How can organizations and teams make better investments? By ensuring that gender diversity puts women at the center of financial decision making, according to Patience Marime-Ball, founder and CEO of Women of the World Endowment, and Dr. Ruth Shaber, M’86, founder and president of the Tara Health Foundation.
The two authors of the book The XX Edge: Unlocking Higher Returns and Lower Risk shared their insight on women’s strengths in financial decision making in a fireside chat with Kat Rosqueta, founding executive director of the Center for High Impact Philanthropy (CHIP) at Penn’s School of Social Policy and Practice (SP2).
Marime-Ball and Shaber seek to counter a status quo cited by Marime-Ball: “As you get higher in finance, there are fewer women.” They discussed evidence that women possess strengths that are particularly valuable in financial decision making, such as a tendency to take a risk-aware, long-term view and a low-ego approach. “Too often we see women as beneficiaries, not actors,” said Marime-Ball. “In capital markets broadly, money goes to actors. We need capital markets to see women as actors and solution builders.”