Today’s environment presents institutional investors and allocators with a smorgasbord of opportunities across both public and private markets. The ever-expanding menu allows investors to create a well-balanced portfolio through both tactical and strategic asset allocation changes. This roundtable will serve up insights into key areas where asset owners are focusing their efforts and how they are preparing for potential surprises amidst a unique macroeconomic backdrop. It will also explore the evolving dynamics in their collaborations with managers and their engagement with new and diverse managers.
The Women’s Forum Networking Luncheon is an opportunity to foster meaningful, intergenerational connections and exchange insights within the financial services industry. This year’s luncheon is structured to align with the Women’s Forum 2025 theme, Empower & Elevate, focused on empowering early-career, mid-career, and seasoned professionals by sharing insights, building mentorship opportunities, and advancing women’s leadership. Attendees will engage in structured discussions grouped by their interests within specific sub-sectors of the industry, including but not limited to investing, allocators, and consulting.
This luncheon aims to:
1. Empower early-career professionals to lead and engage with seasoned industry experts regarding their areas of interest in financial services.
2. Elevate conversations around mentorship, representation, and women’s leadership in financial services.
3. Facilitate intergenerational networking to build connections, share advice, and inspire action.
Join us for a candid conversation with Inclusive Leaders about the evolving talent and business landscape including an overview of their strategy, baseline policies, game changer approaches, and addressing backlash. We'll discuss the how-to level-up your business and talent case, incorporate data measurements, work with the changing legislations, strategic partnerships that yield ROI, address polarizing perspectives and more. Panelists will share examples from their research, experiences, and lessons learned to inform, empower, and offer results-based techniques to participants. This will be an interactive discussion with audience polls and a safe space to ask the tough questions
This session will bring together women leaders in public policy and financial services to discuss policy themes and programmatic fundamentals focused on sustaining the success and future opportunities for women's--particularly diverse women--financial independence, in the current political and economic environment.
You read that right – impact 2x. This multi-generational panel will discuss the impact that investing can have on investments and for careers. Whether it’s called impact, ESG, sustainable, or mission-based investing, this segment of the global market adds to the fabric of the industry. Not only are allocators paying attention to how ESG factors are incorporated into investing, but the space has also developed over the years and interest continues to grow as an area of interest for careers, especially for the next generation of talent. Hear perspectives from young professionals, those in the middle parts of their career and professionals who have experienced the evolution of the financial services industry.
Studies routinely show that women-founded & led funds offer high returns; bring diverse perspectives; use capital efficiently; and invest in and do business with other women-led businesses. These differentiators add up to tremendous economic impact, and better investor outcomes. However, women led funds, and particularly those led by women of color, continue to struggle to raise capital and win institutional mandates. This panel will feature women founders across traditional and alternative investment firms, a various stages of the business life-cycle, to discuss winning strategies for growing their firms, and how they work to maximize economic and community impact.
Hear from this panel of consultants who will share how their firms are working to achieve greater gender inclusion with the managers they work with, what they view as the secret sauce when conducting diligence on managers, how they asses diversity at diverse owned and boutique/emerging managers as well as large managers, ways consultants are working to eliminate bias within their organizations by educating their staff at all levels, as well as how they are working to increase inclusion at their own firms, and areas of focus including client trends including oCIO. Through this conversation, we aim to dispel myths about consultants as gatekeepers and highlight their evolving role in building inclusive and innovative pipelines. Since it’s a “two-way street”, we’ll ensure that ample time is dedicated for the audience to ask questions that are top of mind!
