Featuring : Mary Gay Townsend
Recognizing the need to be more inclusive, private equity firms are focusing on hiring women in positions including investing, finance, legal and fundraising.
Private Funds CFO recently sat down with Mary Gay Townsend, founder of recruiting firm Norgay Partners, to discuss the focus on hiring women that she has seen from her private equity clients.
- Have you seen private equity firms making more of an effort to hire women?
- Yes, overall the private equity industry recognizes that they need to be more inclusive....
- Are there certain roles for which firms are making more of an effort to hire more women?
- Companies are making an effort to increase the number of women in senior investing roles...
- What is driving the trend to bringing in more women in leadership roles?
- There are a couple of trends that have driven PE’s desire to add senior level women to their teams...
- What has been the impact of DE&I initiatives?
- For me, the biggest impact of these initiatives so far has been building awareness within PE around the importance of diverse teams and inclusive practices...
- What steps are firms taking to hire more women and to promote and retain the women that they already have?
- It starts with the recruiting process. Now, firms almost universally make diversity a priority when recruiting...
- There have been a number of improvements in hiring practices and recruitment of women, but are there still areas for improvement?
- There are always areas for improvement and some firms are still far behind where they need to be, but if they put a hiring plan in place and recruit strategically, they can make real strides in increasing the number of women on their teams...
Published: January 11th 2023