In celebration of International Women’s Day, we are putting the spotlight on six female managers who have impressed. These experts have consistently demonstrated skilled portfolio construction, serving their clients well over the long term.
Considering funds available for sale in Europe, we commend the following portfolio managers who contribute to the success of strategies earning a Morningstar People Pillar rating of Above Average or High as of Dec. 31, 2024: Hilda Applbaum and Pilar Gomez-Bravo continue to impress on allocation funds, while Susan Boa and Anne-Christine Farstad stand out on the equity side, alongside Kirstie Spence and Carly Wilson on fixed-income funds. The actively managed strategies where they are making their mark, all have a People Pillar rating of Above Average.
Allocation Funds - Top Performing Female Managers
Hilda Applbaum, Capital Group
Hilda Applbaum has built an impressive career at Capital Group. Having joined the firm in 1995 as an equity analyst, she has since become a distinguished senior portfolio manager and principal investment officer responsible for coordinating the sleeves of multimanager funds. Her career at the firm spans three decades and crosses multiple borders. Not only has she contributed as a balanced portfolio responsible for managing a sleeve of several flagship strategies, but she is also a is principal investment officer on Capital Group Global Allocation and contributes to several other US funds, focusing on both bonds and equities.
As a balanced portfolio manager, Applbaum actively dials equity exposure up and down based on her macro view but also leans heavily into a 40% bonds and cash allowance. Large or sudden asset-allocation shifts rarely occur though, and the bulk of her outperformance has come from skilled stock selection within a high-conviction approach—helping her stand out from the competition over time.
Applbaum has been a key contributor on the roster of European-domiciled funds Capital Group American Balanced and Capital Group Global Allocation, since 2021 and 2014, respectively. Both earn Above Average People Pillar ratings. In addition, Applbaum is also a named manager on the firm’s American Balanced Fund, Income Fund of America, and Capital Group Global Balanced Fund. Over the trailing 10-year period through January 2025, the representative share class of the Capital Group Global Allocation Fund has achieved a 5.9% annualized return, roughly 50 basis points behind the category’s Morningstar USD Moderate Target Allocation benchmark but well ahead of the average peer’s 4.6% in the US moderate-allocation category.
Pilar Gomez-Bravo, MFS
Industry veteran Pilar Gomez-Bravo has a career spanning almost three decades. She joined MFS Investment Management in March 2013 as a portfolio manager focusing on global credit portfolios. Since March 2023, she has also stepped up as the co-chief investment officer of fixed income, a role she shares with US-based colleague Alex Mackey. London-based, she oversees the firm’s fixed-income global aggregate and credit strategies.
Gomez-Bravo started her career in 1997 with Lehman Brothers first as a credit analyst and, in later years, leading the credit research team at the firm. After nine years, she joined Neuberger Berman as the European head of credit and portfolio manager, focusing on global fixed-income credit and income mandates. From 2010 through 2013, she continued to immerse herself in credit during stints at Marengo Asset Management, Negentropy Capital, and Imperial Capital, managing and trading this asset class before joining MFS.
While Gomez-Bravo lends her fixed-income expertise to several strategies at MFS, we are celebrating her contribution to MFS Meridian Global Total Return, which earns a People Pillar rating of Above Average. Gomez-Bravo’s presence in this allocation strategy dates to 2013. Along with colleague Robert Spector, the duo oversees the strategy’s 40% allocation to global fixed-income securities. In this sleeve, the managers tend to emphasize lower-rated investment-grade bonds, usually holding 3 times more BBB rated fare than their typical peer. The managers rely heavily on analysts’ ability to spot names on the cusp of earning higher ratings, which often leads to a corresponding price bump.
Although the 5.5% annualized return of MFS Meridian Global Total Return’s representative share class lagged the Morningstar Category benchmark (Morningstar US Moderate Target Allocation Index) during the trailing 10-year period through January 2025, it outperformed the average peer in its USD moderate-allocation category by roughly 90 basis points.
Equity Funds - Top Performing Female Managers
Susan Bao, JPMorgan Chase
Susan Bao is a top-tier industry veteran, boasting a stellar three decades of navigating equity markets. Having joined JPMorgan as an analyst in 1997, Bao then started managing money in 2001 as she earned her stripes on the firm’s long-only strategy, JPMorgan U.S. Equity, where she ran a 50% sleeve. Bao continued to be an active manager on that fund for the next two decades.
Bao has also managed the JPMorgan U.S. Large Cap Core Plus Fund since its 2005 launch for US investors and the US Select Equity Plus Fund since its 2007 launch for European investors—and continues to demonstrate her ability to generate alpha there today. She is particularly skilled at fully utilizing the firm’s deep bench of analysts—by taking long positions in top-ranked companies while shorting stocks that are disliked by the analysts. The result is an impressive record of successful long/short pair trades. In addition, Bao has also flexed her thematic views to generate successful trade ideas while always maintaining her focus on holding a well-diversified portfolio.
Bao’s ongoing 18-year track record on the JPMorgan U.S. Select Equity Plus Fund (with an Above Average People Pillar rating) is truly impressive. From its December 2007 inception through January 2025, the representative share class returned 13.5% on an annualized basis, outpacing the 12.3% return of the Morningstar US Large-Mid Index, and well ahead of the average peer’s 10.3% return in the US large-cap blend equity category. The consistency of outperformance here is a testimony to Bao’s ability to generate value for investors over the long term.
