This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovich on Bloomberg Radio. Well, our next guest in her team are on a mission to centralize the role of women as economic, environmental and social change makers who are creating a high growth future. I'm thinking she has some thoughts on how and what is I think safe to say, Mike Regan, still largely a man's world, how women can do it all better? Not my house. I've got three teenage girls, a wife five. It's being
the dog. Are the only emails in the in the household, so you know, everything's local. I'm I'm I'm in a drowning in a women's world myself, and I wouldn't have it any other way. By the way, it sounds like my husband um patients. Merrimaid Ball is founder and CEO of Women of the World Endowment. It's a global endowment focused on gender lens investing. She currently leads the fixed income business with a current portfolio more than three billion dollars.
She's got a new book out too, called The XX Edge, Unlocking Higher Returns and Lower Risk. The XX resembling really representing the two chromosomes, noting the female gender. So we do want to bring her and she joins us via zoom from Martha's Vineyard. UM patients, So great to have you here with Mike Reagan and myself. And I feel like, first of all, welcome, welcome. Uh. And in a world where we are talking about strains and resources, why or why do we continue to untap what is a great
resource that I'm talking about women specifically? Fantastic Caroline, Mike, thank you very much for having me. This is an exciting time. Um. You know, the answer to that question is one that we work really hard to not in this book. The exexcit and locking higher in terms and law risk UM. Women approximate to challenges, and so there should approximate solutions driving those solutions that are going to get us out of a bunch of challenges that we're
experiencing today, whether it's climate related challenges in UM, economic crisis, conflict, etcetera. Right, Um, And so it's a great question. I don't know that we have answers to that quite yet. Well, and I want to follow because you know, everyone knows who's listening
and watching Bloomberg Business Week. Mike knows that there have been numerous studies, whether it's McKinsey and others that just talk about the importance of diversity overall, but women specifically, whether it's on boards and senior positions, financial performances from funds, so you know, in terms of companies. So why is it, you know, you know, why do we not when we know that things can be even just financially performance better,
do we not embrace UM having more women involved? Yeah, and and Carol, the issue is actually more profound than than you've just stated. It's it's UM. So we know that nine eight percent of capital is that is under management today is managed by men. UM. Yet we also know that when you have gender diverse teams allocating capital or making any decision more likely to actually get out
performance in profitability. You're likely to mitigate downside this better, You're likely to have UM your dollar doing more than one thing at any given time because women prioritize, yes, making financial returns that are really important, but also the opportunity to drive for other types of changes. And so to your point, um, why do we not see change? UM?
I think that you know to be UM to get to a point where we're talking about current what has been happening in legislation currently, for instance, the Inflation Reduction Act UM, it's looking to solve inflationary problems that are leading to potential for recession, etcetera. But it's also looking to solve climate climate issues, climate related issues. And here we know that when women are in these decision making rooms UM, whether it's ceased with positions or on boards,
we actually get better upcomes all around. Companies have better policies and standards to adea to UM, we have at our disclosures with better tracking UM, and we also have
better performance. So it's it is interesting that with the numbers telling us that it is you are going to make more money and your reference to my Kinson report they did they did a study in which show that if we just if we had every every country in the study that they had of ninety countries just doing better to improve gender gender diversity in in decision making, the world could actually have a twenty five trillion dollar gained to global GDP and even their conservative studies pointed
to twelve trillion dollar game. Yeah, I'll take that, but it's true though, I think you know, if you want to affect change in the world through the capital markets. Um, you have to go hand in hand with you know, positive change and uh something on the P and L state you know, good return turns uh to back it up. And so the focus a lot of times patients obviously goes to E s G. We're investing through a sort
of environmental, social and governance lens. I think what's kind of alarming this year's we've seen a big backlash to that from a lot of politicians, you know, the quote unquote anti woke type of politicians. Do you think it's leaving a mark on the industry? Is Is there any damage being done to the notion of E s G from all this backlash we've seen so unfortunately not um, Well, unfortunately, yes, Uh there is a backlash and it is um resulting
