Lily Rivers explores why progress toward gender balance in financial leadership remains uneven – and what can be done to change it. Drawing on personal experience and industry research, she highlights how mentorship, sponsorship, and intentional action are essential to move beyond “luck” toward lasting equity. Despite strong entry-level representation, women in finance continue to face attrition at the mid-career stage, particularly within private equity, infrastructure, and credit. Lily argues that community, visibility, and targeted support are critical to bridging this gap – and calls on leaders to build workplaces where women don’t have to feel fortunate to belong, because inclusion and representation are the norm.
In my own career, I had always called myself “lucky” to have found my sponsor/mentor in my first professional role, an outstanding female senior leader, who advocated for me in rooms where I did not have a seat at the table, sponsored my professional development and advertised my successes internally. Upon reflection, I’d still say the bond we formed was lucky – we have been able to transition from a professional relationship to a genuine personal rapport. However, I no longer think of myself as lucky to have been in a business where I could look up and see someone I aspired to be, someone who reflected my identity. Rather, I now see that this is how it should be.
My experience is not unique. An interesting article by Harvard Business Review¹ explored ‘a study of more than 4,000 high potentials that shows more women than men have mentors—yet women are less likely to advance in their careers. That’s because they’re not actively sponsored the way the men are’. This is, in part, due to the limited number of women in senior roles who are available to serve as sponsors. Additionally, cross-gender mentorship can be less accessible, influenced by unconscious bias and organisational culture.
Representation does not change by osmosis. Intentional action – through mentorship, sponsorship, inclusive recruitment, and flexible progression frameworks – is required to retain and promote female talent.
In recent years, gender representation across financial services has become a sharper point of focus for firms looking to align long-term performance with inclusive, forward-thinking leadership. Yet despite incremental progress, female chartered accountants working in some of the most strategically critical sectors, such as private equity, credit, infrastructure, and real assets, remain underrepresented at senior levels.
The reasons for this disparity are layered: structural barriers, cultural inertia, and the visibility gap all play a role. But equally significant is the lack of targeted support for mid-career women, those with technical expertise, professional qualifications, and the ambition to lead, who often find themselves at a career crossroads as they begin to navigate the step into leadership and need to develop their strategic value proposition.
This article explores how gender representation continues to shape career progression in these sectors, what positive change looks like in practice, and why building relationships across peer networks is critical for lasting transformation.
There is, of course, a strong moral imperative to increase gender representation – but there is also an undeniable commercial one. Numerous studies, including those from McKinsey², have shown that gender-diverse leadership teams outperform on measures of profitability, innovation, and risk management.
Chartered accountants bring a distinct lens to investment decision-making – combining financial rigour with a holistic understanding of reporting, compliance, and fiduciary responsibility. In private markets, where valuations are complex and operational value creation is paramount, this perspective is not just useful but essential.
In private equity and infrastructure, where decisions have multi-decade consequences, the ability to integrate diverse perspectives is not a nice-to-have – it’s a competitive advantage. And as regulatory and investor scrutiny grows, firms that fail to reflect this in their leadership risk not only reputational damage but also diminished performance.
In other words, inclusion is not just about fairness – it’s about future-proofing the business model.
Across the UK’s financial services sector, graduate-level recruitment often reflects an encouraging degree of gender parity. A study from Accountancy Age³ reported that across the top 100 UK accountancy firms, the average percentage of female qualified accountants is 41%, with 48 firms reporting more than 40% of their qualified accountants are women.
However, representation drops sharply at partner and senior leadership levels: the average percentage of female partners across the top 100 firms is just 24%. This decline highlights the need for targeted retention and development strategies – particularly at the mid-career stage, where potential leaders are most likely to leave the profession.
While policy and structural reform are essential, they are only part of the solution. Culture changes when individuals are connected, not isolated. This is where the power of professional communities comes into play, especially those built around shared ambition and lived experience.
Communities that bring together finance professionals on the path to senior leadership with those already operating at the strategic level are uniquely positioned to shift the dial. They enable the exchange of insight, the surfacing of unspoken barriers, and the creation of sponsorship opportunities that are both authentic and lasting.
For female professionals in alternative asset classes, the opportunity to build relationships with peers facing similar challenges – and learning from those who’ve navigated the terrain ahead – is invaluable. These networks not only foster confidence but also drive action, particularly when it comes to internal mobility and positioning oneself for leadership roles.
In the race to develop the next generation of senior leaders, technical expertise and commercial acumen remain foundational. But it is relationships at a peer-level, cross-functional, intergenerational – that often make the critical difference.
Investing time in building and nurturing these connections is not ancillary to career progression; it is central to it. For female chartered accountants in the alternative investments space, developing a strong peer network offers a platform to share insight, raise visibility, and shape the culture of the sector from the inside out.
If entry-level parity isn’t translating into leadership, then the differentiator must lie in what happens between those two points – the networks, sponsorship, and intentional actions that sustain ambition.
The task ahead is not small. But by combining structural change with community-building, and by recognising the untapped potential of women already in the pipeline, the industry has an opportunity not just to rebalance its leadership – but to redefine what effective leadership looks like in the years to come.
Whether you’re a senior leader, hiring manager, or future partner, the opportunity is the same: to be deliberate in opening doors, amplifying voices, and building the kind of industry where women don’t have to feel “lucky” to belong – because they always have.
¹Why men still get more promotions than women
² McKinsey: The benefit of gender and ethnic diversity in leadership
³Top 50+50 Accountancy Firms 2024: Female leadership falls 20% despite rise in partner diversity
