Mary Jo White and the SEC: The right woman at the wrong time

President Obama’s pick for SEC chair has a lot of experience prosecuting Wall Street crime. We could have used that four years ago…article

After a day of discussions ranging from the future of Russia to what the West Wing tells us about intelligence, here are some of the day’s highlights…article

“Europe faces issues, but its destiny shines through the smoke and fog. I’m optimistic about Europe’s future”

“Unless we take action on climate change, future generations will be roasted, toasted, fried and grilled.”
Christine Lagarde

Annual Meeting 2013 Davos
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Leading against the OddsThe World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas.

The financial industry needs women investors as much as women investors need the financial industry.

But even as women have more career-track positions, own more real estate and control a greater percentage of family wealth, they continue to be under-represented as investors…article

Women and men disagree on discrimination in the finance sector
MOST women working in finance think that discrimination is rife in the industry, but their male colleagues don’t agree it’s as big of an issue…article

…The age distribution of forced labourers has also changed from the earlier estimate of the ILO, with children at 26 %, representing a smaller proportion of the total. The new data confirm our previous conclusion that women and girls are more affected, and particularly by forced sexual exploitation.  ILO 2012 Global estimate of forced labour

The hedge fund industry has long been a male-dominated arena, but maybe that should change. Consider that a new study shows hedge funds led by women far outperformed the global hedge fund index in the first three quarters of 2012…..
“As far as women running funds, I would like to see more women step out on their own and do what it takes to become white hot in an otherwise dull universe with only a handful of bright male stars,” he said. ..article

Women Winning in Business, Finance

…Women have been proving their success as advisors. The Fidelity study showed that female advisors had 5 percent higher assets under management and were generally more satisfied than their male counterparts. Although women earned five percent less than men, they had a higher sentiment score and higher average account size. While both genders were adjusting their strategies in the past year to focus on gaining new clients and increasing their share of wallet, women were focused more on networking to generate new business by attending events and seminars and in expanding the types of services they offer. In addition, more women than men were working with clients on areas outside of traditional investments, including long-term care, health care financing, and trust planning…..article