QUEENS OF THE MARKET

THE NUMBER OF WOMEN FUND MANAGERS HAS MORE THAN DOUBLED FROM 18 IN 2017 TO 42 IN 2023. HOWEVER, WOMEN FUND MANAGERS STILL MAKE UP ONLY 8.88% OF THE TOTAL FUND MANAGERS PRESENT IN INDIA.

- RIDDHIMA BHATNAGAR & RAHUL OBEROI

You can't call them bulls or bears, but they sure are the "queens" of the stock market. They are women who carved out novel careers that began as investment managers, analysts, or just marketing grunts. They worked up to the top in a male-dominated world to become big-time fund managers, head broking agencies, or even a stock exchange board.

About time, too: the National Stock Exchange, which has 10 million registered investors, said in August that one in five investors is a woman. According to Morningstar India, an investment research firm, the number of women fund managers has grown from 18 in 2017, the year from which Morningstar began keeping records, to 42 in 2023. The number may be small (about 9% of the 473 fund managers in the industry), but these women managed *6.66 lakh crore of assets as of January 2024.

Deena Mehta, the 63-year-old Managing Director of Asit C Mehta Investment Intermediates, says, "The irony is Laxmi [the Hindu goddess of wealth, fortune and prosperity] and Saraswati [the goddess of knowledge, music, arts, wisdom and learning] are women. It's time to bust the myth that only men can handle financial planning or investment management." Mehta and others such as Amisha Vora, Priti Rathi Gupta, Devina Mehra, Lakshmi Iyer, and Radhika Gupta are demolishing myths left and right despite the usual hurdles that women face: looking after the children and managing the home front.

ONE AT A TIME, PLEASE Picture this: You are a stock trader glued to the screens in your office. Back home, your child skipped school because of a fever, but you know your wife is looking after him.