(pictured: Keri Pratt)
Women in Super NSW has provided four more scholarships to members under its arrangement with the University of NSW’s Australian Graduate School of Management, now in its second year.
The scholarship program has helped boost interest in the NSW chapter of the Melbourne-based Women in Super, as well as attendance at its events. The scholarship winners were announced at a lunch in Sydney last week.
Sandi Orleow, chair of NSW WIS, said the organisation was committed to furthering the career aspirations of its members and “developing our future female leaders”. The scholarship program offered the opportunity to develop professional skills that support the appointment of women into senior executive positions, she said.
The winners get to choose from four AGSM courses – Lean for Leaders, Leading for High Performance, Developing the Strategic Manager, and Develop Effective Negotiation Skills. The winners are: Jade Khao, private client adviser at UniSuper; Jana Jevcakova, director of research at CGI Glass Lewis; Shannon Cox, operational integrity manager at Link Group; and, Eva Alexandratos, client services and marketing manager at Perennial Value Management.
Keri Pratt, Women in Super NSW committee member and head of institutional sales at Franklin Templeton Investments Australia, facilitated the well-attended lunch, noting an increasing number of men in the audience.
The lunch was addressed by Fiona Trafford-Walker, head of investment consulting at Frontier Advisers, which would have helped the attendance figures (see separate report).
Pratt said Women in Super had presented a submission to the Senate Inquiry into Women’s Security in Retirement, urging gender equality in every appraisal, and had also provided a response to the Federal Budget, following its earlier lobbying effort to try to maintain super benefits for low-income earners.
She said: “It is the age pension and not super that will be the main source of income in retirement for most women for years to come.”
Pratt asked Trafford-Walker’s view about opportunities for women in the industry. The consultant replied that it was “really hard” to get women’s CVs in a recruitment search. “Last year we vetted 51 CVs, of which 13 were from women and we hired two men and one woman.”
But she said the proportion of women at Frontier had declined from 50 per cent to 25 per cent, of the 50 investment staff at the firm.
“I think it’s a great job for women… Super funds also have difficulty attracting women.”