Anne-Christine Farstad, MFS
Anne-Christine Farstad is a talented equity investor and portfolio manager at MFS, with 22 years of shrewd investing experience. Farstad originally joined the firm in 2005 as a European equity analyst but quickly stood out as a capable investor, contributing to the European analyst-run MFS European Research fund and the international analyst-run fund from 2005 to 2012. Then, after serving as a comanager on UK equity portfolios from 2013 to 2016, she was tapped to manage a contrarian value separate account in 2016. Over the next few years, Farstad went on to own and develop the contrarian value philosophy that she uses to lead the firm’s flagship fund launched in 2019.
Farstad’s approach to contrarian investing is supported by her discipline and patience, qualities that are crucial for the strategy. She is not afraid to go against the grain, investing in controversial areas or companies with depressed stock prices. This approach of making bold contrarian picks early and sticking to her convictions has been a key driver of success, especially in recovery periods. It has allowed the fund to capitalize on market rebounds and remain competitive in rising markets.
The performance of MFS Meridian Contrarian Value under Farstad’s tenure (which earns an Above People Pillar rating) has been truly remarkable. Since its inception, from September 2019 through January 2025, the fund’s representative share class delivered an astonishing 15.1% annualized return, versus the 11.7% of the Morningstar Global Large-Cap Target Market Exposure Index and a distant 5.2% ahead of the average peer in the global large-cap value equity category. This kind of outperformance during a volatile period in world markets highlights Farstad’s ability to navigate a broad range of market cycles.
Fixed-Income Funds - Top Performing Female Managers
Kirstie Spence, Capital Group
London-based Kirstie Spence has built a stellar career at Capital Group spanning roughly three decades. Spence joined the firm in 1995 as a trainee in their two-year Associates Program, rotating between different areas within the business. She then honed her skills as a fixed-income analyst covering telecommunications issuers and later pivoted to emerging-markets debt, covering sovereigns in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America before taking on portfolio-management responsibilities in 2013. Since then, she’s been on a number of investment and leadership committees at the firm, currently serving on the Capital Group Management Committee.
With an Above Average People Pillar rating, Spence has made her mark at Capital Group Emerging Markets Local Currency Debt since she joined the lineup in July 2013. In typical Capital Group fashion, the strategy employs the firm’s multimanager approach, resulting in three independently managed sleeves. Here, Spence is not only responsible for managing a sleeve but also took on the principal investment officer role in October 2023. In this capacity, Spence monitors that the combined portfolio remains within the guardrails of the strategy. Her background as an analyst has been instrumental in shaping her style as a portfolio manager as she tends to emphasize fundamental valuations.
While the lion’s share of portfolio assets of the strategy is invested in local-currency government bonds, Spence and her comanagers have modest flexibility to investment in off-benchmark hard-currency debt, inflation-linked bonds, and emerging-markets corporate debt. On the currency front, there is also flexibility to manage this actively. Although the 2.1% annualized return of the strategy’s representative share class was flat compared with the category benchmark (Morningstar Emerging Markets Government Bond Local Currency Index) during the trailing 10-year period through January 2025, it landed well ahead of the average peer’s 0.8% in the global emerging-markets bond – local currency category.
Carly Wilson, BlackRock
Carly Wilson stands out as an astute investor in her role as the head of bank loans at BlackRock. She leads the group’s asset allocation, as well as cross-market relative value views. Wilson is also a senior portfolio manager for BlackRock’s leveraged loan strategies and global long/short credit strategy. Furthermore, she is on the board of directors of the Loan Syndications and Trading Association and has been amplifying her impact on the industry as a board member of the Women’s Bond Club.
Wilson has built a successful track record of investing both long and short in many global markets, including credit, rates, and equities, in cash assets as well as derivatives. Her focus on single-name security selection and risk budgeting on BlackRock Global Investment Series Income Strategies has yielded strong results, amplified by solid allocation calls between high yield and bank loans. She is also a comanager on BlackRock’s flagship Global Long/Short Credit Fund and several other loans funds. Before joining BlackRock, Wilson managed portfolios at multistrategy hedge fund R3 Capital and formed part of the capital-structure arbitrage team at Lehman Brothers.
The BlackRock Global Investment Series Income Strategies fund earns an Above Average People Pillar rating. Here, the bank-loan allocation differentiates the strategy from peers in the corporate high-yield bond category, which typically has little or no bank-loan exposure. Wilson’s allocation thus often acts as a buffer during periods of market turbulence, helping blunt losses amidst rate volatility or when high-yield markets sell off, such as in 2022. Since she took up her charge in September 2018 through January 2025, the fund’s representative share class’s 6.3% annualized return slightly lags the Morningstar US High-Yield Bond Index’s 6.9% return but bests the average peer’s 5.4% return in the USD high-yield bond category.
Click here to read the full report Top Female Porfolio Managers to Invest With Now - Europe.
The author or authors do not own shares in any securities mentioned in this article. Find out about Morningstar's editorial policies.
