Home / News / ‘It’s not rocket science’: Future IM/Pact partners with big super

"Talent incubator" Future IM/Pact has partnered with four of Australia's biggest super funds to help women into frontline investment roles. Investment internalisation is driving some of the interest.

Founded by Yolanda Beattie in 2015, Future IM/Pact connects Australian investors with women at university and in their early career, creating a talent pool for intern, graduate, and analyst roles. Beattie has worked in and around the funds management industry for 25 years or so, and has seen that the barriers to women entering the profession start at the grassroots; women at university don’t know about investment management as a profession, or know about it through its stereotypes, so disregard it as a career.

For those who do want to pursue it it’s hard to break into; Beattie estimates that there’s only about 5000 investment professionals in the country, and front office jobs are usually “for life”, with little turnover and flat team structures. And fund managers rarely recruit from university, favouring experience over enthusiasm.

“All of the signals out there – role models, networks – are all very male, and so that makes it that much harder for women to see that there’s a role for them here… But the challenges don’t stop there,” Beattie says.

“Once we actually bring women into the industry, we need to do more to support them and have them feel that their contributions are valued and included, that they’re able to manage the reality of what happens when it comes to raising family, and feel that they’ve got the supportive networks to create a lifelong career out of this fascinating profession.”

Future IM/Pact finds participants through university societies and social media, including LinkedIn, and runs “education and inspiration campaigns” – investment competitions, Q&As, investor roundtables – while its 20-odd partners promote job opportunities through the program, though Beattie stresses that the organisation isn’t a recruiter but a “talent incubator.” Its search criteria might also offer a satisfactory answer to that most controversial of questions: what makes a good investor?

“Are you a good thinker, are you curious about how the world works, are you fascinated by the nature of markets and why the value of an asset goes up and down?” Beattie says. “Do you want to live and breathe that for the working hours in your life? Combined with that there needs to be some level of basic quant skills, though most CIOs are at pains to point out that it’s not rocket science – there’s a fairly simple formula that’s followed.”

“But the part that is hardest to quantify is that innate curiosity and that innate perspective taking that allows and supports judgement on investment decision making.”

Future IM/Pact has now partnered with ART, Aware Super, UniSuper, QIC, VFMC and HESTA. Beattie believes the trend to internalisation at big funds will create a more inclusive, cross-fund teamwork environment – as opposed to the “little fiefdoms” of other investment managers – which works well for recruiting more people into the industry generally.

“That’s a sign of those funds and their long-term view, getting through the indigestion of the mergers – there’s been so much to take on for those big funds – and now they’ve got the bigger mergers done and dusted, they’re now turning their attention to some level of internalisation,” Beattie said. “How are they going to source this talent?”

“There’s recognition that part of that strategy needs to be grassroots, and part of that grassroots strategy can be at an industry collaboration/coordination level, and that’s where we fit in.”