who is Jane Fraser? She is Citigroup’s new CEO, and at 53 is the first woman to hold the top job at a Wall Street bank.

• She is a graduate of Cambridge University and the Harvard Business School.
• She lived in Spain for two years to learn the language, which she now speaks perfectly.
• She is married to Alberto Piedra — a son of one of Fidel Castro’s ministers — with whom she negotiated to decide which of the two would stay at home and which would pursue a meteoric financial career.
• Piedra, who was Bank of America’s chief operating officer in Europe, lost the argument and retired as head of global banking at Dresdner Kleinwort in 2009, leaving his professional career to care for their children.
• “You can’t have it all at the same time. You can have it all over the course of decades. I think of my life in different stages. When the children were little, I needed to be closer, but now it’s different,” Fraser told CNN.

What it means. For a number of business publications, the appointment of Jane Fraser as CEO of Citigroup is a clear example of the “apparent” change of mentality in the industry. This CEO is regarded as a rising star in the banking world. And although she is now the exception, Fraser is in a prime position to fight for the inclusion of women in senior positions in the financial sector, especially on Wall Street.