in some in some you know headwinds. But here's what I have to say, Uh, Nature, Mother nature is doing what it needs to do. We have fires in California, you know, floods in Australia, fires in Europe, etcetera. Nature is telling us that we need to do something. And E s G investing has a place and it is a place that can be both financial and impact related. All right, let's get back to our guest and continue
our conversation. Still with us is Patience Marl Ball, founder and chief executive officer of the Women of the World Endowment. She's still with us via zoom from Martha's Vineyards. So, um, patients, one of the things I wonder is, you know, the role of women, Like, what do we lose by not doing so incorporating more women into our world in terms of growth, opportunity, political progress, climate change. I mean, some
of the it's amazing. These are the things we talked to on a daily basis with so many of our guests. So what are we losing by not bringing more women into the fold? Um? So this is a really good question, Carol. And you know in the book that we just wrote, we looked at what it is that makes men and women different. They're not an equal unit of productivity and what are those things that are different? And it is one the long view. Women tend to prioritize the long
view over short term gains. The tend to have collaborative leadership styles and tend to be more risk aware, and when it comes to the challenges that we're facing, they also tend to be more approximate to those challenges, and so that's an opportunity set that we're losing when we don't have them in decision making rooms, because that ability to see around the corners is just as needed as the ability to you know, to six short term gains, and what it leads to is really a loss in
you know, our performance over time in terms of profitability, but also the ability to mitigate risk in a much more structured and thoughtful way. You know, patience. I was joking with Carol earlier. You know, when the notion of women leading in the future comes up. I have three daughters, so I say I'm on board completely. You know. My joke with them is always, I'll pay for your college as long as I get a room in your beach house.
One day and I'm looking at you here on zoom, and i gotta say, you have a beauty full beach house up there in Bartha's vineyards. So if if, if you had a few minutes to talk to my daughters, uh, based on your twenty plus years, I believe of experience in capital markets UM in a very competitive male dominated field. I know my one daughter is thinking about majoring in
finance and maybe getting into the industry. What's the secret to success for a woman, you know, especially one coming of age in this sort of crazy world we live in right now? How do you get there? How do you maintain and succeed and do it in the right
way with a clear conscience. Yeah, so so, Mike, The first thing that I would actually say is is a conversation with you, and then I would have a conversation with your Daughter's conversation with you would go like this, that you know, the way that you believe your daughters are rock stars in at home, whether it's your wife, um, and the fact that you're very comfortable with the decisions being made by them and you following you. You know, we need to have men taking that into the workplace.
It is incredibly interesting how men are very comfortable with women taking over all kinds of things in one realm of their lives, but not as comfortable in another realm and in the workplace. That is, and and that's part of the opportunity that the world loses. You know that your your daughter has all the traits that I just um elaborated on long view collaborative way of working, she's more risk away, etcetera. Why would you know a business
not want that in the room. And to your daughter, I would say that if she wants to come into financial markets, you know I've been in it for more more than twenty five years, and you know I'm now in my fifties. The world is so much better today, and where we need to be in capital markets is
to create spaces where we're not just sticking boxes. So we have this many women come in and and we take that box, but really be very intentional about what seats we're putting them in and what we The key to make, you know our book, the ex extedge is that when you put them in acid allocation seats, when you put them in those decisions making seats, you actually are going to have our performance and over time greater
economic pie for every for everybody. That's what you That's the magic that your daughter will bring to whatever company she ends up joining. Patients gotta be quick twenty five seconds. Investment dollars always find their way to opportunity and pay off. If women are such great bets, why aren't more women in positions of power, managing money, running companies, etcetera. And forgive me because we do only have about twenty seconds.
So Carol, when they do, we see our performance period, right, the likely wood for better profitability that I talked about in the beginning. So the question is why they're not. I think it's because nine percent of capital is being managed by men who have a specific world view, the specific live journey. And I'm not blaming them, it's it's their lives, it's their live journey, and so they will allocate capital to the things that you know, speak to
them based on their lead journeys. That's why we need to to to equalize or diversify those seats. Come back soon and we'll talk more and continue patients. Marama Ball, founder and CEO of Women of the World Endowment. Check out her new book as well.