Wilsons appoints 4 female partners
The investment advisory firm has appointed a record number of female equity partners, beating the ASX100 where executive leadership roles occupied by women run at 30 per cent.
Of the 12 new equity partners, 33 per cent are women who work in frontline executive roles in equities research, institutional equities, and private wealth advice.
Wilsons' head of people, risk and compliance and equity partner, Mariam Shelbourne said this year's partner cohort better reflects the growth in our firm's gender and business diversity.
"Our new female partners are all high-calibre professionals, and many have academic backgrounds in the STEM fields - which is ideal for our firm's focus on the healthcare, biotech and IT sectors.
The new equity partner line-up includes Jeanné Truijens, head of corporate access, Alexandra Kalceff, investment advisor, Sara Soldo who works with corporate finance advisory and equity analyst Melissa Benson.
Truijens came from Bank of America Merrill Lynch but has also worked at Barclays, ABN AMRO, and Royal Bank of Scotland.
Kalceff joined from JBWere, where she spent eight years as an advisor.
Soldo joined from technology-led lending company Plenti where she was director of commercial development and Benson - who has been with the firm for over two years arrived from Applied Cannabis Research where she was general manager.
Their male counterparts are Ted Richards, David Russell, Simon Lynch, Nick Howell, Mark Beverley, Todd Billing, David Bates and Paul Aliprandi.
In contrast to large investment banks, boutique corporate finance firms like Wilsons have lower headcounts and fewer senior management roles to help their gender diversity efforts.
"It's no secret that brokers and private wealth managers struggle with achieving gender diversity,' said Wilsons' chief executive Brad Gale.
But as one of the few employee-owned firms of our kind, we realised that equity participation could play a pivotal role in our own efforts - just as it does for law and accounting firms.
"Irrespective of their specific occupation, job title and team size, equity partners in professional firms are owners and leaders of businesses. Unlike other forms of reward and recognition, the invitation to partnership bestows a business-wide responsibility and accountability. It's an accolade for the past and a test for the future."
As recently reported by the 2022 Chief Executive Women (CEW) Senior Executive Census, the proportion of executive leadership roles occupied by women ranges from 30 per cent for the ASX100 to 23 per cent for the ASX300.
"We've been aiming to best the ASX200 number, which was 28 per cent so were pleasantly surprised to find we beat the benchmark ASX100 number this year," added Gale.
