Virtually everyone I have interviewed says they want more women in top positions. Not a single global bank is run by a woman. But on the top floor the glass ceiling remains, with women massively underrepresented in senior positions. Institutionalised sexism in finance seems eradicated, say young women bankers, as banks and firms fear expensive lawsuits and bad publicity. This generation's women bankers in London say it's far harder to be a banker in society than a woman in banking. But the other side of the coin is that never in modern history has banking and finance had a worse image than now.
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Today, the starting salary for an investment banker in London is around £45,000 plus bonus – making finance easily the best-paying industry for graduates. Instead, banks were seen as boring – ambitious graduates preferred the business world. "This was before such words as 'networking', 'coaching' or 'role model' were even used," Fisher says.įorty years ago, a career in finance wasn't glamorous, lucrative or controversial.
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It was this support network that helped them figure out what to wear in a meeting, what to do at a social function and how to deal with difficult or sexist bosses. Once hired, they went to business school in the evenings, where they met other women. Instead, the first women bankers and brokers found their jobs by responding to newspaper ads, or through friends. None of Fisher's cohort came from prestigious institutions (Ivy League universities weren't even open to women until the late 60s) nor was there a recruitment circus. Today's young investment bankers have been wined and dined by the major banks and financial firms almost from the first day they set foot in their top university. It is striking how much has changed in two generations. Most are under 35 and weren't even born when Fisher's informants began their careers. Over the past year I, too, have been interviewing, for this newspaper, dozens of women working in finance in London. Fisher interviewed the women from the mid-90s through to the financial crisis of 2008 and the result is a compelling picture of just how far women have come – and how far they still have to go. Now their stories are being told and analysed by Melissa Fisher, an anthropologist from New York University, in her book Wall Street Women. Yet a few dozen determined and tough women did manage to break into this world four decades ago.