In launching its new report on Women in Fund Management, the National Council for Research on Women said:

Women-owned funds significantly outperform funds in general. According to the latest data from Hedge Fund Research Inc., from 2000 until the present, women-owned funds delivered an average annual return of 9.06% compared with only 5.82% among a broader composite index of hedge funds. Yet, despite these strong performance indicators, today women manage a mere 3% of approximately 2 trillion dollars invested in hedge funds.

Jacki Zehner, lead architect of the report, related her personal story in Huffington Post:

I started in the financial services industry in 1988 as an analyst at Goldman Sachs. Eight years later at the age of 32, I was the first female trader and youngest woman to be invited in to the partnership of this firm. I was an example of how women could make it on Wall Street and the financial services in general. Or was I?

At the time I made partner I was one of two women in a class of 38 and the percentages are not that much different today. The barriers that continue to prevent women from reaching senior leadership in critical mass in the financial services industry and more generally–negative gender stereotyping, lack of women in line positions, a narrow pipeline, lack of mentoring and promotion opportunities, work/life balance challenges, limited access to powerful professional networks–are the same ones faced over a decade ago.

Zehner hopes that the current financial crisis will prompt change:

Perhaps it took a full-scare financial and economic crisis the likes of which we have not seen since the Great Depression to push us in to new solutions, primary among which is attaining a critical mass of women in leadership and decision making roles.

The report calls for:

• Greater access to capital
• Strengthening the pipeline
• Challenging bias and stereotypes and reforming hostile work environments
• Expanding networks and access to sponsors