Sunniva Kolostyak: Welcome to Morningstar. Today I’m joined by Fannie Wurtz from Amundi. Fannie, thank you very much for being here. You are head of distribution, and you are head of wealth and ETF and chair of Asia. Talk to me about your career path and I guess the key roles that you’ve held over the years.
Fannie Wurtz: Thank you, Sunniva. And it’s a great pleasure to be with you today. I’m actually part of Amundi general management committee. And I do supervise three main strategic divisions. The first one is a client pool covering wealth and distribution and that represents more than half of retail assets. The second division is ETF. And I’ve been involved in the ETF business since the creation at Amundi and I’m very proud of what we collectively built today. We are the first European ETF provider and we manage more than €280 billion. And a third pillar is Amundi Asia business chair and this is €470 billion in the region.
What I like about my job is that I have multiple hats. This is challenging but exciting. And I’m surrounded by very, very talented people. The common characteristic of those three pillars is that they are three strategic growth drivers for Amundi and as well for the industry in general. Prior to that, I had a sales and a relationship background. I led the growth of Amundi ETF business, and I worked in several asset management (firms) within the industry before that. And if you look at my career path, the main driver has always been to be passionate and to understand the variety of all of our clients' needs and making sure that any organization I’ve been working through, we are delivering consistently client centric solutions.
Kolostyak: I mean, it’s a very impressive CV. So I wonder, throughout your career, has there been any kind of particular challenges or obstacles that you’ve had to face to be able to progress?
Wurtz: And that’s a good question, to be fair. And when I look at the industry, there is still gender gap and that remain a bit wide. And when you look overall in the community and companies, only more than 20% of companies' executives are women.
But I am a glass half full person, and I tend to focus on the progress that’s being made. When I started in my career under asset management, it was notably a boys’ club on the front office. When we look today on the portfolio management, we’ve got obviously a percentage of women PMs that are globally increasing. 20% of the funds now have at least one woman portfolio manager, and the average size of portfolio managed by women have increased by 25%.
I think there are still actually some challenges and obstacles. The first one, as a woman, is to make sure you balance right the balance between your career and your couple. And it’s about the balance, the partnership, the trust. I’ve been lucky to have a good partner who encouraged me at every step of my career without sacrificing his own. As a career, it’s a long journey with opportunities and hurdles. It’s very important to be anchored.
And second, I will say, challenge and obstacle, is to continue to work to end and to navigate the unconscious bias. The unconscious bias, automating judgments where people are making judgment about their race, gender, age, or other characteristics. And even with the best intentions, we can be clumsy. So we need to be aware of those biases and to continue to work on it. We need to train; train managers, train programs, to raise awareness, and that will provide tools to mitigate these effects.
Kolostyak: Now, you’ve been, recognized by Morningstar as a distinguished leader within the ETF and indexing industry. So I wonder, why would you encourage people to consider asset management, I guess, as an industry to enter?
Wurtz: Well, first of all, I’m very proud of that recognition. And when I look at young people and young female, you should join the asset management industry. First of all, it’s about investing into the real economy and financing all of the growth needs about our economy and society.
There are many growth drivers and structural growth in our industry. The first one is that the economy grows, meaning more wealth, and more wealth for people to manage. The second one is to help the population and citizens to manage well for their retirement needs. We can as well invest into the rise of the middle class, in emerging countries. And finally, there is the digitalization of the economy, which is also happening in the asset management industry, and which is helping to democratize the access of investment solutions to everyone, just like we are doing with the digital platforms and the use of ETF by retail.
So come and join us. There will be very good career opportunities. And you will see you will have the ability to have an impact on the society.
Kolostyak: Well, Fannie, thank you very much for taking the time to speak to us today. For Morningstar, I’m Sunniva Kolostyak.
The author or authors do not own shares in any securities mentioned in this article. Find out about Morningstar's editorial policies.
