You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stenovic on Bloomberg Radio. So we had a Bloomberg story last week. You talked about how the six and a half trillion dollar US et F industry boomed last year, but the fanfare revealed a major flaw in the space, the lack of women helping the funds enter emerge. It's a Toronto based independent fund manager with an affiliate in Buffalo,
New York. This firm striving to improve those figures with one of the first all women exchange traded fund investment teams in the United States. We've got two members of the Emerged team with us right now. We welcome Lisa Langley, CEO and founder of Emerged Capital Management, and Kate Faddis, senior portfolio manager at Fernwood Investment Management. It's an Emerge empower subadvisor. Both joined us on the phone. Lisa's and
Buffalo and Kate is in Boston. Lisa, I want to start with you, um, just just bring us an idea of how this all came together. Good afternoon, Tim and Carol, thank you so much for having us on. We have been working on empower and trying to raise the profile of women portfolio managers for several years. We needed to do it in an impactful way to send a big
message to the industry. So on September eighth and ninth, with four talented subadvisors and five et s, we launched five in the US and five in Canada over the span of two days. Uh and it was very exciting, And that's really what we want to do, send a message that this is possible, that women deserve the attention. And these are all senior talented managers. So so Li said, think I well, and I think I knew the answer, but I'm going to ask anyway, because maybe I don't.
Is this, as you said, you want to send a message. Is it also important though, getting assets in and getting some traction here and then performance as a result a dent Carol, We have to show that we can earn our plates at the table. We're not asking for charity because we're happen to be women portfolio managers. We just want to have a shot. We just want to earn our place. The biggest issue in the industry is that
there's a lack of disclosure. You know, all the evidence and the numbers that tell you, okay, only eleven percent or women portfolio managers, or two percent of strategies or five percent of assets. It all comes from self reported numbers and institutional databases. It's crazy. Yeah, transparency we you know, we talked about this just generally in terms of E. S G and understanding what that means. But you're right, the transparency within all of this is highly lacking. Ky,
come on in. Uh, This story by Peyton Forte of Bloomberg News definitely caught our attention. Come on in. Though you're a subadvisor to Empower, tell us about you know, your interest and you're wanting to be involved in this. Well, I love I love the investment business, I love managing money, and for me, this is an amazing opportunity. And Lisa I felt very fortunate to be included, and I said, why not, let's do it. What has been the reception so far as you're as you're out there, Kate, I
think it's been overwhelmingly positive. People, uh, you know will snarkily say I don't care about male female, I just care about performance. We know that's not really true. So tell us a little bit of tell us a little bit about that, because Carol and I run into this all the time when we talk about how how companies do, and hey, we're just getting started when it comes to earning season right now, and we see stocks get punished if they miss on the top line or on the
bottom lines. So we know that people really care about performance, but what what data do you have to show that they care? They care also about the other fundamentals, right, I mean, I think people are saying they don't care about the other fundamental but I think they actually do. So they'll you'll hear comments like, oh, well, this is just about identity politics, and then I say, identity politics
has been happening for a hundred years. You have you had a woman in the wife house, not because or you or anything else, not because not no one was qualified. So these things are important, and when you call it out and put a highlight on it, you're not asking for a handout. You're just saying there's maybe a different reason that women haven't gotten these positions. It's not because we're not qualified. No, Lisa, listen, you're preaching to the choir.
Totally agree, and you know, Lisa, we want to bring you back into this. I mean Tim and I and many here at Bloomberg have spent years talking about the Mackenzie studies, the other studies about the importance of diversity UH in boardrooms or just generally at companies and how that improves financial performance. And so I just kind of
I'm like, I don't get it. It's out there. Why aren't we seeing more diversity, more women involved, But it's more diversity in general when it comes to running investment teams. So you know, lay it out for us UM in terms in terms of why I understand you wanted to send a message, but why it's taken so long for more of this to happen Because they're not No one's being called out on not reporting on diversity because there isn't any regulatory or legally compulsory requirement to disclose who's
running money under the hood. We have like the name of a team we have, you know, to what you were just saying to him. You know, we can track performance six ways the Sunday. We know all the widgets under the hood inside of a fund, but we really don't get after who that team is. And it's not required. It's only self reported into institutional databases. According to investment.
Only nine of firms are reporting that information, and they're the smallest firms that represent less than eight percent of the assets of the thirty seven trillion that are reported on the investment. At least, it's a tough time to to sort of have a new fund, to be launching funds. How are you looking at the environment right now? I think the environ you have to come out in the ashes.
You know, I've launched new things before, you know, when the towers you know, fell nine eleven, And I believe that I want to get attention in two to really have a value proposition. And it's so competitive, as you know, you were talking, you know, Carol about the growth of
the industry. It's fast paced. There's a lot going on here right a global compound annual growth rate of on e t s. So we said, okay, we're gonna come out with all women managers, all experienced senior managers over twenty years of experience, all actively managed doing fundamental bottom up, all concentrated portfolios, and a heavy duty sustainability overlay that's
run by the emerged team. We did a lot of groundwork and research and institutions and Burger dealers told us that's what they wanted, So we're really just trying to round the wagons and collect on all these promises that they'd be there to support us. Hey, basic question, and just got about a minute left here, Um and Kate, let me just bring you back just quickly. I mean, what kind of money are we seeing coming into the e T S. I know it's early on, but what
kind of flows are coming in? That's really a question for Lise though. Okay, forgive me Lisa, come on back. No, no, I mean we're early into it. We launched in September, very rough market, as you know, from men to the end of the year, we're probably, you know, to be quite honest, blows are in the three million range, though certainly not Uh you know, we haven't hit our goal. But I believe that all the conversations that we have and all the institutions that said they would support us,
I believe they most definitely will. Uh. It's too important. All of these managers have long track records, so you know, they earned their place at the table, and we'd love to tell more at Emerge the m dot com or sending an email support and Emerge the M Doctor. All right, well, good to check in with you. I will say, all but one are outperforming the smp F under since they launched.
All right, well, good to hear that. Lisa Langley, chief executive officer and founder of Emerged Capital Management, and Kate faddis Uh, senior portfolio manager at Fernwom Investment Management