11th October is Ada Lovelace Day, celebrating the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths. Ada Lovelace (born 1815), the daughter of Lord Byron, collaborated with Charles Babbage on his early computer and is recognised by many as the first computer programmer.
Over 200 years later, it is interesting to note how many women are involved in financial modelling. I have kept records of the gender of my course delegates over the last 20 years:
A trend is just about detectable and perhaps it indicates that parity will be reached in about 60 years.
I have also noticed certain nationality traits. Inevitably it would not give an accurate picture if I showed the results from all the nationalities I have trained, but I have isolated the results for the top 12 nationalities:
Interestingly, I note that the Russians have the highest percentage of women. These graphs produced from my own data compare with a recent Grant Thornton report which measured the numbers of women in senior management positions (Russia top with 45%, the UK 21% and the Netherlands 18%).
It is interesting to reflect on the possible reasons for the lack of female financial modellers in most countries. My own view, from the UK’s perspective, is that it stems directly from the lack of women enrolling on non-medical science courses. There certainly seems to be a different culture about science education in different countries.
However, events to commemorate Ada Lovelace can only help raise awareness and encourage more women into science, technology, engineering and maths. I’m sure that the logic of financial modelling would have appealed to her.